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Condominium · 1851
The South Congregational Church complex
358 Court Street, Brooklyn, NY 11231
Buildings·Condominium

358 Court Street

358 Court Street, Brooklyn, NY 11231

Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn

BBL 3003457501 · BIN 3004582

At a glance
Year built
1851
Type
Condominium
Units
26
Floors
3
Landmark
Designated

Brooklyn has lost a great many nineteenth-century churches, most of them to demolition and a few to conversions that erased what made them worth keeping. The South Congregational Church complex is the counter-example, and it is the reason this address carries an individual landmark designation rather than the district protection that covers the row houses a few blocks east.

The congregation organized in 1851, at a site Henry Ward Beecher is credited with choosing, and built its chapel that year. The main church followed in 1857, and the LPC's designation report calls it one of Brooklyn's finest examples of the Early Romanesque Revival — a round-arched, German-influenced Protestant idiom that arrived in Brooklyn early here and is worked in brick with extraordinary arcaded articulation near the roofline. Two later buildings completed the group: a ladies parlor of 1889 by Frederick Carles Merry, in Richardsonian Romanesque red brick and terra cotta, and a rectory of 1893 by Woodruff Leeming, neo-Gothic in rock-faced stone. No architect is recorded for the two oldest and best buildings, which is not unusual for a Brooklyn congregation building in the 1850s and which the Commission states plainly rather than guessing at.

The designation came in March 1982, and the LPC's report describes the complex as being in surprisingly good condition and notes the plan then in motion: convert portions to apartments while the congregation retained the ladies parlor and rectory for continued use. That conversion followed in the years immediately after — Brownstoner's building history dates it to 1983, and the Department of Finance records a 1984 alteration — which makes this one of the earliest church-to-residential conversions in the neighborhood, and a full generation ahead of the wave that produced most of Brooklyn's church condominiums.

What a buyer gets is unusual product in an unusual place. The apartments were cut into a sanctuary and its ancillary buildings, so ceiling heights, window shapes and plan geometry vary far more than they would in any row house or purpose-built condominium. And the address is on Court Street at President — the commercial spine, one block from Carroll Park, in the densest walkable stretch of the neighborhood.

The historic-district point is worth stating precisely, because it is often garbled. The Carroll Gardens Historic District, designated September 25, 1973, covers Carroll and President Streets between Smith and Hoyt — the blocks whose deep front gardens come from surveyor Richard Butts's 1846 platting. That district line is two blocks east of this building. 358 Court Street is not in it. It is instead an individual landmark, which means the Commission's jurisdiction attaches to this property specifically, and in practice reaches further into the details of the building than a district listing typically does.

Architecture and unit composition

The complex reads as four buildings of three different periods, and the Court Street elevation is the one that carries the designation's weight: brick, round-arched, with the closed running arcades near the cornice that identify the Rundbogenstil manner and that give the church its scale against a street of two- and three-story commercial buildings. The chapel of 1851 sits alongside in the same idiom. The 1889 ladies parlor at 267 President Street and the 1893 rectory at 253–269 President Street turn the corner and step down in mass, in materials — terra cotta, rock-faced stone — that place them a generation later.

Unit composition is the part of this building a buyer cannot assume. Apartments inserted into a church volume are individually shaped: some carry the original arched window openings, some have galleries or mezzanine levels, and ceiling heights differ from floor to floor and between the church and the ancillary buildings in a way no floor-plate building ever produces. The city's tax roll assigns thirty condominium lots to the property and records 26 of them as residential; unit numbers in circulation run well into the thirties. That gap between numbering and count is a conversion artifact, and it is the first thing an attorney should reconcile against the declaration and the specific unit deed.

Landmark jurisdiction runs to everything visible from a public thoroughfare. Windows, doors, ironwork, storefront and signage work at the Court Street base, exterior painting, roof-level installations and through-wall equipment all require Commission review before a permit issues. In a masonry building of this age the practical consequence is that window replacement is a project with a public-approval timeline attached, not a weekend order.

Building operations

The condominium is professionally managed. The building's Department of Housing Preservation and Development registration, current for the 2025–26 cycle, names Argo Real Estate, LLC as managing agent, and lists the Carroll Gardens Landmark Condominium as the corporate owner.

Beyond that, this is a building whose operating documents are held privately rather than in the public record. No offering plan, budget, house-rules package or financial statement for the condominium sits in The Roebling Research Library, and no amenity program, staffing arrangement or elevator is documented in the filings reviewed. The honest statement is that the operating picture must be assembled from the managing agent at contract, and the request list is specific: three years of financial statements, the current budget, the assessment history, the reserve balance, the current Local Law 11 cycle, and the record of Landmarks approvals and any open violations.

That last item deserves emphasis. In an individually designated complex of this age and complexity, the two capital exposures that matter are the masonry envelope and the windows, and both run through the Commission. Ask when the façade was last cycled, what the Commission approved, and whether any work is presently pending.

Recent sales

The retrade record

Lines that have traded more than once in the public record — the building’s appreciation arc, apartment by apartment.

26+55%
$560,000 2005$870,600 2016

Recent closings at this building, sourced from NYC Department of Finance records. Apartment-level detail (line, condition, asking-price context) verified upon consultation request.

DateUnitPrice
Oct 28, 202238$999,000
Apr 6, 202219$980,000
Jun 29, 202127$655,000
Jun 4, 2021S1$825,000
Mar 1, 202110$1,330,000
Dec 7, 202012$885,000
View all 14 recorded sales, sortable

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 3-00345-7501) 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.

What to know if you’re buying

Reconcile the unit designation. The city records 26 residential units among thirty condominium lots, and building unit numbers run into the thirties. Have your attorney confirm the exact unit designation, common-interest percentage and appurtenances against the declaration and the deed.

Get the Landmarks history. Ask the managing agent what the Commission has approved, what is pending, and whether there are open violations. Then ask what a window replacement in your specific unit would require.

Assume the documents are private. No public offering plan is available. Pets, subletting, financing minimums and any transfer fee are all questions for the current governing documents — do not take a general condominium assumption as the answer.

Judge the unit, not the building average. Ceiling height, window geometry and volume vary enormously here. Price the specific apartment.

Ask about the envelope. Masonry, roof and windows in an 1851–1893 complex are the capital story. Request the reserve balance, assessment history and current Local Law 11 status.

What to know if you’re selling

Lead with the designation, precisely. Individual Landmark, March 23, 1982, LP-1245; National Register, November 4, 1982; chapel 1851, church 1857, ladies parlor 1889 by Frederick Carles Merry, rectory 1893 by Woodruff Leeming. Very few Brooklyn listings can put that on the page and support all of it.

Correct the historic-district confusion before a buyer does. This building is not in the Carroll Gardens Historic District; it is individually designated, which is a stronger form of protection. Say so.

Show the volume. The single strongest asset here is interior space that cannot be reproduced. Photograph the height and the arched openings; do not photograph it like a row-house floor-through.

Have the paperwork ready. Because the governing documents are not public, a seller who can hand over the declaration, current budget, house rules and Landmarks approval record at the first showing removes the building's one real friction point.

Comparable buildings

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Corey Cohen, Principal · The Roebling Team at Compass
646.939.7375 · c.cohen@compass.com
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