175 Hicks Street

The two houses read from the street as Greek Revival brick — the plain, well-proportioned idiom of 1840s Brooklyn, where the interest is in the doorway, lintels, cornice line and brickwork rather than ornament. The LPC's entries for both houses record brick and Greek Revival, and the district designation protects the elevations permanently.

What sits behind the façades is a converted-house building, and it behaves like one. City records describe six stories and roughly 18,300 square feet across the pair — substantially more than the original 1840 houses contained, consistent with the additions and rear extension typical of Heights houses reworked for apartment use; an alteration is recorded in 1971. Inside, the apartments follow the houses' bay depth and stair placement rather than a repeating line plan: front rooms facing Hicks Street, rear rooms facing the block interior, and a duplex running down to the garden level at 173 Hicks. Ceiling heights, window proportions, fireplaces and moldings vary floor to floor and house to house, in the way only converted row houses do. The unit count has moved with them — twenty-six dwelling units in filings from 2000 and 2009, twenty-three to twenty-four from 2010 forward, the ordinary result of shareholders combining apartments. This is a building to evaluate apartment by apartment, not line by line, and the specific unit's share allocation should be verified rather than inferred.

173 Hicks St Corp. operates the two buildings as one cooperative. At twenty-three apartments this is a small-board building, and small-board buildings in the Heights are typically self-managed or served by a small local agent; no managing agent is publicly documented, and current management should be confirmed with the cooperative. The Roebling Team remains the contact of record for clients.

The capital picture deserves the attention. Two 1840 masonry structures, joined and altered, inside a historic district produce a specific maintenance profile: façade and cornice work under Local Law 11 with Landmarks review layered on top, party-wall and roof conditions at the junction between the houses, and the plumbing, wiring and structural legacies of nineteenth-century construction. Recent filings are consistent with a cooperative that attends to this — sidewalk shed and pipe scaffolding in 2009 and 2010, and partial replacement of the roof cornice in 2010. Ask the board where the current façade cycle stands and what the reserve holds; in a twenty-three-unit building, one cycle of exterior work is a meaningful per-share number.

Recent sales

Sales sourced from NYC Department of Finance recorded transfers (BBL 3-00236-0078) 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.

This is two 1840 houses, and you should underwrite it that way. Party walls, roof junctions, older structure and older systems are the real diligence items. Read the engineer's findings and several years of financials before you fall for the moldings.

Confirm the share ledger. Filings record twenty-six units in 2000 and twenty-three to twenty-four from 2010. Have counsel verify the apartment's shares, boundaries and any combination approvals.

Ask about the façade cycle. Exterior work in 2009–10 including cornice replacement is a good sign; the question is what comes next and how the reserve stands against it.

Get policy in writing. Sublet rules, pets, pied-à-terre use, financing limits and any flip tax are not publicly documented.

The block is the amenity. Nineteenth-century houses on all sides, the Promenade two blocks west, Montague two blocks south, the Clark Street express a short walk north.

Lead with 1840. Very little Brooklyn Heights apartment inventory is this old, and the LPC's own records name the year, the style and the original owner-builders — a documented pedigree most competing listings cannot claim.

Sell the apartment, not the building. In a converted-house co-op with a combination history, condition, ceiling height and light are the price-makers.

Put the capital record in the deal room. The 2009–10 exterior work and cornice replacement answer the first question a sophisticated buyer asks about a building of this age.

Price per room against the converted-house set — the Clark-to-Montague small prewars, not the elevator buildings with staff and heavier maintenance.

If you're considering 175 Hicks Street, also evaluate:

• 187 Hicks Street (Florence Court) — the prewar apartment house immediately south at the Pierrepont corner; the direct block comparable
• 155 Hicks Street — small converted-house cooperative a short way north on the same side of the street
• 145 Hicks Street — the block's large 1930s elevator co-op; the full-building alternative
• 142 Hicks Street — small Heights co-op of comparable scale across the street
• 130 Hicks Street — prewar cooperative peer in the north Heights
• 160 Henry Street — 1924 elevator co-op on the same block, facing Henry Street
• 70 Clark Street — postwar cooperative alternative two blocks north
• 200 Hicks Street (Casino Mansions) — the Montague corner's two-building cooperative; a larger, grander counterpoint