$40M Brooklyn Heights home now being offered as pricey rentals

Brooklyn’s most expensive listing is no longer—at least, not as an absurd $40 million mansion, anyway. The 17,500-square-foot house at 3 Pierrepont Place, right on the Brooklyn Heights Promenade, first hit the market nearly two years ago but never found a buyer—nor did it get a price chop. Even Matt Damon checking out the place wasn’t enough to get a potential buyer interested.

But instead of taking it off the market altogether, the seller is trying another tactic: splitting the enormous mansion into pricey rentals. Corcoran townhouse guru Vicki Negron still holds the listing, which is now four separate units:

• #3C, a $4,500/month one-bedroom with a fireplace and central air-conditioning
• #3B, a $5,500/month one-bedroom with both of those features, along with “cinematic river and city views” (so, it probably faces the Promenade)
• A garden-level two-bedroom, two-bathroom apartment with “indirect sunlight” (it is garden level, after all) and scant other details, asking $6,500/month
• And a 1,700-square-foot two-bedroom on the house’s top level, asking $12,000/month; it has two fireplaces, a master bedroom with en-suite bathroom, an “expansive” kitchen, and three exposures

There’s also a communal roof deck available to residents of all four apartments.

So why the change? That’s the million-dollar (or $40 million, maybe) question, but the answer is pretty simple: The owner decided to keep the home as an investment property, according to Negron.

Still, this would be far from the first überpricey New York City residence to stagnate on the market for a year or more—heck, Brooklyn’s second-priciest home, a $24 million condo atop One Brooklyn Bridge Park, has been on the market for almost a year—before switching things up. (Hel-lo, One57.)

In addition to being one of the borough’s most expensive homes, 3 Pierrepoint also one of the oldest: It’s known as the Low Mansion, and was built in 1857 for its former owner, businessman A. A. Low. His son Seth would go on to become the mayor of Brooklyn, and later mayor of the consolidated city of New York in 1902.

• Listing: 3 Pierrepont Place [Corcoran via StreetEasy]
• Former New York Mayor's Mansion Wants Record-Setting $40M [Curbed]
• The 20 most expensive Brooklyn homes for sale [Curbed]