Building of the Day: 286 Vanderbilt Avenue

Brooklyn, one building at a time.

Name: Townhouse
Address: 286 Vanderbilt Avenue
Cross Streets: Lafayette and DeKalb Avenues
Neighborhood: Fort Greene
Year Built: 1868
Architectural Style: Second Empire
Architect: (Builder) William O. Purdy
Landmarked: Yes, part of Fort Greene HD (1978)

The story: If this house was across the street, it would be in the Clinton Hill Historic District, but lies, instead in Fort Greene, making Vanderbilt Avenue a very friendly border state. This house is sandwiched in between a group of 1889 Arts and Crafts houses built by Charles Pratt’s Morris Building Company: William Tubby, architect, and an earlier group of Neo-Grecs, designed and built in 1879 by L. W. Seaman, for Abram Purdy. Eleven years before, in 1868, this petite Second Empire Home was built for William O. Purdy. The Purdy’s were builders, and are on record for speculative housing in Fort Greene and Clinton Hill, just before the boom period of the Clinton Hill mansions of the Gilded Age.

I couldn’t find much out all that much about the Purdy’s, who seemed to be father (William) and son (Abram). Abram had been a captain in the United States Army during the Civil War. The Purdy clan seemed to be in court a lot. Abram Purdy was one of those named in a suit against Tammany Hall operatives in 1854. (Hard to tell if this was him or not, name listed as “Abraham”.) But it was definitely him, and his wife, Emeline, and others getting sued by a fire insurance company in 1861 or he was out suing other family members. At one point in 1875, Abram Purdy won a judgment against James and Jane Purdy, and they had to give up the land they owned on this block, part of which constituted the land that Abram would build the Neo-Grecs on, next door at 280-284 Vanderbilt.

Real estate and politics, some things never change. What did change, however, was the neighborhood around this house, but amazingly, not much about the house itself. Some details that rarely survive, like the wrought iron cresting on the house, are still there. It’s unknown when, or why the center bay windows were closed up, but the eyebrow lintels have all survived, as has the original slate Mansard roof, the front doors, the wrought iron fencing and the low stoop. This is a little gem of a house – an elegant lady, holding her own. GMAP