A unit in a church-to-condo conversion dubbed The Abbey has blessed Fort Greene with a new price record.
Originally asking $3.85 million off-market, a bidding war pushed the purchase price of unit 9 to $4.07 million, with the buyer agreeing to cover $83,000 in transfer taxes, according to Douglas Elliman’s Jessica Peters, who is leading sales at the building with Daniel Fried. The purchase price includes a $20,000 storage unit.
The final price, including concessions for the 2,023-square-foot home, puts the deal at $2,052 per square foot, a new per-foot record in the neighborhood.
The three-bedroom home retained several original Gothic revival-style arched windows in the living room and bedrooms, with the bedrooms featuring circular stained glass above lancet arches.
The open-concept great room features a 20-foot vaulted ceiling that looks up to a hexagonal dome overhead. The side-by-side 36-inch Sub-Zero fridge and freezer are paneled into the wall, and the home comes with a library ladder to reach upper-level cabinetry.
Completed in 1888, the church was converted into rentals in 2016 before KSR Development scooped up the property for over $12 million in 2024 to turn it into luxury condos. Peters and Fried have sold eight of the 12 condos, including unit 10, which sits in the church’s original bell tower, which was priced at $4 million. The building has a projected sellout of nearly $27 million, with studios starting at just under $1.4 million, one-bedrooms starting at $1.6 million and two-bedrooms beginning at $1.9 million.
The building also boasts some new-fangled amenities, including a fitness center and a sauna in the basement.
Pricing The Abbey proved to be a challenge in a neighborhood mostly filled with historic townhouses and brownstone condo conversions. Two units in the building couldn’t even be appraised, according to Peters, who got an exception through one of her preferred lenders.
“None of the comps showed us anything higher than $1,675, $1,700 a foot,” Peters said. “It’s very rare that you get to see something like this. So I think just our gut instinct was to price it the way we felt it should be priced, and it worked.”
The previous record-holder in terms of price per square foot appears to be unit 4 at 242 Adelphi Street, which sold for $3.4 million in 2023, or $1,946 per square foot. The top-floor duplex in the converted townhouse went for nearly 30 percent over its asking price.
Earlier this year, an unfinished five-story townhouse at 39 South Portland Avenue sold for $8.75 million in an all-cash deal, marking the priciest residential sale in Fort Greene. The $1,365 price per square foot of that sale still falls far short of the per-square-foot prices at The Abbey.
“What I’ve seen in Fort Greene is that buyers are willing to pay the price points for special things,” Peters said.
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