The sidewalk in front of the Colonial Revival featured in this listing photo has been known for its chalkboard poems put out front.
Photo: Compass
Walk through Ditmas Park to gawk at the grand Victorians and you may have noticed a particularly gigantic white mansion on Albemarle Road with a chalkboard out front that always has a poem written on it. That would be the work of Jonathan Safran Foer, or more likely an assistant or two. The author was dating Michelle Williams around the time she bought the house — in 2015, for $2.5 million — and apparently chose to remain in the massive, columned Colonial Revival after their breakup. (City documents show that it’s currently owned by a trust, with Safran Foer as the trustee paying off the mortgage.) And now it can be yours, and you can write the poems, for $35,000 per month.
The fireplace in this listing photo is just one of the million that are found throughout this $35,000 rental.
Photo: Compass
The second-floor library shown in this listing photo opens up into a covered porch.
Photo: Compass
The eight-bedroom, seven-bath home, which listed with Compass last week, was renovated by Williams and includes a salt-water in-ground swimming pool, infrared sauna, and what seems like an endless number of fireplaces. The library is framed by floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, and the kitchen includes not one, but two dishwashers as well as a six-burner La Cornue stove. There is stained glass throughout the home and a curved staircase runs through its center. (Safran Foer seems to have a penchant for grand homes — he sold his Boerum Hill townhouse to Ryan Serhant for $7.6 million in 2018.) The front terrace, which sits between two columns, would be ideal for people-watching except that, because you will be the one in the $35,000 a month rental, passers-by will likely be the ones staring at you.
The listed price is just shy of the record-breaking Brooklyn Heights apartment that Ed Sheeran rented for $36,000 last year. (Though nowhere near Bad Bunny’s monthly outlays for his $150,000-per-month penthouse.) If you go in on it with 18 of your friends, it shakes out to $2,000 each. Kind of a deal?
