Look Inside: This Three-Story $2.8M Storybook Home in Queens Is Straight Out of a Fairytale

• 17 Bow Street 
• Located in Forest Hills, Queens
• $2,795,000
• 6 bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms

An elegant Tudor-style home draped in ivy boasts a spacious backyard that opens into a grassy field. Inside, there’s a wood-burning fireplace. Throughout the neighborhood are sloping, curved streets and architectural gems like red-tiled gabled roofs, mullioned windows, towers, and turrets. 

Sound like the scene of a fairytale staged in England? That was exactly the vision for this Queens, New York, enclave that dials up storybook charm. 

The three-story home that’s for sale in the idyllic Forest Hills Gardens neighborhood was built in 1905. Back then, architect and urban planner Grosvenor Atterbury and landscape architect Frederic Law Olmsted Jr. (whose father helped design Central Park) were commissioned to plan a new town on a 140-acre patch of Queens County. Together, they were inspired by the garden city movement in England that strategically preserved country charm within city limits by allowing for ample greenbelt space. 

Today, Forest Hills Gardens remains a well-preserved planned community with four parks and a covenant that limits industry in order to preserve its bygone-era charm. Still, it’s close to the city (just 20 minutes!) with access into Midtown via E, F, or R subways from a Forest Hills stop.

The home, with steep gabled roofs, has a solarium, winter garden, and a kitchen with a separate breakfast area. The original staircase leads up to the second floor, where there’s a master bedroom, a second bedroom, and bathroom. The third floor has two more bedrooms (one’s ideal for a home office) and comes with a private balcony and bathroom.

The basement is a finished apartment with a kitchen, bathroom, and wine cellar.

Oh, and don’t be surprised if this tucked-away neighborhood looks familiar. It played a role in Alfred Hitchcock’s classic “Strangers on a Train.” Also, “Mildred Piece,” an HBO miniseries about 1930’s Beverly Hills starring Kate Winslet, filmed in the neighborhood.

Are you on the house hunt, or just the type of person who loves browsing real estate listings, even when you’re not in the market for a new home? Property Crush is a column where we feature actual real estate listings that get the Apartment Therapy seal of approval in regards to style (we haven’t done home inspections or anything, so don’t sue us). Know of a great house on the market? E-mail the listing to repitches@apartmenttherapy.com.

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