58 Strong Place (The Landmark at Strong)
58 Strong Place, Brooklyn, NY 11231
Cobble Hill, Brooklyn
BBL 3003237503 · BIN 3003875
- Year built
- 1851
- Type
- Condominium
- Units
- 23
- Floors
- 4
- Landmark
- No
- Financing
- no board approval or down-payment minimum; lender requirements govern. The plan's own purchase agreement required a 10% down payment at contract from sponsor purchasers
- Subletting
- permitted under the standard condominium framework, subject to the Board's right of first refusal; minimum lease term not documented
- Pied-à-terre
- permitted (standard condominium)
- Pets
- permitted; house rule 12 requires animals in public areas to be carried or on a leash
Compiled by The Roebling Research Desk from the building’s offering plan, amendments, and related building documents (primary source dated 2010-10-10 (house rules)). Reported and subject to confirmation. Board policies can change by amendment — confirm at the offer stage.
Minard Lafever is the reason. Lafever was the most widely read American architectural author of the 1830s and 1840s — his pattern books put Greek Revival doorways on row houses from Brooklyn to the Mississippi — and in 1847 he moved from New York to Brooklyn. The Strong Place Baptist Church, which he built in 1851–52 at the corner of Degraw Street and Strong Place, was an offshoot in South Brooklyn of the Pierrepont Street Baptist Church; both congregations were organized by the Rev. Dr. Elisha L. Tayler, and both took Lafever as their architect. Among the Strong Place church's original trustees was E. Darwin Litchfield. The adjoining Gothic chapel, where services were first held in 1849, is Lafever's as well.
The 1969 Cobble Hill designation report describes the building with unusual attention: a stone church dominated by a massive square tower at the junction of the streets, strengthened by large stepped buttresses rising its full height to frame the triple arched openings of the belfry; a narrow turret with lancet windows balancing it asymmetrically near the west aisle; and between them a gabled façade whose dominant feature is a triply pointed Gothic arch window. The whole is enclosed by a strong but simple iron railing with very tall gate posts of unusual design.
The congregation's later history is its own Brooklyn story. By the mid-twentieth century the building was known as the Spanish Baptist Church; in May 1969 it was rededicated as St. Frances Cabrini Chapel, serving the neighborhood's Italian community, and that same year the chapel and adjoining hall at Nos. 56–58 opened as the Strong Place Day Care Center with a kindergarten, cafeteria and Head Start program.
The residential chapter begins in 2005, when Strongrew Realty LLC bought the property, and runs through the conversion by Ingui Architecture — new floorplates and new windows inserted into the church volume, with interior woodwork, paneling and stained glass salvaged and reused. What that produces is not a building with unit lines. It is 23 apartments, each shaped by where it lands inside a Gothic Revival church: some under the nave's height, some against the buttressed walls, some in the chapel, some with private yards, some with balconies, and none of them repeating.
For buyers, the proposition is architecture that cannot be reproduced and apartments that cannot be comped by line. For sellers, the same fact is the whole marketing strategy — and the reason a building-average price per square foot here is nearly meaningless.
Architecture and unit composition
The property is a 15,890-square-foot corner lot carrying roughly 32,885 square feet of building area, formed from two combined structures: the 1851–52 church and the 1849 chapel. The offering plan describes the renovated building as a cellar, four stories and a mezzanine — and elsewhere in the same document as a cellar plus five stories, an inconsistency the plan never resolves. Department of Finance records four floors. What the discrepancy actually reflects is the reality of the conversion: floorplates inserted into a volume that was never designed to have them do not land at consistent levels, and "story" is an approximation in a building like this.
The unit mix as filed ran from a single two-bedroom/one-bath through three-bedroom layouts with up to three baths, and the plan's own energy schedules record apartments ranging from roughly 850 square feet to well over 5,400. Ingui Architecture's project record puts the design intent plainly: 23 units, each unique in character and in relationship to the building, with interior woodwork, paneling and stained glass salvaged and reused where possible.
Limited common elements are specific and worth knowing by unit. Units 1-H and 1-I each have exclusive use of a private yard. Units 3-A, 4-A, 4-B and 4-D carry balconies. Each owner of a unit with a limited common element handles the painting, decorating and ordinary non-structural maintenance of it; structural and extraordinary repairs fall to the condominium unless the owner caused the need.
The Landmarks constraint is absolute and the plan says so in a single sentence: the building has landmark status, which means the exterior may not be changed. In a converted church, that reaches further than it does in a row house — the buttresses, the belfry openings, the lancet turret, the triply pointed arch window and the iron railing with its tall gate posts are all protected fabric, and so is every window opening the conversion inserted into it.
