450 Clinton Street
450 Clinton Street, Brooklyn, NY 11231
Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn
BBL 3003550030 · BIN 3339575
- Year built
- 1867
- Type
- Cooperative
- Units
- 36
- Floors
- 4
- Landmark
- No
- Subletting
- Permitted with Board of Directors approval; if the board refuses, consent may instead be given by tenant-shareholders holding at least 75% of the corporation's outstanding shares (proprietary lease, per plan Introduction).
- Pets
- House Rule 9: no bird or animal may be kept or harbored without the express written permission of the Lessor, revocable at any time; dogs must be carried or on a leash in public portions of the building.
Compiled by The Roebling Research Desk from the building’s offering plan, amendments, and related building documents (primary source dated 1986 (offering plan) - House Rules PDF in the Drive folder is the plan-era set). Reported and subject to confirmation. Board policies can change by amendment — confirm at the offer stage.
Carroll Gardens is named for something a surveyor did in 1846. Richard Butts laid out five existing streets — Summit, Woodhull, Rapelje, Cooper and Coles — as four new fifty-foot streets called First through Fourth Place, and platted every house on them behind a front courtyard a bit over thirty-three feet deep. The same treatment was given to Carroll and President Streets between Smith and Hoyt. Those courts are the neighborhood's single most distinctive fact, and they are a mapping decision, not an architectural style.
The rare thing about 450 Clinton Street is that its offering plan says so, in the plain language of a title exception. The plan discloses that the landscaped court in front of the building on First Place — roughly 33 by 135 feet, behind the property's antique wrought-iron fence — is not conveyed to the cooperative at all. It is the property of the City of New York, which has reserved since 1846 the right to use it should it ever widen the First Place roadbed, and the same is true of every neighboring court on both sides of First Place between Clinton and Henry. Nowhere else in the neighborhood's paperwork is the Butts platting stated that cleanly. The cooperative uses the court exclusively and pays to maintain it, and the City's reservation has sat dormant for nearly 180 years, but a buyer should understand that the garden in front of this building is a licensed use rather than owned land.
The building itself is the Old Westminster Church, built around 1867 by the Westminster Presbyterian Church, operated by that congregation until 1927, and then sold to the Norwegian Seamen's Church, Inc. — a sequence that kept it in institutional hands and largely intact for more than a century. In May 1984 the sponsor's principals bought it. 33 First Place Corp. gut-renovated the sanctuary and its rear church house into apartments, offered the plan in January 1986, and conveyed title to Old Westminster Church Apartment Corporation that summer.
Two features of that conversion still shape the building. The first is the utilities: each apartment has its own electric meter and, unusually, its own separately metered boiler and hot water heater, which pushes heating and hot water out of the maintenance charge and onto the shareholder. The second is the rear. The former church Auditorium facing Carroll Street was converted by the sponsor into roughly thirty parking spaces and expressly retained — title never passed to the cooperative — with shareholders given priority to rent. Any current parking arrangement should be verified rather than assumed.
What a buyer gets today is a converted church on a garden block, with an elevator, in the quietest part of Carroll Gardens.
Architecture and unit composition
The renovated structure carries four floors plus a fourth-floor mezzanine over a basement and cellar, on an 85-by-135-foot lot with roughly 36,000 square feet of building area. That combination — a large footprint, a small floor count and a mezzanine level — is what a sanctuary volume looks like after floor plates are inserted, and it produces the interior variety this building is known for. Ceiling heights, window shapes and plan geometry differ from apartment to apartment in ways that no row house or purpose-built cooperative ever produces.
The share schedule allocated 8,310 shares across the apartments, and the plan contemplated two units sold for professional rather than residential use. The unit count in the plan is genuinely inconsistent between its narrative section and its definitions — 35 in one place, 37 in the other — and the tax roll records 36 residential of 37 total. This is a paperwork question with a real answer in the corporate records, and one an attorney should close out early rather than at the closing table.
Two details from the plan bear on renovation planning. There is no superintendent's apartment in the building; the corporation budgeted a part-time superintendent living within the statutory 200 feet and a workshop room in the cellar. And apartments were delivered without a stove or refrigerator, which means original kitchens here were never uniform to begin with.
Because the property is neither individually designated nor inside the Carroll Gardens Historic District, exterior work does not require Landmarks review — an often-overlooked distinction from the Carroll and President Street blocks two streets north, and one that cuts in the owner's favor on windows, ironwork and painting.
