A mystery buyer closed the deal on a $25 million Brooklyn Heights brownstone on Christmas Eve — setting a new record for the most expensive home ever sold in the borough.
The five-story mansion at at 8 Montague Terrace by Remsen Street, overlooking the Brooklyn Heights Promenade, sold for $25.5 million on December 24, the Real Deal first reported. That’s $5.199 million above the previous record, set in April, for a penthouse condo at Brooklyn Bridge Park’s Quay Tower.
Before that, the record was set by Matt Damon and his wife Luciana Barroso, who spent for a $16,745,121 penthouse condo in The Standish at 171 Columbia Heights in Brooklyn Heights in 2018.
Billionaire Vincent Viola, the founder and chairman emeritus of Virtu Financial, and his wife Theresa bought the Montague Terrace penthouse in 2007 for $8 million, and converted the four-story house into a single-family home. The renovation included Landmarks-approved work on the iron tea porch that faces the Promenade.
A final certificate of occupancy for the conversion was issued last month. The new owner, according to documents, is a limited partnership called M8T.
Historic records indicate that the brownstone dates back to the early 1870s, and was owned by the Edwin S. and Martica Waterman family in 1873. The family left Brooklyn, but held onto the house until 1917. Like many large houses in the neighborhood, it was divided up into a multiple dwelling in the 20th century with a 1933 certificate of occupancy showing a conversion to eight apartments.
Representatives with Virtu Financial said Monday that the company is shrinking its Manhattan headquarters and opening offices elsewhere because workers want a “better quality of life” and don’t want to take public transit, Bloomberg reported.
Brooklyn has been less affected by the drop in real estate activity than other boroughs as buyers flock to the borough for its low-rise residences with plenty of green space. While the number of sales in 2020 were down by 24 percent compared to the previous year — which was still a smaller drop than what other boroughs experienced — the median price of closed sales rose four percent in 2020, according to PropertyShark.
This story first appeared on Brownstoner.com.
