Tasteful Friends: Live like a "Private Sanitation" Heiress in this Brooklyn Abode

grew* up

The outside is surprisingly nice. The inside -- well, the less said, the better.

Is the owner an Orthodox Jew? Is that why there are two kitchens?

it has a very dated decor, though the bones are fab.

r2, probably Italian. Dyker Heights has a very Italian population and many Italians have two kitchens.

Actually, r2, from public records, the owner may be Greek. The listing agent appears to be Greek as well...family?

But 6 million is insane. No one is paying 6M to live there. If I were paying that much to live anywhere around there, I'd just go to Shore Road and have a view of the water.

Who is going to pay 6 million dollars in dyker heights???

Insane, I know ^

And BTW, for anyone unfamiliar with the area, it is absolute hell to live there for about 6 weeks around Christmas. It's a tourist destination. The traffic is hell on earth. Thousands and thousands of people, tour buses, police. Crazy.

I’d guess Italians lived here if I didn’t know better.

Since you know better, r10, who do you think lives there?

I looked at the immediate neighborhood on Street View, and saw that this is part of a cluster of large houses built in 1995. Had there been smaller houses there that were torn down to make room for these monstrosities?

What makes it touristy? Christmas lights?

Nice landscaping and pool.

Yes. "Dyker Lights" Christmas

Tourists from around the world who've already seen Rockefeller, want something different. It's crazy. It's a very quiet neighborhood and then it just becomes packed with thousands and the traffic is a mess.

I was asking "what is going on?" in nearly every room. What is going on with that stairwell? What is going on with that narrow window? What is going on with that archway? The bedrooms are so tiny, I don't understand what lead up to this house being this way.

"Private Sanitation" Heiress = Meadow Soprano = Italian

Not as tacky as I expected.

In my experience, the Mediterranean types have two kitchens. One is for show and preparing things like coffee and snacks and lunches. The other is a workplace, where the smelly, messy food is prepared. We had Portuguese neighbors who used their basement kitchen to slaughter and prepare rabbits and fry fish. It was very utilitarian, with a huge porcelain slop sink with two basins and a high faucet. Big stock pots and the like. The upstairs kitchen was all doilies and pretty pottery.

So I'm guessing the sanitation trucks stopped at the house on their way to the dump, so see what the heiress needed.

Almost as bad as I expected.

A friend grew up across the street from this garish pile. I saw his family's home in one of the pictures (white Victorian).

Dyker Heights is heavily Italian-American, and several reputed gangsters lived/live there. Dr. Fauci grew up there. His father's pharmacy is two blocks or so down from this house. The next block over is the street that regularly appears on newscasts at Christmas with all the neighbors outdoing themselves in lights and decorations.

I know the neighborhood well. My grandmother lived a couple of blocks away. She and my grandfather bought the home in 1934. It was set on a hill with a garage at street level with access to basement (like the one at OP). The people who bought it after her death in the early 1990s tore the house down and built a garish monstrosity (a temple to marble and brick) in its place.

R20, and the the price they're asking is insane.

-the*

R21, I completely agree, but prices here in the the Northeast are insane. When I see the prices of a large home with acreage around the US and prices in New York, California, or New Jersey (where I live now), my mind boggles.

There is no property to this house. One of the pictures of the side of the house (with the grill, aka outdoor stove and oven) abuts the neighbor's home.

My grandmother's house (two blocks over between the same cross avenues) had a nice backyard, front and side yards with grass that were perfect for kids to run around. Now, all these goombahs are bricking , marbling, and cementing everything up!

HA, believe me, I know, R23.

I grew up in Brooklyn, too. I'm saying even for Dyker H., that price is crazy. 3-4M tops.

No one is paying that much to live in that house. Like I said earlier, if it were like Shore Road, I could understand. The houses there are much nicer and you've got the views, but that price is just crazy. If I'm being honest, the only people who would pay that much are probably Chinese and they'll immediately put on those steel fences. I'm sure the realtor has been told not to sell to them.

[quote]Plus, they were all married to girls named Marie. And they named all their daughters Marie.

Yes, R24, I agree. That part of Bay Ridge between 83rd and 79th and up to Colonial Road might fetch that price. Still, someone will shell out the bucks for it

Fancy!!! But I never hate this kind of taste. I just want it to have better colors and fabrics. The ersatz lux can remain.

We're VERY offended by the name of the neighborhood and would like to file for an immediate and substantive cancellation.

You'd think they would hire a home stager given what they're asking? Horrid wall paint throughout with the exception of what I think is the basement living room, dated main kitchen, cluttered living areas, to say nothing of that dining room.

As noted above, they could have filmed The Sopranos here. The place screams Italian Mafia.

I love the "showy" parts of the house, dated and tacky ik, but its my type of dated and tacky.