Building operations
The corporation was capitalized at conversion with a $750,000 first mortgage from Hamilton Federal Savings and Loan Association on a ten-year term, payments set against a twenty-year amortization schedule, and a balloon of approximately $591,585 due in 1996. That debt has necessarily been refinanced several times over, and the current underlying mortgage — balance, rate, maturity — is the single most important number a buyer can ask for, because in a 36-apartment corporation it drives maintenance more than any other line.
The operating model was deliberately light and appears to have stayed that way: a part-time superintendent, a laundry concession rather than owned equipment, a compactor, an elevator, and a small professional-fee allowance, with heating and hot water sitting on the shareholder's own meter. Management at conversion was contemplated with Old House Realty; the cooperative's current Department of Housing Preservation and Development registration names E. M. Holding Corp of 80 Joralemon Street, Brooklyn.
The recurring capital items in a masonry building of this age are the roof, the envelope and Local Law 11 façade cycles, plus the elevator. Request three years of financial statements, the assessment history, the reserve balance, the current façade status and the underlying mortgage terms — and separately ask the corporation's position on the First Place court and on the rear Auditorium parcel, because both are title questions rather than operating questions.
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Mar 26, 2025 | 4B | $842,000 |
| Aug 29, 2024 | 1A | $965,000 |
| Oct 7, 2022 | 4MD | $1,555,000 |
| Jul 30, 2021 | 4MC | $1,326,000 |
| Jul 14, 2021 | 3B | $1,066,000 |
| Jul 8, 2021 | 1B | $1,100,000 |
Sales sourced from NYC Department of Finance recorded transfers (BBL 3-00355-0030) 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
Understand the courtyard. The garden in front of the building is City-owned land the cooperative maintains and uses, subject to a reservation dating to 1846. It has never been exercised. It is still a title fact your attorney should read for themselves.
Ask about the rear parcel and parking. The former Auditorium and its roughly thirty parking spaces were retained by the sponsor at conversion and never conveyed to the cooperative. Confirm current ownership and whether any shareholder parking arrangement survives.
Reconcile the unit count and your share allocation. The plan says 35 units in one section and 37 in another; the tax roll says 36 residential of 37. Confirm the specific apartment's designation and shares against the corporate records.
Request the underlying mortgage terms. In a 36-apartment corporation this is the maintenance. Get balance, rate and maturity, plus three years of financials and the assessment history.
Add the utilities back in. Separately metered heat and hot water make this building's maintenance figure look better than a like-for-like comparison supports. Model the total monthly.
What to know if you’re selling
Tell the building's story accurately. Built about 1867 by the Westminster Presbyterian Church, sold to the Norwegian Seamen's Church in 1927, bought by the sponsor in May 1984 and offered as a cooperative in January 1986. All of it is documented in the offering plan, and almost no competing listing on a Place block can say anything comparable.
Lead with the elevator. In a neighborhood of walk-up conversions, an elevator in a small cooperative is a genuine differentiator, and it widens the buyer pool materially.
Explain the maintenance advantage properly. Separately metered heat and hot water is a selling point when it is explained, and a source of buyer suspicion when it is not.
Own the garden block. First Place is a Butts courtyard block. It is the reason the neighborhood is called Carroll Gardens, and it is not in the historic district — which means no Landmarks review on exterior work. Both halves of that are worth saying.
Comparable buildings
If you're considering 450 Clinton Street, also evaluate:
- 214 Clinton Street — 35-unit prewar cooperative further up the same street, in Cobble Hill; the closest tenure-and-scale comparison
- 358 Court Street — the South Congregational Church complex; Carroll Gardens' other church conversion, in condominium form
- 58 Strong Place (The Landmark at Strong) — a Cobble Hill church conversion; the best direct product comparison in the area
- 174 Pacific Street — 28-unit Cobble Hill cooperative; small-corporation economics on the same terms
- 200 Congress Street — the district's large elevator cooperative with a garage; the amenity alternative in co-op form
- 175 Amity Street — 17-unit Cobble Hill cooperative; boutique scale
- 345 Carroll Street — boutique Carroll Gardens condominium, for buyers weighing tenure
- 344 Degraw Street — small Carroll Gardens condominium a few blocks north
- 505 Court Street (Court Street Lofts) — the neighborhood's loft alternative, further south on Court
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 Old Westminster Church?
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 Old Westminster Church 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.