Building operations
The operating model here is deliberately minimal and a buyer should size it correctly. The offering plan states that there is no superintendent and no doorman. Whatever staffing arrangement exists today began from that base, and the current arrangement — porter, part-time super, contracted services — should be confirmed rather than assumed. In a 23-unit building the practical consequence is that common charges are low relative to a serviced condominium and that residents carry more of the day-to-day themselves.
The capital agenda is the opposite of minimal, and it is where diligence should concentrate. This is a stone church from 1851–52 with a masonry tower, stepped buttresses, a belfry, a slate-and-gable roof profile, a lancet turret, salvaged stained glass and an inserted structural floor system, all under Landmarks jurisdiction and all in the Local Law 11 façade cycle. Every one of those elements is expensive to maintain correctly and conspicuous when it is not. There is also an elevator serving 23 apartments and a five-space parking component.
Ask for the last three years of audited statements, the reserve balance, the current assessment schedule, the FISP filing history and the board minutes — and ask specifically what masonry, roof and window work has been done since the 2011–12 sellout, and what the Commission required. Management history and current agent details are maintained in The Roebling Research Library and confirmed with clients during diligence.
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 closings 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 |
|---|---|---|
| Jul 3, 2025 | 2H | $1,675,000 |
| Apr 17, 2025 | 3H | $1,518,000 |
| Aug 21, 2024 | 1D | $2,025,000 |
| Jul 23, 2024 | 4C | $1,800,000 |
| Jan 9, 2024 | 1B | $2,600,000 |
| May 26, 2023 | 1H | $4,250,000 |
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 3-00323-7503) 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
There is no comparable line — pull the plan. Twenty-three unique apartments ranging from roughly 850 to over 5,400 square feet. Get the specific unit's area and layout from the offering plan schedules before you accept anyone's price per square foot.
Underwrite the masonry. A stone church from 1851–52 with a tower, stepped buttresses, a belfry and a lancet turret, all under Landmarks jurisdiction and in the Local Law 11 cycle. Read the reserve, the assessment history and the last façade filing. This is the single largest financial variable in the building.
Staffing started at zero. The plan provided for no superintendent and no doorman. Confirm what exists now and price the service level accordingly — it is part of why common charges sit where they do.
Know your limited common element. Private yards attach to Units 1-H and 1-I; balconies to 3-A, 4-A, 4-B and 4-D. Ordinary maintenance is yours; structural repair is the condominium's.
Read the house rules before you sign. No roof access, no non-window air conditioners without approval, no window guards without approval, and a managing-agent key requirement backed by a forced-entry provision. None of these are unusual individually; together they describe how the building is run.
What to know if you’re selling
Lead with Lafever. A documented Minard Lafever church, described in detail in the Landmarks Preservation Commission's own 1969 report, is a credential no competing Cobble Hill condominium can claim. Name him and quote the report.
Photograph the original fabric. Salvaged woodwork, paneling and stained glass, the arch openings, the buttressed walls. The conversion's whole argument is that the church is still visible from inside.
Publish the area and the plan. In a building with no repeating unit, the seller who documents square footage, ceiling condition and limited common elements controls the pricing conversation.
Present the capital story. Buyers know what nineteenth-century church masonry costs. A completed-projects narrative with the paperwork behind it converts far better than silence.
Closings are condominium-fast. Right of first refusal only, no board interview, no financing minimum beyond the lender's — a genuine advantage against the district's cooperative inventory.
Comparable buildings
If you're considering 58 Strong Place, also evaluate:
- 501 Hicks Street (Cobble Hill School Condominium) — the district's converted school, one block west, in condominium form with on-site parking
- 174 Pacific Street — the district's other converted school, at its northern edge, in cooperative form
- 401 Hicks Street (The Arches at Cobble Hill) — condominium conversion of Alfred Tredway White's Home Buildings, a few blocks north
- 417 Hicks Street — the Tower Buildings group of the Cobble Hill Towers condominium; White's model housing on the same corridor
- 439 Hicks Street (Cobble Hill Towers) — the balance of the same landmark model-housing complex
- 200 Congress Street — the largest cooperative in Cobble Hill; elevator, superintendent and garage
- 450 Clinton Street — 36-unit Carroll Gardens cooperative just south of the district line
- 344 Degraw Street — boutique condominium on the same cross street, east of the district
- 145 President Street — small Carroll Gardens condominium; the closest peer on unit count and finish
Considering a move at The Landmark at Strong Place?
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A Private Pricing Opinion — what your apartment at The Landmark at Strong 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.