Oliver and Katia Lief wanted a place to raise a family when they bought their townhouse in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn, in 1996, but they were a little concerned about affording the mortgage. So early on, they rented out the building, which was divided into three units, before eventually moving in.
“We then took two of the apartments and combined them and rented out the first floor,” Mr. Lief said. “As our careers grew, we decided to go without a tenant — and it worked.”
They paid $340,700 for the brick building, at 67 Dean Street, and later added on two levels, which became not just their family home but also their work space. Ms. Lief writes popular crime novels from an office on the top floor, and Mr. Lief, an Emmy Award-winning film and TV editor, runs the postproduction studio Blue Table Post there, working with a host of celebrities. (Meryl Streep recorded the voice-overs for Michelle Obama’s “We Will Rise” documentary at the studio.)
But with their son and daughter out of the house, they’re now ready for a change. The revamped home/work space, with its terraced garden, rooftop deck and a two-vehicle, gated carport, is back on the market. The asking price is $9.75 million, according to Judith Lief of the Corcoran Group, the couple’s broker and their sister-in-law. Annual property taxes are $21,768.
“It’s a very unusual property,” Judith Lief said. While it can be used solely as a residence, she added, she plans to mainly target buyers in the film industry.
The Liefs estimate that they spent around $1.8 million to create the studio and on other renovations and additions that were just completed in 2016. Along the way, they said, construction crews doing excavations for the studio discovered a cannonball dating back to the Battle of Brooklyn during the Revolutionary War, which remains stored away at the home.
The house, about a mile from both Fort Greene and Brooklyn Bridge parks, is 25 feet wide with five levels and sits on a 25-by-100-foot lot. The structure has a total of 4,940 square feet of interior space and separate entrances for the studio and residence. Both sides have access to a two-tier, central garden with a variety of perennial flowers and ferns.
“We fell in love with the garden — the vines, the ivy — it was so beautiful like an English garden,” said Katia Lief, a prolific writer whose latest novel, “Invisible Woman,” was published last year.
The studio encompasses the garden and lower levels of the townhouse. Along with a reception area/art gallery with a marble gas fireplace, kitchenette and full bathroom, it contains areas dedicated to Mr. Lief’s work: editing rooms, a vocal booth and a theater, among them.
The three floors above the studio make up the residential portion, which has oak floors and oversize windows throughout. On the second floor of the townhouse are three bedrooms, two full bathrooms and a laundry closet. The primary bedroom suite features a marble bathroom with a separate steam shower and a soaking tub.
On the third floor is a loftlike space, with a powder room and an open kitchen, dining area and living room with another marble gas fireplace. The kitchen is outfitted with stainless-steel appliances, custom cabinets of pearwood and beechwood, concrete countertops and a multi-tier breakfast bar.
At the top of the house is an office/guest room, with a half-bath, that opens to a 380-square-foot terrace with a pergola and private garden.
“We had a lot of work parties in the front, and then on the roof terrace we had private dinners with friends,” Mr. Lief said. Over the years, Mr. Lief, who has won three Emmy Awards, has worked with several well-known people in the movie industry, among them, Spike Lee, Michelle Williams, Ethan Hawke, and Paul Rudd.
The couple are unsure about where their next move might be.
“I moved to this neighborhood 43 years ago fresh out of college,” Katia Lief said. “It was a very nowhere place back then. It was nice and I could afford it. I’m not keen on leaving.”
But, she added, “the country would be amazing.”
