153 Lincoln Place
153 Lincoln Place, Brooklyn, NY 11217
BBL 3009487501 · BIN 3394280
- Year built
- 1886
- Type
- Condominium
- Units
- 10
- Floors
- 4
- Landmark
- Designated
- Amenities
- Side yard. No doorman, elevator or on-site staff is documented
- Financing
- Set by the lender, not a board
Own an apartment here? See what it would sell for.
A Private Pricing Opinion — what your apartment at 153 Lincoln Place would likely sell for today, what it costs to sell, and what you’d walk away with — reviewed personally against condition, exposures, renovation quality, and the competition actually on the market.
This is one of the few freestanding mansions in the North Slope, and among the most elaborate. Lamb & Rich designed it in 1886–87 for Frank L. Babbott, a merchant, art collector and president of the Packer Collegiate Institute, and his wife Lydia, a daughter of Charles Pratt. The connection to Pratt shows in the team. Lamb & Rich were among Pratt's preferred architects; they designed the Main Building at Pratt Institute. The builder was the Morris Building Company, Pratt's construction and development arm. The house fills 31 feet of frontage on a wider lot, with a turret, rolling rock-faced brownstone, and a side elevation as worked as the front.
The house did not stay single-family. Press accounts place a Presbyterian home for the aged here in the 1940s and 1950s. It later became a hotel with a poor reputation. The DOB record matches: a 2004 alteration application converted a Class B building, the code for transient and rooming-house occupancy, into permanent Class A apartments. The interior was gutted. The original detail inside was already gone.
The condominium is recent. SDS Lincoln LLC bought the property in 2007 and recorded the declaration in January 2009. It sold all ten units between February 2009 and July 2010, each to a separate buyer. The financial statements on file confirm no sponsor units remained at the end of 2022. Every apartment now changes hands by condominium deed. We checked because conversions this size sometimes turn out to be condops, where apartments trade as co-op shares. That is not the case here.
Architecture and unit composition
Ten apartments occupy four stories, with residential space in the attic and cellar: four on the first floor (1A–1D), three on the second (2A–2C) and three on the third (3A–3C). The Department of Finance roll puts them between about 1,030 and 1,640 square feet. The largest units, about 1,540 to 1,640 square feet, are 1A, 1C, 1D and 3A. The second floor has the smallest. The top-floor apartments sit under the slate roof. They are the units most exposed to the building's roof history, described below.
The facade is the value. The brownstone frieze, turret, dormers, chimneys and ornament are all under LPC jurisdiction. Any work on windows, masonry or the roof goes through Landmarks review, and it costs more for that reason.
Building operations
The Lincoln is a small condominium run by an owner board with a professional managing agent. Its operating budget is modest. Audited statements show common-charge income of about $89,000 in 2022. The same statements show thin reserves: cash at year-end 2022 was about $34,000. There has been no reserve study, and the board has no funding plan for future major repairs. The association has paid for capital work mainly through special assessments:
- 2015 and 2017: Two assessments, $400,000 and $150,000, paid for a complete slate-roof replacement and an exterior restoration done under LPC review, per Habitat Magazine (2018). Common charges were raised at the same time.
- March 2022: A one-time assessment of about $38,000 for facade rehabilitation, legal costs and reserves, per the audited financial statements.
- July 2023: A first installment of about $124,000 for sewer repairs and stoop repair or replacement. The statements note that a second installment was still to be sized once the stoop scope was known.
The association has sued the developer to recover the cost of repairing the roof and other work it says was built defectively. As of the most recent audited statements on file (issued September 2023), the case was unresolved. A DOB filing for the roof and exterior program was signed off in January 2025.
Recent sales
The retrade record
Lines that have traded more than once in the public record — the building’s appreciation arc, apartment by apartment.
