This gracious, renovated Colonial in the Cottage Farm area of Brookline near Boston University is made for grand-scale entertaining, with its large reception hall off of which is a series of elegant connected rooms and a showpiece grand staircase.
Built in 1890, the seven-bedroom house at 131 Carlton St. has 6,305 square feet of space and is filled with restored woodwork and paneled wainscoting, large windows and glass doors out to patios.
The beige stucco exterior has white trim and black shutters, hip and gable roofs, dormers and a colonnaded front entrance. The 11,000-square-foot lot has a large yard enclosed by a metal fence, screened by bushes and containing many old trees as well as a brick driveway.
The home, which has a renovated kitchen, bathrooms and master bedroom suite and original hardwood floors, is on the market for $2,795,000. The current owners also added new lighting, re-carpeted the hallways and stairways and repainted the entire interior.
You enter into a large reception hall with a grand staircase, a restored wood beam ceiling and coat closets on either side. To the left is a library with lots of windows, built-ins and a fireplace. Adjacent is a sunken mahogany-paneled study/office.
To the right is a large living room with two walls of windows, a fireplace and glass doors out to a bluestone-floored side porch. Off the living room is a track-lit sunroom with brick flooring.
To the left of the sunroom, and accessible from the reception hall through French doors, is a large formal dining room with a large built-in hutch and fireplace. There are glass doors from this room out to a bluestone patio.
The house's renovated kitchen can be entered through a butler's pantry redone in 2007 with new cabinets and built-in hutch, granite counters and a wine cooler.
The large eat-in, recessed-lit kitchen, also done over in 2007, has granite counters, a green-concrete island breakfast bar with pendant lights, and high-end appliances including Thermador wall ovens. There's a sunny eat-in area with a fireplace and window seats as well as glass doors leading out to the patio.
Behind the kitchen is a recently added a half bath with glass mosaic tile.
The showpiece newly carpeted grand staircase features a multilevel landing with a set of bay windows and window seats. Up a few steps there's a laundry room with a full-size washer and dryer and a sink.
There are three bedrooms off a carpeted hallway, including a master suite with a large hardwood-floored bedroom with a seating area and a fireplace. The redone en-suite master bathroom with white Carrara marble floors and walls has a walk-in shower, double marble-topped vanities and a whirlpool tub. A large, redone carpeted master closet features walls of built-in wardrobes and storage areas.
The second and third bedrooms also have hardwood floors and roomy closets and are served by a full bath with white ceramic tile floors and a white subway-tiled tub and shower.
There are four additional bedrooms on the third floor, all with original hardwood floors and closets, along with another white-ceramic tile full bathroom.
There's an additional 450 square feet of space in the partially finished basement, a second laundry room and a full bathroom.
The home is conveniently located about two blocks over the Mass Pike to Boston University's main campus and nor far from the BU Bridge to Cambridge.