The bedrooms and the I guess "living" parts of the house are hideous tho, and the christian iconography as decoration screams "mediterranean catholic".

I thought the outside looked nice but then the interior gave me the vapours. How can people live like this? Its so fancy and overdone. How do you clean it?

Two kitchens is fairly common for people who like to entertain or do a lot of preserving and jam making. My current house has a huge garden, the old couple that built the house just lived for making preserves from the garden and entertaining, and I knocked out the second kitchen to make a large dining room. As far as I know they were snooty protestants, it was a vacant possession sale but I found photos and documents of theirs in the cellar.

I'm not sure this link will work, but this was the lot in the Tax Photo Census that was taken between 1939-1941.

You guys got me curious about Shore Road and this monstrosity was revealed.

LOL, R34. I'm embarrassed to admit I know the owner. One of the sons is really good friends with a relative.

R34 I adore it. It's a mini palace. Are they a nice family?

The dad owns a ton of dealerships. I actually got a deal on my car because of my cousin's relationship. I don't know them well, but my cousin has been friends with them for years.

The island bench in the kitchen has four portholes in it?

R33, thanks...I found the house I grew up in (1990, when my parents still lived there and in 1940...Wow), my grandmother's home (1990 when she was still alive and in 1940 when my Mom and her siblings were kids), and the house where my Dad grew up (1940). R34, my bet is that they're Greeks. I know the property. R35, are they Greeks?

It's like if Carmela Soprano was inspired by Versailles.

Taxes $2,200/mo.? That's about the yearly rate in my neighborhood.

This photo says it all. The lots are so tiny. Unlike the original house, they build on every square foot of the lot. You can walk from your deck through the second floor window of your neighbor's.

Ohhh, it's real klassy

reminds me Teresa Giudice's mansion - not that place was loaded with good taste

Staten Island, Brooklyn, Queens... it is fairly common to find a second kitchen in basement. Growing up back in the day our house, both grandmothers, countless aunts, and homes of school friends had second kitchens down there. Italian, Irish, German, Blacks.... Everyone did it.

For one thing in days before air conditioning became common many housewives preferred cooking in basement because it was naturally cooler. Our house had entire second dining/living area down there so that's usually were we at during summer. Also on holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas the second kitchen can handle over flow.

It's not just a NYC thing either. New Jersey, Conn, Philly, etc...

Many homes have totally finished basements with those second kitchens that can (and often do) become apartments. Homeowners rent them out, or it becomes the apartment for a adult son or daughter that lives at home.

Wow, the old house at r33's link is MUCH nicer than the monstrosity there now. Sad.

Homes on either side of that for sale in OP link well as up and down that block are all new. Nearly all the homes from before WWII have been torn down and lots redeveloped.

Just use address from linked house for sale to search Goggle street maps.

Curb cuts, driveways and garages were kept obviously, though they usually were redone when property was redeveloped.

These tear downs of old homes and building new that take up nearly entire lot isn't new, nor limited to Italians or whoever in Dyker Heights.. In Bayridge, Bensonhurst, Flushing and other areas of Queens and Brooklyn Asians (mostly Chinese) have been tearing down old homes and putting up lot sized mansions for years now. In an area of Queens it is some Eastern European Jews (IIRC) who are doing same. The locals aren't always thrilled, but zoning allows so there isn't anything city can do to stop it from happening. Only way to truly put an end to that sort of thing is to change zoning.

This house has 3 kitchens inside and probably has a 4th more or less by the pool.

When I was growing up in the suburbs, even modest middle class houses of Italians had 3 kitchens. 1 on main floor. 1 in basement, and 1 outside for the father.

I actually dont mind it, apart from all the can lights. Flatmate has said though that I have "Greek" taste when it comes to interiors and such

House was built in 1995, and it could have been far worse. It isnt really quite my thing, but I dont found it objectionable generally. I would have dialled back the marble though, and added my ornate gilt trim

R39, Italian.

"Private Sanitation" means they collect garbage from business. NYC Sanitation does residences. Years ago, Tom's was a junk yard in East New York, now his business is "Recycling."

Checking Property Records, until 1992 a two-and-half story Victorian with wrap-around front porch stood at 1151 83rd Street, owned by an Italian. In '92 bought by a Greek who built the current McMansion in 1995.

R52, I was referring to the owner of the house on Shore Road that R34 linked to. They are Italian.

By law DSNY (read NYC) has right to collect all trash placed out on city streets. This is well, because city owns said streets.

Private carting companies have licenses to collect refuse from commercial and or industrial establishments of all sorts including but not limited to supermarkets, office buildings, shops, grocery stores, bars, restaurants, etc.....

There is just no way city could cope with trash collection otherwise. There's just too much of it generated on a daily basis for DSNY to cope. Keep in mind DSNY also sweeps/cleans streets, deals with recycling, picks up trash in parks and along city streets, and other things.