15 Cranberry Street

A brick Federal house of 1829, now four stories, twenty-five feet wide on a lot seventy-five feet deep, with a footprint about forty feet deep and open yard behind. The stoop's removal moved the front door to grade and turned the old basement into a living floor — the same transformation that shaped most of the Heights' converted houses, and the reason the street wall on this stretch of Cranberry reads lower and flatter than an intact Federal row would.

Dividing roughly 5,665 gross building square feet by ten apartments gives about 567 gross square feet per home, not measured interiors or evidence of bedroom mix or the largest apartment’s location. Review current floor plans and alteration records to establish which apartments have comparable layouts: ceiling heights change floor to floor, window openings differ between the original three stories and the added fourth, and the state of the original joinery, plaster and stair varies by apartment and by who renovated when. Exposures run south to Cranberry Street and north to the rear yard and the block's interior gardens.

The whole exterior is regulated fabric. On a house the Commission itself has flagged for lost original details, any restoration proposal — stoop, ironwork, window sash, cornice — will be reviewed against that record, and Landmarks approval should be sequenced ahead of, not after, any alteration budget.

15 Cranberry Apartment Corp. has run the house since 1984 on the smallest model available: no elevator on record, no staff on record, and an HPD multiple-dwelling registration that names an officer and shareholder of the corporation, not a management firm, as registered agent. That registration does not show whether the corporation also retains outside management, bookkeeping or accounting; ask. A ten-apartment corporation governing itself is a common and workable arrangement at this scale in Brooklyn Heights, but the actual cost and funding position require current financial records. Where the board does run the house itself, the quality of the books, the reserve discipline and the capital planning are functions of who happens to sit on the board, and current statements, budgets and assessment history are needed to assess the finances under either management model.

The public financing record is a useful proxy for that discipline. Small facilities appear in 1985, 1987 and 1999, then larger consolidations with New York Community Bank in 2002 and again in June 2014 at approximately $2 million. Ask what the 2014 proceeds funded and what has been drawn since.

For an 1829 brick house with a later top story, the capital list is specific: façade and parapet maintenance with applicable LPC review (the reported four-story house is below FISP’s higher-than-six-stories threshold), the junction between the original masonry and the added fourth floor, roof and flashing, party walls, and the age of the risers and heating plant. Across ten apartments any one of those can mean an assessment or new borrowing rather than a rounding error.

15 Cranberry trades on age, block and monthly cost rather than on building-level features, because there are none to price. The Fruit Streets are quiet, low-scale and walkable to both the Promenade's north end and the Clark Street express, and small walk-up houses on those blocks price per room below the staffed elevator cooperatives on Montague, Remsen and Clark. The absence of an elevator narrows the buyer pool for the upper floors and should be priced rather than argued with. Within the building, renovation state and floor position set the spread; compare documented layouts and condition before selecting same-building sales. Unit-level transaction history is maintained in The Roebling Research Library and shared with clients during diligence.

Ask what the corporation has done to the building since 2014. A roughly $2 million consolidation in June 2014 is the largest single event in the public financing record. What it paid for, and what has happened to the façade and roof since, is the core of your diligence.

Confirm who manages the building. HPD lists a corporate officer, not a management firm, as registered agent. If the board runs the house itself, establish its responsibilities and professional support, and assess actual maintenance and reserves from current records. Read the audited statements and the assessment history before you read the maintenance figure.

Confirm the walk-up. No elevator is recorded. On four stories with the entry at grade, the top floor is a genuine consideration for resale as well as for daily life.

Recorded floor area exceeds a simple zoning comparison. About 3.03 FAR against a 2.43 residential maximum; that comparison does not establish legal zoning floor area or permitted future work. Have the number in hand before a lender's appraiser raises it.

Get every policy in writing. No offering plan for this building sits in our library. Pets, sublets, financing minimums and any flip tax come from the board's current documents.

Lead with 1829. A construction date shared with the district's most famous Federal survivor, an owner-developer named in the LPC's own file, and a matched neighbor at No. 13 — this is a listing that can make a documented historical claim, which most Heights apartment listings cannot.

Be candid about the fourth story. The Commission records it, so a buyer's counsel will find it. Describe the added floor without attributing a specific increase in apartments unless the alteration and occupancy records establish it.

Price against the Fruit Streets' small houses. The right comparable set is the district's converted row-house cooperatives north of Clark Street, not the elevator buildings. Compare actual maintenance, assessments, reserves and debt alongside access, apartment size and condition.

Document the apartment. Where every home is different, floor plans, honest measurements, light studies and a clean Landmarks alteration file do more than any building-level positioning.

If you're considering 15 Cranberry Street, also evaluate:

• 20 Henry Street — building at the north end of the district; verify tenure and compare its history, scale and services
• 115 Willow Street — small prewar cooperative on the district's other premium residential street, two blocks south
• 128 Willow Street — Slee & Bryson's 1925 boutique cooperative; the north-Heights purpose-built alternative
• 54 Orange Street — Fruit Streets cooperative one block south, near Plymouth Church
• 72 Orange Street — moderate-scale Fruit Streets cooperative peer
• 59 Pineapple Street — Slee & Bryson's 1926 elevator cooperative two blocks south; the service-model contrast
• 87 Columbia Heights — cooperative on the bluff at the end of this block
• 155 Hicks Street — 1830 house cooperative in the central Heights; the closest match in age and operating model
• 149 Willow Street — small cooperative on the Willow Street row; an 1889 apartment building rebuilt inside in 1942