Brooklyn, one building at a time.

Name: Row houses
Address: 463-465 Clinton Avenue
Cross streets: Gates and Greene avenues
Neighborhood: Clinton Hill
Year Built: 1902
Architectural style: Beaux-Arts
Architect: Mercein Thomas
Other work by architect: Methodist Home for the Aged in Crown Heights North, as well as numerous row houses in Clinton Hill and Bedford Stuyvesant and elsewhere.
Landmarked: Yes, part of Clinton Hill Historic District (1981)

Clinton Avenue has a lot of great houses, but these two are really gems. They were designed by Mercein Thomas, an architect whose fingerprints are all over the general Clinton Hill area, with row houses on practically every block in the neighborhood. Because he mostly worked in earlier styles; Neo-Grec, Italianate and Queen Anne, it’s quite surprising to see these lovely white Beaux-Arts houses with his name on them. Goes to show that the best architects adapted, and were able to learn entirely new style vocabularies.

463-465 Clinton Ave, 2

463 is widely regarded as the finest Beaux-Arts residence in Brooklyn. The LPC says it would look quite at home in the Upper East Side Historic District. It is wonderfully three-dimensional, a feature of the Beaux-Arts style, with all of the gleaming limestone, curved stairways, lavish details, cartouches and columns that make it look so rich.

The house belonged first to General Morgan Bogart, a Civil War General, Congressman and businessman. He bought the house, but never lived in it, the first to do so was his son, Dr. J. Bion Bogart, a surgeon at Methodist Hospital and at Kings County Hospital. When he moved on, he sold the house in 1926 to another doctor.

Right next door, 465, the corner house, belong to William Berri and his heirs. Berri had sold the General the plot next door in 1901. William Berri’s family had been in the rug business, and William worked for them for many years before getting into the printing business.

Christopher Bride for Property Shark
Photo by Christopher Bride for PropertyShark

He was quite inventive and devised a number of improvements in printing and casting, while printing trade publications for the carpet and rug industry. He eventually became part owner, then full owner of the Brooklyn Standard Union newspaper.

Mr. Berri was a little more subdued in style than the General, so Mercein Thomas designed a more elegant Renaissance Revival style building for the corner, which in its relative simplicity and elegance quite beats the Beaux-Arts mansion next door. The entrance and portico, with its beautiful columns is one of the finest entrances on the entire street, and that’s saying a lot.

The long length of the house, along Gates Avenue, gave Thomas the opportunity to do some very nice details; with stained glass windows, carved classical details and framed blank panels which carry the classical theme without overdoing it. The house is also wonderfully wide, at 30 feet.

Clinton Hill Brooklyn 463 465 Clinton Avenue
Photo by Scott Bintner for PropertyShark

The Berri family owned the property until 1948. It was since chopped up into apartments, but never lost its grandeur, at least on the outside, fluorescent lights notwithstanding, which were still there when I took the photo, two years ago.

Today the house is being transformed back into a one family. That’s one lucky family. Mercein Thomas’ contributions to Clinton Hill’s architectural legacy are large, and these are his best. It’s great that they are still here for us to enjoy. GMAP

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