Jennifer Connelly’s house and other Park Slope obsessions

Eye On Real Estate

February 3, 2016 By Lore Croghan Brooklyn Daily Eagle

The Adams Mansion is Eighth Avenue eye candy. Eagle photos by Lore Croghan

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Park Slope mansions on Eighth Avenue and Prospect Park West are so fine, they make a walk worthwhile on post-blizzard sidewalks plagued by slush and daunting snow piles.

We know this with utter certainty after spending two thoroughly happy days taking snapshots in this part of the Park Slope Historic District.

We’d been longing for a fresh look at Eighth Avenue icons like the Montauk Club and the Tracy Mansion and the Adams Mansion, too.

Adams as in Thomas Adams Jr., the Chiclets chewing gum manufacturer. His home at 117 Eighth Ave., built in 1888, is often called the finest Romanesque Revival-style private home in all of New York City.

The mansion is a knockout even while undergoing remodeling that’s making the 10-unit residential building back into a two-family home, which was its original design.

It belongs to John and Tina Novogratz, who bought it for $5.99 million in 2013, city Finance Department records indicate.

Of course we also had to see actress Jennifer Connelly’s house, 17 Prospect Park West.

The house was designed by high-profile architect Montrose Morris and built in 1899. Damn, it’s pretty.

We will always think of it as Jennifer Connelly’s house, though she and her actor husband Paul Bettany sold the neo-Classical limestone mansion for $8.45 million in 2008. The buyers were an engineer from Google and his wife, it was widely reported.

Last year, these owners sold 17 Prospect Park West for $12.4 million, a record-setting price for a Park Slope house. A lawyer signed the deed on their behalf, so the Google engineer’s name is not a matter of public record.

Finance Department records indicate that the 2015 buyer of this magnificent mansion was an LLC, with Daniel Castaline as trustee of a revocable trust that is the LLC’s sole member. Yes, that’s convoluted. So it goes.

It seems everywhere we turned, we saw renovations underway at recently purchased homes. Two examples:

* Remodeling is underway at 586 4th St., a lovely limestone single-family home near Prospect Park West. The Long Drive Trust, with James Adams as trustee, bought the home for $6 million in December, Finance Department records indicate.

The century-old rowhouse designed by architect Arthur Koch has French Renaissance decorative details on its façade.

* A penthouse and two-story rear extension are being added to 41 Montgomery Place, city Buildings Department filings indicate. The steep-roofed limestone, brick and terra-cotta house was designed by architect George Chappell and built in the early 1890s.

Timothy Cotton bought the single-family home for $3.3 million in December 2014, Finance Department records show.

By the way, Cotton’s house is a stone’s throw away from 45 Montgomery Place, which sold for a hefty $10.775 million in late 2014. The buyer was an LLC with Constantine Karides as a member, Finance Department records indicate.