One of Brooklyn’s best-known mansions is now occupied by one of the biggest names in house flipping.
The turreted Romanesque Revival house was built in the late 1880s for chewing gum magnate Thomas Adams Jr. New owners John and Tina Novogratz come with their own kind of pedigree: Mr. Novogratz’s brother Robert and wife Cortney are interior designers and developers who had their own Bravo television show “9 by Design.”
While John and Tina also renovated and sold several of their previous homes, they said they have no plans to part with this one. “This is our dream house,” Ms. Novogratz said of the sandstone and brick home, which has a rust-colored exterior festooned with gargoyles and other elaborate designs. They moved into the house in December after restoring the building and transforming it from an apartment building into a home for their five children.
Mr. Novogratz, 42, who works in finance, bought the roughly 10,000-square-foot building for $5.99 million, according to public records. The restoration and renovation cost about another $5 million, according to Christa Horrigan of Horrigan O’Malley Architects.
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Dubbed the “Chiclet Mansion” for its chewing gum-related past, the house was converted in the 1950s into 11 small apartments plus a doctor’s office, Ms. Horrigan said. By the time the Novogratzes drove by one evening about three years ago, it had fallen into disrepair. Nonetheless, when they spotted a real estate agent erecting a for sale sign outside the house, they jumped out of the car and negotiated to buy it that night.
At the time “there were holes in the ceiling, holes in the walls, the floors were peeling up,” recalled Ms. Novogratz. Still, much of the original detail—including carved oak woodwork in the entryway and the dining room’s embossed leather ceiling—was intact. It took about 13 months to get the correct permits from the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission, which wanted to ensure the renovation wouldn’t significantly alter the historic character of the building, Ms. Horrigan explained.
The living room of the home of Tina and John Novogratz and their five children.
PHOTO: DOROTHY HONG FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNALApprovals secured, the restoration process began. The exterior’s intricate designs had badly deteriorated, so stone masons used old photographs to recreate them. The house has about 32 stained glass windows; each one was taken apart, cleaned and re-leaded, Ms. Novogratz said.
Inside, the Novogratzes removed the bevy of small kitchens and returned many of the rooms to their original grand proportions while putting in new floors, plumbing and electrical systems. They restored the woodwork, and Ms. Novogratz even kept some original toilets, pedestal sinks and cast-iron bathtubs, electing not to reglaze them “because I like the patina that comes with an old fixture.”
But they also strove to make the home more compatible with modern life. To create an open kitchen with easy access to the outdoors, the Novogratzes built a new kitchen in what had been a butler’s pantry on the main floor, and removed the wall that separated it from the dining room, using the leftover wood paneling to build a circular banquette. Natural light pours in through a new glass door to the backyard, and Ms. Novogratz chose modern, all-white kitchen countertops and cabinets to counteract the dark wood.
The resulting kitchen accommodated 30 kids at her daughter’s birthday party. “I love having the space to be able to do that,” she said.
Write to Candace Taylor at Candace.Taylor@wsj.com