30 Willow Place
30–32 Willow Place, Brooklyn, NY 11201
Brooklyn Heights, Brooklyn
BBL 3002590047 · BIN 3002298
- Year built
- 1886
- Type
- Cooperative
- Units
- 15
- Floors
- 5
- Landmark
- Designated
- Financing
- 20 percent minimum down payment reported; not confirmed against current board policy
- Washer / dryer
- In-unit laundry reported in renovated apartments; not confirmed as building-wide policy
Compiled by The Roebling Research Desk from the building’s offering plan, amendments, and related building documents. Reported and subject to confirmation. Board policies can change by amendment — confirm at the offer stage.
Willow Place is the quietest street in Brooklyn Heights, and it is quiet because Hezekiah Pierrepont declined to let the grid run cleanly through his estate: Willow Street stops and restarts south of Joralemon under a different name. What that left is a single short lane from Joralemon to State — no through traffic, no commercial frontage, and behind its western side the expressway trench and then the harbor. The 1965 designation report picked the street out by name, citing "the very small houses on Willow Place and in the mews which once served as stables."
The block's set piece is directly opposite. Colonnade Row at 43–49 Willow Place, built in 1846, is four Greek Revival houses tied together beneath a single continuous two-story colonnade running the full width of the group — the last intact colonnade row in Brooklyn. A second colonnaded group once stood nearby; only two of its four houses survive, altered past easy recognition. Living across from Colonnade Row is not available anywhere else in the borough.
30–32 Willow Place is the block's one apartment building, and its authorship is better than the street's modesty suggests. The LPC attributes it to William Field & Son and dates it to 1886. Field was the architect Alfred Tredway White used for the experiments that made him nationally known — the Home and Tower Buildings of 1877–79, the Warren Place cottages, and the Riverside Buildings of 1889–90, whose surviving U-shaped block stands one street west at Columbia Place and Joralemon. This is a smaller, plainer commercial cousin of that work. We have no documentation tying White himself to the commission, and we do not assert it.
The conversion date is what makes the building unusual in market terms: a fifteen-unit cooperative since 1962, the same year residents bought the 1876 chapel at 26 Willow Place next door and turned it into what is now the Alfred T. White Community Center. A cooperative predating the historic district by three years carries none of the sponsor overhang or eviction-plan machinery that complicates diligence on the district's 1980s conversions. Down the block at 40, 44 and 48 Willow Place stand the cement-block modern houses Joseph and Mary Merz built in 1965 — the same architects credited with this building's entry fence. One short street holds an 1846 colonnade row, an 1876 chapel, an 1886 flats building and a set of 1965 modern houses, and the district protects all of it.
Architecture and unit composition
The building runs 48 feet 10 inches across its frontage and 60 feet 10 inches deep, five stories, in limestone and brick. It was built as two structures — hence the 30 and 32 addresses — and the seam is still legible in the numbering: one side runs 1, 1A, 1B, 2B, 2C, 2D, 2E, the other 1 through 9. A combination at 2C–2D appears in recorded instruments, so the fifteen units on the city's rolls may not be fifteen apartments today.
At roughly 930 gross square feet per apartment this is a larger format than the district's smaller walk-ups deliver, and apartments here have shown open plans, wood-beamed ceilings and exposed brick. Because the building sits on the west side of Willow Place, rear and upper apartments look over Columbia Place, the expressway trench and the harbor beyond; front apartments look directly at Colonnade Row — two genuinely different apartments at similar share counts.
Building operations
Willowtown Apts. Inc. has run this building since 1962, longer than most Brooklyn Heights cooperatives have existed. Fifteen apartments, five walk-up floors, no elevator, no staff of record: the operating base is lean, and maintenance should reflect that relative to the district's serviced tiers. The recurring capital items are the FISP/Local Law 11 façade cycle, the roof and the windows, funded by fifteen shareholders.
The corporation also owns the neighboring lot at 34 Willow Place, carried as a parking lot. In a district where off-street parking essentially does not exist, that is a real asset — an amenity attached to particular apartments and a line on the balance sheet. Establish early whether a specific apartment carries a parking right and whether it transfers on sale.
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 transfers 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 |
|---|---|---|
| May 28, 2021 | 5 | $809,000 |
| Jan 19, 2021 | 1 | $1,275,000 |
| Oct 24, 2016 | 9 | $1,139,000 |
| Jun 21, 2016 | 2C-2D | $1,775,000 |
| Mar 11, 2013 | 3 | $775,000 |
| Dec 6, 2011 | 2B | $562,000 |
Sales sourced from NYC Department of Finance recorded transfers (BBL 3-00259-0047) 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.
What to know if you’re buying
Choose your side of the building deliberately. Front apartments face Colonnade Row; rear and upper apartments face the harbor over the expressway trench. Both are desirable and they are not interchangeable.
Resolve the parking question in writing. The corporation owns the lot next door. Whether your apartment carries a space, and on what terms, belongs in the analysis before you price the deal.
A 1962 cooperative simplifies diligence. No sponsor overhang, no eviction-plan legacy, no rent-regulated carve-outs — sixty-plus years of shareholder financial statements instead.
It is still a five-story walk-up. No elevator, and no subway closer than a ten-minute walk. That is the trade Willowtown asks you to make.
What to know if you’re selling
Name the architects and the street. William Field & Son — Alfred Tredway White's architects, the Riverside Buildings one block west — on the block that holds Brooklyn's last colonnade row.
Lead the photography with the view and the gate. The harbor exposure and the Merz-designed entry fence do not exist at any comparable building. Colonnade Row belongs in the first three frames.
Sell 1962. Buyers and their attorneys understand what a pre-designation cooperative means for diligence; stating the date removes an entire category of question.
Price against format, not the block's houses. Willow Place's single-family numbers are irrelevant to a fifteen-unit co-op; the comparable set is the district's larger-format walk-up cooperatives.
Comparable buildings
If you're considering 30 Willow Place, also evaluate:
- 65 Atlantic Avenue — the 1849 Greek Revival co-op one block south at the district's boundary; smaller format, busier street
- 60 State Street — small contemporary condominium around the corner; the new-construction alternative in Willowtown's orbit
- 132 Joralemon Street — small cooperative at the head of Willow Place
- 151 Joralemon Street — moderate-scale Joralemon corridor co-op
- 9 College Place (Love Lane Mews) — the district's other former-stable enclave; the closest thing to Willow Place's character elsewhere in the Heights
- 149 Willow Street — Willow Street proper, north of Joralemon; the same street name, a different neighborhood
- 200 Hicks Street — larger co-op on the Hicks corridor two blocks east
The full playbook — what goes in the package, how boards read your financials, the interview, and the timeline — plus sample cover, reference, and personal letters you can adapt.
Considering a move at 30 Willow Place?
Request a private building brief with the relevant comparable sales, current and off-market availability, and an apartment-specific view of value.
Own an apartment here? See what it would sell for.
A Private Pricing Opinion — what your apartment at 30 Willow 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.