The former head of U.S Housing and Urban Development snapped up a four-story carriage house in Boerum Hill — nearly a decade after selling another one a block away.
Shaun Donovan, who served as HUD secretary under President Obama, and his wife, Liza Gilbert, bought 139 Bond Street for $2.3 million, according to a public filing recorded with the Department of Finance.
The sellers were James Crow and his husband, Hector Nieves. Crow, a broker at Corcoran Group, was the co-listing agent on the sale with Sue Wolfe.
The property is part of Boerum Hill’s historic district. It was listed on StreetEasy for about $1.6 million. “It was so completely unique — nothing else like it,” Crow said.
Donovan and Gilbert’s latest buy is about a block over from another townhouse they had once owned. The couple sold 117 Bergen Street in 2010 for $2.4 million, according to a public record.
Donovan was HUD secretary from 2009 until 2014, when he became director of the Office of Management and Budget. He also was chair of Obama’s Hurricane Sandy Rebuilding Task Force.
Before his stints in the capital, Donovan was commissioner of the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development, a role he held from 2004 to 2009.
In 2017, Harvard announced that Donovan would be named senior strategist and advisor to its president on campus development and its expansion in Allston, Mass.
Gilbert, meanwhile, is a landscape designer who has served on the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts since 2014.