When a family pays nearly $4 million for a Brooklyn Heights townhouse, that’s amore!
A brownstone on the corner of Cranberry and Willow Streets made famous for its role in the 1987 romantic comedy “Moonstruck” – in which it starred alongside Cher, Nicholas Cage, Olympia Dukakis and Danny Aiello – was purchased last week after more than two years on the market.
Originally, the house had been priced at $5 million.
Elliot Lokitz, a broker from Corcoran who sold the 19 Cranberry Street House, did not release the family’s name out of respect for their privacy.
The handsome four-story, 4,160-square-foot townhouse that was built in 1829 did not come cheap. But apparently money is no object when it comes to love.
“It’s a special house. It’s one of the most beautiful in the neighborhood,” said previous owner Francesca Rullman, who lived in the house with her husband Edwards and their family since 1961.
Rullman said she and her husband would often see tourists snapping photos of their house from their window.
When they closed the deal on the house last week, the Rullmans moved full-time to their summer residence in Wellfleet, Mass.
Now that they are gone, Brooklyn Heights is without a pair of longtime community activists credited with making the Brooklyn Heights Historic District a reality in 2006. Edwards Rullman, an architect, served a two-year term as governor and a 10-year term as president of the Brooklyn Heights Association.
Francesca Rullman said that even before “Moonstruck,” their house had received attention of producers intent on capturing the stately elegancy of Brooklyn Heights.
“We had commercials and lots of stuff filmed in our house before,” she said.
In “Moonstruck,” only the exterior is used. “The part where Cher and Nicholas Cage fight in the kitchen, that was filmed in a studio,” Lokitz said.
Lokitz speculated the house was chosen because “it’s a corner house, which gives much better exposures.”
But he stressed that the new owners did not buy the house because of its role in “Moonstruck.”
“It wound up having no influence, but I used it in advertising as something that identified the house,” he said.
The four-story townhouse is actually a two-family dwelling. It includes a one-bedroom rental on the garden level and a three-bedroom, two-study house on the upper three floors.
