Gray Wolf's Howl: HOW HEIGHT PRICES HAVE SOARED ON CONVENT AVENUE

Friday, February 1, 2008

HOW HEIGHT PRICES HAVE SOARED ON CONVENT AVENUE

Friday, February 01, 2008
Last Update: 12:40 AM EST

HOW HEIGHT
PRICES HAVE SOARED ON CONVENT AVENUE
By MAX GROSS

January 31, 2008 -- STAND smack in the center of Hamilton Heights, at Convent Avenue and 148th Street, and you'll see the block that perhaps best sums up how real-estate prices in the area have risen.

In 1976, the four-story townhouse at 413 Convent Ave. was sold for $25,000. By the mid-1980s, similar buildings, at 412 and 410 Convent Ave., had gone for $35,000 and $47,000, respectively.

By 2000 there was a major jump in area prices.

"When we bought it, we paid more than the neighborhood average," says Amos Levy, who lives in the stately, 3,300-square-foot house at 416 Convent Ave. that he bought for $660,000 in 2000. "It was $200 per square foot." (Levy and his wife paid a premium because it was in excellent shape.)

And you can look across the street to see how prices skyrocketed since 2000. At 417 Convent Ave. sits a 5,000-square-foot house, which sold in 2003 for $995,000. The buyers were actor Blayne Perry (whose credits include HBO's "Oz") and his wife, Buffy.

"They took one step toward it and they were wild-eyed," says broker Ron Lense of Prudential Douglas Elliman, who sold them the house.

The former home of theater producer Woodie King Jr., it "was famous for the elaborate parties he would throw," says Blayne Perry. Sidney Poitier and James Earl Jones passed through its rooms.

Now 417 Convent Ave. is back on the market; the Perrys are moving to South Carolina.
"It was not really our intention to leave," says Perry, meaning that he didn't buy the home intending to make a huge profit.

But he can't complain about what he might get for his townhouse. Lense has the listing for $3.295 million.