Norman Mailer added this skylight and gangway, stuffed with nautical details, including a vintage door (right) and a porthole window that is just out of frame in this listing photo.
Photo: Rachel Kuzma
Norman Mailer, when he sat down to write, liked having a view. Which is how he ended up living on the Brooklyn Heights Promenade in a 25-foot-wide townhouse whose lower floors he gradually sold, saving the top — with the best views — for himself. His walk-up, on the fourth floor, became a two-bedroom apartment with the feel of a duplex, thanks to a unique addition: a kind of crow’s nest, capped with a skylight and flanked with gangways that looked over the living area. A separate room downstairs served as his writing studio when he was in town; he finished The Executioner’s Song, arguably his masterpiece, there. Even in his 80s, with bad hips and knees, Mailer continued to do the three flights, walking with a pair of canes.
142 Columbia Heights in Brooklyn. Mailer bought the building, then sold off lower units as co-ops and lived on the top floor.
Photo: Rachel Kuzma
The design was part of Mailer’s macho lore — an idea he cooked up to conquer one of his (many) flaws. As his son Michael Mailer told the New York Times when the apartment first went on the market in 2011, Norman Mailer suffered from vertigo and was trying to vanquish it through a form of design as exposure therapy. But the layout was also fun for his nine kids: Michael remembered hanging a trapeze, a rope ladder, and a hammock in which Hunter S. Thompson was once discovered after a night of partying.
Since those days, the apartment’s been brought up to code and painted in glossy white, and the kitchen has been opened up and cleared of a dark bar top. (The family kept it for a while after his sixth and final wife, Norris Church Mailer, died, and eventually sold it, in 2018, for $2 million — a price that included the writing studio, which the owner isn’t renting out.) But there’s still a lot of character: stained-glass windows in the living area and nautical features that Cap’n Mailer brought in, including a metal door (uselessly swinging off that upper floor), a porthole window facing onto a terrace with views of the East River, and a slight curve to the ceiling of the living room — paneled in slats of teak that recall the planking of a hull.
The apartment’s broker, David Son, listed the apartment for rent once before, in 2022, for $8,500 a month — a price that sparked what he referred to as an “insane bidding war.” This time around, Son and the owner decided to raise the asking rent to $13,000 — reflective of both more interest in downtown Brooklyn and higher prices for apartments with character. He expects to find a taker quickly. “Anyone in here is blown away,” he said.
The entryway (right) opens into a dining area that looks into a galley kitchen and a wide living area with views of the East River over the promenade.
Photo: Rachel Kuzma
Past the dining area are doors to two bedrooms that overlook Columbia Heights.
Photo: Rachel Kuzma
A kitchen counter rests over built-in bookshelves that stretch the length of the living room. The ceiling bows slightly like the hull of a ship.
Photo: Rachel Kuzma
The stained glass is original. Sliding doors lead to a private terrace.
Photo: Rachel Kuzma
The terrace off the living area.
Photo: Rachel Kuzma
Upstairs, off the gangway addition, there are two private roof patios.
Photo: Rachel Kuzma
One of the two bedrooms. Each has built-in storage space (right) and arched windows that peer over Columbia Heights from a mansard roof.
Photo: Rachel Kuzma
The second bedroom with a row of closets (right).
Photo: Rachel Kuzma
