421 Franklin Ave. #4

The Chicken House, on Franklin Ave, has a lovely apartment available for at least a year (likely longer) and we’re looking for someone nice and mellow to join our community.

The apartment is 750 square feet and has two (really 1.5) bedrooms—one large, one small—a kitchen, a bathroom, a big sitting parlor, and a fabulous roof deck, which is 14 × 20 and has outdoor dining furniture and excellent views. It’s sunny (and every window looks out onto trees), it has lovely old wood floors and beadboard walls, the kitchen has a dishwasher, and there’s a washing machine two floors down. It can come partially furnished or unfurnished. Also: free wifi.

The apartment is on the third floor of a stand-alone house from the 1860s and is surrounded on three sides by a huge yard. The maple-shaded front yard has handsome, quiet chickens, who you can watch from the porch swing. The side yard has secure, covered bike parking and a swingset. The back yard has a grass lawn, raised vegetable beds, herbs, berries, fig tree, apple tree, grapevine, roses, hammock, lounge chairs, picnic tables, bluestone patio, grill, smoker, fire pit, three-bin compost system, and clothesline. (And, incidentally, a canoe, which really wants to be used.)

The porch and yard are shared by the folks who live in the rest of the house, but the roof deck would be yours alone. Everyone who lives here is smart, sane, and sweet. The couple who owns the house live in the garden apartment with their eight-year-old, so being child-friendly is a must.

We’ve lived here fourteen years, and we love this community and have great neighbors. We’re right on the border of Clinton Hill and Bed-Stuy—five blocks from the Franklin C, seven from the Classon G and Nostrand A, and one block from two different Citibike stations. Near lots of great bars, cafes, restaurants, wine stores—Golda’s, Hart’s, Doris, Diamond Reef, Dynaco, Mixtape Shop, Daily Press, Bedford Hills, Tip Top, Hartley’s, Stonefruit, Dough, Speedy Romeo, Fancy Nancy, Clementine. One block away there’s a great grocery store, a decent Ymca, and a fabulous ceramics studio (Art Shack). The oldest library in Brooklyn is three blocks away, as is the Greene Hill Food Coop. Easy walk to Pratt, Bam, Fort Greene Park. Easy, all-bike-lane cycle to Williamsburg, quick bike or shuttle to Prospect Park.

The house was featured in Brooklyn Magazine’s “25 Best Houses in Brooklyn” (http://www.bkmag.com/2014/04/15/the-25-best-houses-in-brooklyn-a-highly-subjective-list/15/) and has a colorful past—about which, see: “The House of Much History” in The NY Times.

Rent is $2600, all bills included.

We’re having an open house on Thursday, July 12, from 6-8. Email to rsvp. (No smokers or pets, sorry.)