Brooklyn Heights townhouse joins elite club with $12M sale

Property at 192 Columbia Heights first hit the market in 2014 asking $16M

W Don Cornwell and 192 Columbia Heights (Credit: Pfizer)
W Don Cornwell and 192 Columbia Heights (Credit: Pfizer)

The sellers of a Civil War-era Brooklyn Heights townhouse hoped to smash a sales record when they listed their home for $16 million in 2014. The property fell short of that, but still snagged a price tag few other homes in the borough have topped.

The single-family townhouse at 192 Columbia Heights closed on Monday for $11.75 million, according to records filed with New York City’s Department of Finance. The sellers are former Granite Broadcasting CEO W. Don Cornwell and his wife Saundra Cornwell, who bought the property in 1995.

The anonymous buyer is listed in records as “192 Columbia Heights LLC.” The signatory, attorney Richard Kestenbaum at Kestenbaum & Mark LLP, didn’t immediately respond to request for comment.

The four-story property at 192 Columbia Heights dates back to the late 1850s and spans about 7,900 square feet, according to prior news stories. The 25-foot-wide home has seven bedrooms — and sits along the waterfront by Brooklyn Bridge Park.

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It’s unclear which broker had the listing; it was pulled from the market in June 2017 and does not appear to have been relisted.

Brooklyn’s existing record is a $15.5 million townhouse sale in 2015 — and few others have come close. Truman Capote’s one-time home at 70 Willow Street sold for $12.5 million in 2012, while 212 Columbia Heights sold for $11 million.

Other current listings are vying to set residential records in Brooklyn. In October, a penthouse at Quay Tower reportedly went into contract for around $20 million. And actor Matt Damon is reportedly in contract for a unit at the Standish, which was asking $16.6 million. Both deals haven’t yet closed.

Another Brooklyn Heights property, the Pierhouse, has made up a significant portion of the borough’s luxury sales this year. Over the summer, a unit at 130 Furman Street went into contract at $7.5 million.