Brooklyn, one building at a time.

Name: Private house
Address: 185 Stratford Road
Cross Streets: Albemarle and Beverley Road
Neighborhood: Prospect Park South
Year Built: 1901
Architectural Style: Colonial Revival
Architect: John J. Petit
Other Work by Architect: 131 Buckingham Road (Japanese House) as well as many other houses in Prospect Park South. Also Saitta House in Dyker Heights, and other works in Brooklyn.
Landmarked: Yes, part of Prospect Park South HD (1979)

The story: This house is one of John J. Petit’s most inventive takes on the Colonial Revival Style. Petit, as the head architect of Dean Alvord’s Prospect Park South development, was unsurpassed at mixing styles and motifs, and his houses in Prospect Park South are a lasting testament to this talent. Where else would one see a Japanese/Queen Anne/Foursquare? Or a block with Tudor, Mediterranean, classic Queen Anne and Colonial Revival Temple front houses, all within sight of each other, all somehow managing to work as a neighborhood whole?

The Landmarks Preservation Commission loved this house. Here’s what they said about the design: “John J. Petit’s imaginative juxtaposition of a symmetrical double-tiered veranda against the front of an asymmetrically-fenestrated dwelling block creates the mannerist effect of a complex, screen-like facade, whose two contrasting layers are unified under a flaring hipped roof. This visual ambivalence — similar in concept to much Post-Modernist design of the 1970s — is intensified by the application of richly-modeled Classical elements to the open porch framework, while the house itself is enclosed by spare, shingle planes with simply framed doors and windows.” (more…)