Boerum Hill

Ethan Hawke’s Boerum Hill home-remodeling plan wins the Landmark Preservation Commission’s approval

May 3, 2016 By Lore Croghan Brooklyn Daily Eagle
Oscar-nominated actor Ethan Hawke, shown in this March 2016 photo, plans to do a bit of work on his Boerum Hill rowhouse. Photo by Rich Fury/Invision/AP
Share this:

Ethan Hawke got some good news on Tuesday.

His plan to do a bit of home remodeling passed muster with the city Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC).

The four-time Oscar-nominated actor wants to enlarge the basement of his pre-Civil War rowhouse in Boerum Hill. The addition, which would be on the back of the red-brick house at 247 Dean St., would not be visible from the street.

At a public hearing at their Lower Manhattan headquarters, commissioners voted unanimously to approve his plan.

Before the vote, Commission Chair Meenakshi Srinivasan called the proposed changes to the house “very modest.”

Hawke also plans to do exterior restoration that did not require the commissioners’ scrutiny. It will include repairs to damaged brick veneer on the front of the house, a city Buildings Department permit issued this past March indicates.

As is typical at the preservation agency’s hearings, the project architect, Jung Choi, presented the remodeling plan. Hawke, known for films such as “Boyhood,” “Training Day” and “Gattaca,” wasn’t mentioned.

But as has been widely reported, this is his house. He bought it through a trust.

According to city Finance Department records, the $3.9 million purchase was made in December 2012. The trustee named on the deed was his business manager Carolyn Rossip Malcolm.    

Prior to the sale, a listing for the house noted that it had five working fireplaces with marble mantles.

According to the LPC’s 1973 designation report for the Boerum Hill Historic District, Hawke’s home is one of a block-long row of 30 modified Italianate-style brick houses constructed in 1852-1853 by Brooklyn builders John Doherty and Michael Murray.

Oscar-nominated actress Michelle Williams formerly owned a house nearby, on the corner of Dean and Hoyt streets. She sold it in 2014. She now owns a home at 1440 Albemarle Road in Victorian Flatbush. Her plan to renovate it received the LPC’s blessing this past March.

Also, author Jonathan Lethem grew up on Dean Street in a house near the one Hawke now owns. Lethem used the street as a setting for his novel “The Fortress of Solitude.”

Subscribe to our newsletters


Leave a Comment


Leave a Comment