If you thought the most expensive area of Brooklyn was Brooklyn Heights, think again. While Brooklyn Heights has had some eye-popping sales — a townhouse at 140 Columbia Heights sold last year for $10.75 million — Southern Brooklyn, home to some very quiet and moneyed enclaves, may beat it in terms of super-luxury sales. In 2003, a mansion on Avenue S in Gravesend went for $11 million. And in October, Midtown Equities founder and Sears Tower co-owner Joseph Cayre sold his house in nearby Midwood for $10 million, according to public records.
That latest sale, at 3542 Bedford Avenue, is for a 7,526-square-foot home that takes up multiple lots and is deceptively larger than its frontage.
Avenues S, T and U, and Ocean Parkway in Gravesend, meanwhile, are lined with modern estates; five of Brooklyn’s top sales have taken place in the area.
This Beverly Hills-in-Brooklyn phenomenon had been quiet until recently, when the New York Times and the New York Times magazine began writing about the wealth of the Syrian Jews in the area. The sale of the Cayre house — from a family Forbes has dubbed one of world’s richest — only adds to the limelight.
Joseph Cayre, part of the World Trade Center equity investors team that purchased the Sears Tower for $835 million in 2004, owns more than 100 Manhattan properties, many with his brothers Ken and Stan. The trio got rich by producing Latin music in the 1970s and distributing videos to Wal-Mart.
Joseph and his wife Trina had bought the Bedford Avenue property in 1974.
(Cayre is the “C” in CORE Group Marketing, a Manhattan-based, full-service resale and new development brokerage.)
A little farther southwest lies the neighborhood of Gravesend. Between August and October of this year, the average sales price in Gravesend was $692,486, nearly twice as much as buyers paid for homes on Coney Island, and slightly more than owners paid in neighboring Bensonhurst. Prices fell from this period last year, when the average sales price was $770,625, according to public records.
In volume terms, about 85 homes sold between August and October, down from 100 last year. In comparison, 16 homes sold on nearby Coney Island, and 60 in nearby Bensonhurst.
But Gravesend’s draw is its core, and the mansions within it.
“Ocean Parkway is the Fifth Avenue of Brooklyn,” said Charlie Attias, a vice president with the Corcoran Group who specializes in high-end residential sales. “It’s the most desirable area. Everyone wants to be there, and prices are through the roof.”
Attias is currently selling a home on a 62-by-130-foot lot on the northeast corner of Avenue X and Crawford Avenue for $2.9 million. The owner lives in France and decided to sell the property this summer, originally for $3.1 million, Attias said.
There has been a lot of interest from families and developers who want to tear down the old white wood-frame house to make way for a larger building. It would cost between $1 and $2 million to refurbish the house as it is now, “and buyers have to take that into consideration,” Attias said.
While Jewish buyers want to be able to walk to nearby synagogues, Syrian Jews are just the latest group to call the area home.
Gravesend was founded in 1654 by Lady Deborah Moody, a wealthy Protestant widow who left England for America seeking religious freedom. She was the first woman in the New World to receive a land patent, and she wrote the first town charter in English. In addition, Moody founded the town hall government, started a school and established a church, but Gravesend’s policy of religious freedom set it apart from other settlements.
Also, Gravesend — where McDonald Avenue and Gravesend Neck Road formed the crossroads of the old 16-acre town — was one of the earliest towns in the New World to use a block grid system.
In 1894, Gravesend was incorporated into the City of Brooklyn.
For many decades, the neighborhood was home primarily to Italian families, and many still remain, along with long-time Italian restaurants such as Fiorentino’s, said Jeff Grandis, a Brooklyn native and broker and owner of Accord Real Estate Group in Brooklyn.
Today, Gravesend is home to families from many different cultures and income levels, Grandis is quick to point out. Asian, Pakistani, Hispanic and Russian families have all bought homes in the area and have helped the neighborhood prosper. Families come because the neighborhood has solid schools and many different houses of worship, Grandis said. It’s conveniently located near the F train that runs along McDonald Avenue and the Q train along East 15th Street. Also, many shops and restaurants line Avenue U and Avenue X.
“It’s just been a very solid neighborhood for families for many, many years,” Grandis said. “The name is certainly not that wonderful. But it’s a wonderful place for families.”
“Gravesend is a very strong, vibrant market,” added Grandis. “While the area has been somewhat affected by the recent downturn in the market, prices have still remained at a high level, and the area will continue to be strong.”
Neighborhoods such as Bedford-Stuyvesant and Crown Heights have been hit by foreclosures, and Grandis says he’s given talks at several community meetings there to help residents understand their options and save their homes. But families in Gravesend have not suffered the same fate, he said.