Recent closings at this building, sourced from NYC Department of Finance records. Apartment-level detail (line, condition, asking-price context) verified upon consultation request.
| Date | Unit | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Dec 22, 2025 | 1D | $2,400,000 |
| Feb 20, 2025 | 3B | $2,110,000 |
| Oct 28, 2024 | 3A | $2,325,000 |
| Sep 3, 2024 | 1C | $1,910,000 |
| May 22, 2024 | 2C | $2,375,000 |
| Oct 8, 2021 | 2A | $1,540,000 |
Full closing history with price-per-square-foot over time, the complete retrade record, and every line that has traded.
Sales sourced from NYC Department of Finance recorded transfers (BBL 3-00948-7501) and verified listing data. Apartment-level facts (line, condition, asking-price context) curated and cross-verified by The Roebling Team research desk. Not all transactions cross-verify with ACRIS records — sponsor and LLC purchases sometimes record at stipulated values rather than market price.
At the recent median sale of $2.33M (3 sales since 2024), a buyer putting 25% down would pay about $97,012 to close, or 4.2% of the price.
- Mansion tax: $29,063
- Mortgage recording tax: $33,567
- Title insurance: $10,463
- Attorneys, lender, building fees, reserves and filings: $23,920
Assumes a resale (the seller pays transfer taxes), a $4,500 attorney fee and a mortgage on the rest.
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What to know if you’re buying
Read the assessment history as the carrying cost. Four assessments in eight years, plus thin reserves and no reserve study, mean the next capital item will probably be funded the same way. Ask the managing agent for the current budget, the status of the second 2023 installment, and any work planned.
Get the litigation status in writing. Ask whether the suit against the developer has been resolved and whether any recovery or cost is still pending. Also ask whether any other claims involving the association are open. Your attorney should get this from the managing agent and board minutes.
Budget for Landmarks. Window, masonry and roof work on this facade must meet LPC standards. That shapes cost and timing for both owners and the association.
What to know if you’re selling
Lead with the architecture and the documented roof. Lamb & Rich, the Babbott and Pratt history, and a slate roof fully replaced under LPC review answer most of the questions buyers raise about old roofs.
Disclose the assessments up front. Buyers' attorneys will find them in the financials. If you explain them before they ask, they are easier to defend in negotiation.
Comparable buildings
If you're considering 153 Lincoln Place, also evaluate:
- 225 Lincoln Place — Caughey & Evans's 1923 co-op a block east in the same historic district
- 235 Lincoln Place — Charles Kreymborg's 1937 neo-Federal co-op on the same street
- 209 Lincoln Place — a ten-story 1920s co-op with its own parking lot, also in the district
- 1 Prospect Park West — the Knights of Columbus clubhouse at Grand Army Plaza, also converted from institutional use to a condominium
- 190 Garfield Place — a 1905 building converted to a 40-unit condominium in 1987, between Sixth and Seventh Avenues
- 10 Montgomery Place — Montrose W. Morris's 1910 walk-ups, a small North Slope conversion with its own capital timeline
- 412 Eighth Avenue — two 1920 walk-ups converted to a condominium in 2010; a comparable recent conversion
More Park Slope buildings
- 130 Eighth Avenue (814 Carroll Street) — 1950 co-op
- 140 8th Avenue, 140 Eighth Avenue — 1936 co-op
- 145 Park Place (Park Place Condominiums) — 1925 condop
- 155 15th Street (Harbor Hill) — 2011 condominium
- 1638 Eighth Avenue (Prospect Park Terrace) — 2010 condominium by Karl Fischer Architects
- 190 Garfield Place (The Garfield Regency) — 1905 condop
The neighborhood
For the full neighborhood — its buildings, character, and market — read The Roebling Team Guide to Park Slope.
How to read the facts on this page. Items attributed to an offering plan describe the building as it was offered at that filing — unit mix, square footage, the amenity program as planned. They are not a statement about how the building operates today. Tax and compliance figures are sourced separately to current City records and carry their own dates. House rules, staffing and fee policy can change by board resolution without any public filing: treat every policy line here as a starting point for diligence and confirm it with the managing agent. Where this page compares one building or neighborhood to another, that is our analysis of the recorded record — it names the measure, the period and the sample it rests on, and it is an observation about medians rather than a prediction about any particular apartment.
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