194 Columbia Heights trades for $15M

Overview

An Italianate brownstone on the Brooklyn Heights Promenade -- vacant and boarded for roughly 30 years, nicknamed the neighborhood's "spite house" -- sold for $15 million in June 2026, matching the asking price Curbed reported when the listing hit the market that April. The Moore & Chisholm Trust, through trustees Austin Moore and June F. Chisholm, sold the property to 194 Columbia Heights LLC, an anonymous buyer entity. No construction or renovation filing has been found yet.

Built around 1860, the roughly 7,500-square-foot, six-story house was occupied by one family for two generations before passing through at least one other owner on the way to the Moore family. Corcoran broker Vicki Negron, who marketed the listing, described a "treasure chest" of original Italian-marble fireplaces, parquet flooring, moldings, and hand-forged hardware -- along with a stained-glass window the family kept rather than sold, depicting the Statue of Liberty with her hand pointed toward its real location on the waterfront rather than upward. Negron estimated the house would need $6 million to $10 million in work to make it livable again; all back taxes on the property had been paid off before the sale.

For decades, neighbors speculated about why one of the block's finest homes sat empty on a stretch of Columbia Heights with Manhattan skyline views -- rumors included it being kept vacant to "spite" a former partner. Curbed reported the actual owner, Austin Moore, was simply not interested in occupying or renovating the property himself, and that the family trust was finally ready to sell.

One of the Promenade's last long-vacant buildings has new ownership -- the obvious next question is what happens to it, and nothing filed yet answers that.

Parties Involved 2 recorded

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Property & Project