58 Remsen Street
58 Remsen Street, Brooklyn, NY 11201
Brooklyn Heights, Brooklyn
BBL 3002510034 · BIN 3002133
- Year built
- 1844
- Type
- Cooperative
- Units
- 10
- Floors
- 4
- Landmark
- Designated
- Subletting
- PROHIBITED, with a case-by-case exception under written procedures dated November 13, 2001 and amended January 6, 2003: term not to exceed 12 months (extensions up to 6 months at board discretion); only ONE apartment in the building may be rented at any given time; renter interviewed and approved under the same voting procedures as a purchaser, with all intended occupants present and references including a current or most recent contiguous neighbor; 50% maintenance surcharge for the term; $500 refundable move-in and $500 refundable move-out deposits; shareholder's insurance amended to name the renter; 'unauthorized habitation' fee of three times monthly maintenance per month or part thereof for overstay
Compiled by The Roebling Research Desk from the building’s offering plan, amendments, and related building documents (primary source dated 2001-2003 (sublet); 1998 (roof rights); 1974-75 (plan)). Reported and subject to confirmation. Board policies can change by amendment — confirm at the offer stage.
58 Remsen Street is the corner. It stands at Remsen and Hicks with a garden lot running south to the iron fence on Grace Court, which gives the house three exposures, a private outdoor room the size of a small yard, and no neighbor pressing on two sides — a configuration that cannot be reproduced inside the Brooklyn Heights Historic District. The 1974 conversion plan records that the property was known as the William G. Law Mansion, after a member of an early New England shipping family in the China trade who also held large timber tracts upstate.
The architecture tells a two-part story readable from the sidewalk. The house is 1844 Greek Revival — the LPC's records name Samuel Morgan as its builder, and the brownstone sills, lintels, and entrance framing are of that moment. But the fourth floor sits inside a mansard roof of octagonal slate shingles with wood dormers, finished with original Victorian ironwork: a French Second Empire roof added a generation later, when a mansard was how an older Heights house announced its owners were keeping up. The original brownstone stoop survives with its iron and brass railing, as do the wood-and-glass entrance and vestibule doors. Inside, the plan counts ten working fireplaces — every apartment has at least one — relined chamber and flue on three chimney lines, with mantels running from carved Victorian marble through classic Georgian marble to contemporary brick and plaster.
The cooperative was created early. Myron Brummel, who lived at 20 Remsen Street, first offered the plan on November 15, 1974 at $532,000 for the whole building, the ten apartments priced from $43,500 to $79,500 on 2,000 shares; every apartment was then rent-regulated under the Emergency Tenant Protection Act of 1974. What survives from that origin is the governance. This is a shareholder-voting cooperative in which the residents themselves interview and approve occupants, subletting is prohibited except by specific exception, and the two best assets in the building — the garden and the roof — are allocated to named apartments by written resolution rather than shared. It is the least anonymous cooperative on Remsen Street.
Architecture and unit composition
The house is brick and masonry with brick foundations on rock or hardpan and wood floor framing. The Hicks Street flank and the front areaway are enclosed with period iron fencing, the areaway paved in bluestone, with brick steps down to the garden apartment. The single public stair retains its original handrail and balusters; there are no fire escapes, the halls and kitchens being sprinklered instead. No elevator, no laundry room, no garage — this is a house, run as a corporation.
The ten apartments read front and rear across five levels. Share allocations at conversion make the hierarchy legible — 270 shares each to the parlor-floor apartments against 170 to 176 for the top-floor rear — and the parlor floor rear carried the garden. The fourth-floor rooms sit under the mansard. The rear yard is bluestone and brick, walled in brick coped with concrete and terra cotta, and the garden beyond it is single-level with southern exposure, reached by french doors and steps from the first floor rear.
Building operations
58 Housing Corporation has run the building since 1975. It is a ten-share house without staff, and its documents show a shareholder body that governs directly rather than delegating: purchase and rental approvals go to a shareholder vote with paperwork distributed a week beforehand, basement storage is allocated by resolution, and roof and garden rights were fixed in writing rather than left to custom. Heat is a single gas-fired steam boiler; apartments are wired for wall and window air conditioning.
For an 1844 masonry house carrying a slate mansard, the capital list is specific: slate and dormers, the cornice, three chimney lines serving ten working fireplaces, the brownstone stoop and entrance surround, the sprinkler system, and the boiler. Every exterior item runs through the LPC. The corporation's financial statements in The Roebling Research Library run from the mid-1990s forward.
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Dec 12, 2024 | 2F | $1,380,000 |
| Oct 5, 2023 | 2R | $1,275,000 |
| Oct 5, 2021 | 1B | $1,995,000 |
| Aug 28, 2019 | 4F | $525,000 |
| Dec 29, 2009 | 1R | $1,175,000 |
| Jun 16, 2005 | 3 | $540,000 |
Sales sourced from NYC Department of Finance recorded transfers (BBL 3-00251-0034) 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
Read the sublet rules before anything else. Renting out is prohibited except by exception, one apartment at a time in the whole building, at a 50 percent maintenance surcharge and a three-times-maintenance penalty for overstay. If you need optionality, this is not the building.
Confirm which rights attach to your apartment. The garden belongs to the parlor floor rear and the roof to apartment 9, both by written instrument. Do not assume access.
The approval is a shareholder vote. Everyone who will live in the apartment attends the interview, and references include a current neighbor.
Price the mansard. Slate, dormers, and Victorian ironwork are beautiful and expensive, and every repair needs LPC sign-off. Ask about the roof's history since 1969 and about reserves.
What to know if you’re selling
Lead with the name and the corner. The William G. Law house, 1844, Samuel Morgan, at Remsen and Hicks with a garden to Grace Court — a headline no other apartment on the street can write.
Document the fireplace. Ten working fireplaces, relined at conversion, with mantels that differ apartment to apartment. Photograph yours and say what it is.
Be direct about the sublet rule. It filters the pool to owner-occupants; saying so early attracts the right buyer instead of losing the wrong one at the approval stage.
Comp by attribute. Garden, parlor-floor, and roof-rights apartments belong with Heights townhouse-floor product; upper rear apartments belong with the walk-up co-op tier.
Comparable buildings
If you're considering 58 Remsen Street, also evaluate:
- 44 Remsen Street — the other 1844 Greek Revival house on this block, also ten apartments
- 73 Remsen Street — three-apartment rowhouse co-op across the street, with its own garden and roof rights
- 10 Montague Terrace — a nineteenth-century mansion converted to apartments
- 1 Grace Court — cooperative on the cul-de-sac immediately behind the garden
- 19 Grace Court — smaller Grace Court co-op alternative
- 2 Grace Court — the large full-service prewar cooperative around the corner, for contrast
- 60 Remsen Street — the postwar doorman building directly across Hicks Street
- 87 Hicks Street — small nineteenth-century walk-up co-op nearby
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 The William G. Law house?
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 The William G. Law house 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.