Harlem townhouse fetches neighborhood record price

Home built in 1888 sold for $6.4M, $907 psf

Arm & Hammer founder John Dwight and 32 Mount Morris Park W (Zillow, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)
Arm & Hammer founder John Dwight and 32 Mount Morris Park W (Zillow, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)

UPDATED, April 11, 2022, 9:30 a.m.: A Harlem townhouse has notched a neighborhood record.

The home at 32 Mount Morris Park West sold for $6.4 million, or $907 per square foot — a neighborhood record for townhouses, according to Compass. The asking price was $6.5 million.

Braden Linard, owner of boutique design firm Brad Linard designs, was the seller, according to public records. Douglas Elliman’s Erin Boisson Aries and Dustin Crouse represented the seller while Compass agents Anna Hargraves Hall and James Hall represented the buyer, whom they declined to identify.

The home, which was built in 1888, closed nine months after going under contract.

The six-story, 7,000-square-foot townhouse has much of its original detailing, including two original cast iron columns and an original fireplace. The third floor also has a “spa-level” bathroom, a cast iron and ceramic tub and a walk-in closet with a midnight bar.

The five-bedroom, five-bathroom house has 2,000 square feet of landscaped outdoor space, as well as a glass-enclosed rooftop gym and solarium with views of Marcus Garvey Park.

The 24-foot wide home was built by John Dwight, the co-founder of Arm & Hammer, for Alexander Phoenix Ketchum, a Union general during the Civil War, and his wife, Clara.

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The record deal nearly fell through, Anna Hall said. The home went under contract in July but the closing was delayed several times due to renovations, including once by the death of the architect originally hired to work on the property. The sale closed Wednesday, the last day before the buyer would have been forced to renegotiate the mortgage rate he locked in at the start of the year.

“If our buyer’s lock expired, he had to wait another month before getting another rate and it would have doubled,” Hall said.

Mortgage rates have been rising since the start of the year as a result of the Federal Reserve’s decision to raise interest rates.

The price record set by the Mount Morris Park house is just under what actor Neil Patrick Harris and his husband David Burtka asked for their Harlem townhouse last year. The home hit the market for $7.3 million, or $916 per square foot, but failed to sell and was delisted about four months ago, according to Streeteasy.

This article has been updated to include the Douglas Elliman agents who represented the townhouse’s seller.