Brooklyn Heights

Can’t find Truman Capote’s house? These pix will help you out

Eye on Real Estate

February 1, 2017 By Lore Croghan Brooklyn Daily Eagle
Here's Truman Capote in a photo snapped in 1961, back when he lived on Willow Street in Brooklyn Heights. AP Photo/Henry Griffin
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A yellow mansion on Willow Street.

That’s how travel books and online tourist guides describe the iconic Brooklyn Heights Historic District   house where Truman Capote lived while he worked on “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” and “In Cold Blood.”

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Tourists and literature lovers seek it out when they visit the neighborhood. So which yellow-painted brick house is it?

Lovely 57 Willow St., on the corner of Orange Street, which was built in 1825?

The handsome house next door at 55 Willow St., which was built in 1832?

Or the equally handsome 1840s-vintage Greek Revival home at 26 Willow St.?

No. No. And no.

Visitors, take note: The house you’re hunting for, 70 Willow St., is now a horse of a different color.

The owners had the signature yellow paint stripped off the 1830s-vintage Greek-Revival house where the famous author lived as part of a city Landmarks Preservation Commission-approved remodeling project.

The façade is now unpainted red brick.

By the way, the owners are “Grand Theft Auto” video-game creator Dan Houser and his wife Krystyna. They bought the house for $12.5 million in 2012, city Finance Department records indicate.

Capote lived in the basement apartment of 70 Willow St. from 1955 to 1965. At that time, the iconic house belonged to Broadway set designer and American Ballet Theatre co-director Oliver Smith.

Would Capote recognize the house if he came back from the Great Beyond and strolled up Willow Street?

 


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