Jeff Sutton buys Gravesend home from Chera family for $14M

Sale sets apparent record for Brooklyn neighborhood popular among NYC retail moguls

Jeff Sutton and 2088 East 3rd Street in Gravesend (Google Maps)
Jeff Sutton and his new home in Gravesend (Google Maps)

Billionaire Jeff Sutton bought a house in Gravesend from fellow retail magnates the Chera family for $14 million, an apparent record for the Brooklyn neighborhood.

Carol Chera

Carol Chera (Getty)

An entity tied to Sutton bought the two-story, single-family home on East 3rd Street in June, according to property records, which list Ronni and Carol Chera as the sellers.

It’s the highest price paid for a home in Gravesend in at least 18 years, according to city records. The average residential sale price in the South Brooklyn neighborhood this year is $1.1 million, according to TRD Pro.

The area is home to a large Syrian Jewish community, including a handful of prominent city retail players. Thor Equities CEO Joseph Sitt paid $11.6 million for a two-story home nearby on East Fifth Street in Brooklyn’s priciest home sale of 2016.

Sutton declined to comment and Carol Chera, identified by her brother-in-law Haim Chera as the only person in the family with knowledge of the deal, couldn’t immediately be reached.

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Little information is available about the 6,000-square-foot house, which records show has been in the Chera family since 1994. Though their exact purchase price isn’t available, mortgage information indicates the Cheras paid substantially less than $1 million for it. Haim transferred ownership to Carol in 2016.

Isaac Chera

Sutton and the Cheras have several commonalities: Both families hail from Brooklyn — Sutton was born in Gravesend — both also own summer homes in Deal, New Jersey, and both have become titans of New York commercial real estate. Sutton’s fortune is estimated at just over $3 billion, according to Forbes. The Cheras have been major commercial real estate players since the 1980s. Their company, Crown Acquisitions, was founded by late family patriarch Stanley Chera and is now run by his sons Isaac, Haim and Richard.