A Modern Townhouse Rises in Brooklyn and an Anonymous Critic Follows

New York Times

27-05-2025

The five-story, two-family modern townhouse made of all-white stucco fully unveiled itself earlier this year in the Clinton Hill neighborhood of Brooklyn.
Erected on a corner lot in a neighborhood dominated by brownstones and prewar buildings, it's impossible to miss — made even more striking by entry doors painted traffic cone orange. The house hit the market in March with an eye-watering price tag of $5.25 million to match the eye-catching design.
That, residents say, made it a target. And sometime in May, the building got tagged — not with traditional spray-painted graffiti, but with a small museum-style plaque that spoke to a much larger issue.
'New York City
Housing Crisis, 2025
New apartments, full furnished, warmly lit, no inhabitants
This piece asks us to consider the tension between NYC's historically low apartment vacancy rate (1.6%) and the price of this vacant duplex ($5.25m).'
The New York Times could not locate the identity of the unauthorized mystery curator. Sometime between Sunday afternoon and Monday afternoon, the plaque was removed.
The award-winning Swiss architect Inès Lamunière, who designed the house, and Matthias Müller, the owner of the Brooklyn-based firm MuNYC Architecture, did not respond to requests for comment. Lucy Perry, the listing agent, also did not respond to requests for comment.
But the neighborhood is talking.
Nate Patterson, 40, who has lived in Clinton Hill since 2020, said he first thought the architects might have been ego-tripping and labeled their own work a piece of gallery-worthy art. But then he looked closer.
Mr. Patterson works in fund-raising for the nonprofit City Harvest, a food rescue organization. The guerrilla plaque spoke to him. 'I thought it summed up what I don't like about this building perfectly,' he said.
The statements on the plaque weren't perfectly accurate. The building at 272 Greene Avenue is not a single duplex; it includes a duplex and a triplex, as well as a garage. And as of May 21, the asking price has fallen to $4.85 million.
The conspicuous house has arrived at a time when Clinton Hill is increasingly in demand and out of reach even for wealthier New Yorkers. The neighborhood was declared the 'hottest housing market' in the U.S., according to data from Redfin, with median home prices at $1.4 million. That is combined with a citywide affordability crisis, with half of New York families unable to afford food, health care and housing, according to a 2023 report by the Fund for the City of New York, which advises government agencies.
Concerns about further gentrification and the lack of affordable housing have clouded what some in the architectural community consider an imaginative design. The building's structure looks like a pair of paper triangles sitting on top of one another. Ms. Lamunière, 70, has designed prominent buildings and complexes throughout Europe, including the Pictet Tower in Geneva, which is set to be the city's tallest building when completed.
Mason Nabors, a Brooklyn-based architect, said he admired the building's design, especially considering the placement of the lot on a busy intersection, which can introduce a lot of design complications. 'A corner is a huge condition to address, so you're bound to have critics, regardless,' he said.
Not everyone is upset about the new neighbor.
Hazra Ali has lived in the neighborhood for 22 years and said that she didn't think there was anything wrong with a developer trying to sell a building at market price. 'Someone spent the money to buy the lot and build something,' said Ms. Ali, a local community leader who is also a landlord with a property in East New York. 'Are they supposed to sell it for $50 because there's a housing crisis? If you can't afford to live here, then move.'
Still, standing outside the Greene Food Deli directly across the street from 272 Greene, Sam Habib, the deli owner, and John Boyd, a regular customer, were bewildered yet captivated. They couldn't take their eyes off it.
The building, with wall-to-wall windows on the second and third floors, is invitingly voyeuristic. Passers-by have an unobstructed view into two of the second-floor bedrooms, both of which have been staged with furniture.
'It just doesn't really fit with the rest of the neighborhood,' Mr. Boyd, 77, said. 'All that glass and white concrete. It looks so out of place.'
Mr. Habib, 68, has been in the neighborhood for 50 years, and said change was inevitable and with it comes wealth. 'The amount of money in this neighborhood now — someone will buy it,' he said, gesturing to a set of new condos that sold quickly just up Classon Avenue.
He remembers when the 272 Greene Avenue lot was home to a gas station and then a garage. Then, the property was neglected before a developer bought it for $1.166 million in 2016.
Ian McGillivray, a graffiti artist, moved to the neighborhood more than 20 years ago. He was commissioned to paint a colorful mural of overlapping cartoon faces on the garage to generate interest in the lot in 2016.
When he first moved to Clinton Hill, many of his neighbors were using Section 8 housing vouchers and the neighborhood was more affordable, he said. 'I realized after I painted the mural that it was being used to upsell the neighborhood,' Mr. McGillivray, 40, said. 'It left a sour taste in my mouth.'
To see what was ultimately built on the lot is disappointing, he said, so he, too, was a fan of the plaque.
'It spoke volumes about the housing crisis,' Mr. McGillivray said. 'An art plaque on that big, white, faceless cement wall. I thought it was a great tribute to the community.'