Olympia Dumbo, Ernest Crichlow’s former home top Brooklyn luxury deals

A condo in Fortis’ new Olympia Dumbo development and a brownstone in Fort Greene once owned by Ernest Crichlow were the priciest Brooklyn listings to go into contract last week.

The most expensive was Unit 19E at 30 Front Street, which was asking $5.5 million, according to Compass’ weekly report of Brooklyn homes listed for $2 million or more. The 2,300-square-foot apartment has three bedrooms, two bathrooms and a private terrace facing the East River.

It offers views of Downtown Brooklyn and has a kitchen with stone slab and high-end appliances. The primary suite has two closets and an en-suite bathroom. Amenities at the building, which is on pace to be Brooklyn’s most expensive ever, include a fitness center, a bowling alley and indoor and outdoor pools.

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A five-story Italianate brownstone at 62 Greene Avenue, where the influential Black artist Ernest Crichlow once lived, was the second most expensive home to go into contract last week, with an asking price of $5.2 million. The Fort Greene row house is classified as a single-family but renovations to turn it into a two-family are 80 percent complete, according to owner and listing broker Mark O’Brien.

The home will have an owner’s quadplex on the upper floors and a separate apartment on the garden level. The fifth-floor attic was once Crichlow’s studio.

Crichlow, a Harlem Renaissance painter who died in 2005, was known for painting scenes depicting racial discrimation and inequality.

O’Brien said he decided to split the home into two units to make it more marketable.

“Seems like a lot of interested buyers were a bit young and something in the $5 million range may have been just out of reach,” he said. “To have that [rental] income seemed to enable people to consider it.”

However, the buyer does not seem to want to rent out the in-law unit, O’Brien said.

The house is 4,400 square feet, 20 feet wide and has six bedrooms and five bathrooms. The upper unit will have four bedrooms and two home offices, as well as 3.5 bathrooms. The parlor floor will have a deck leading from the kitchen and dining room to the backyard. The garden apartment will have two bedrooms and a full bathroom.

Thirty-two Brooklyn homes asking $2 million or more went into contract last week — 18 townhouses, 11 condos and three co-ops — up from 24 the week before. Combined, the homes asked $106.3 million and the median asking price was just under $3 million. They spent on average 120 days on the market and did not receive a price cut.