Brooklyn, one building at a time.

Name: Carriage House/Garage
Address: 361 Waverly Avenue
Cross Streets: Lafayette and Greene Avenues
Neighborhood: Clinton Hill
Year Built: early 20th century
Architectural Style: Neo-Tudor
Architect: Unknown
Landmarked: Yes, part of Clinton Hill HD (1981)

The story: Waverly Avenue, between Willoughby and Gates, developed as a service street, with carriage houses and stables that served the grand mansions of Washington and Clinton Avenues. The street was originally called Hamilton Street, probably named after Alexander Hamilton, adding to the panoply of prominent early American heroes with local streets named in their honor, in this neighborhood. Interspersed among these carriage houses are some of the earliest houses in Clinton Hill, very important in their own right, but it’s the carriage houses that give these blocks their distinctive look.

The carriage houses run the gamut from plain and utilitarian, to over the top, dripping in more detail than some of the local houses. Some we have no records on, as service building records were not seen as all that important, and for some we have excellent records, as they were built by prominent architects for very prominent people. This carriage house is one of those whose records seem to have slipped through the cracks. But even so, it remains one of the more interesting buildings on this block.

It’s the only carriage house in the Neo-Tudor style. Tudor style houses rose in popularity in the very last years of the 19th century, into the first two decades of the 20th. They were primarily a suburban style of home, especially able to shine on large lots, so that the Tudor details; the half-timber and stucco facades, the small, often diamond-shaped casement windows, the heavy prominent beams, all have room to spread out. These houses became so popular in the new upscale commuter suburbs that they got a new nickname that still sticks: “Banker’s Tudors.”

Here in the city, rowhouses and apartment buildings took on Tudor details, all trying to entice buyers with some semblance of Tudor style, just like the ‘burbs. There are great examples of these buildings, mostly built in the late teens and twenties, all over city, especially in Brooklyn, the Bronx and Queens. It’s a fun style, and a welcome change from the ornate and formal Beaux-Arts and Renaissance Revival styles, and less stuffy than Colonial Revival, as well. It also makes for a great carriage house.

Like many of the later carriage houses in the area, this one was built in the 20th century for automobiles, not horses. It has a wide entrance for two cars, and an upstairs apartment for the chauffeur. The Flemish bond brick building is very attractive, with pedimented dormers and Tudor-style bargeboards. The whole building has a definite rhythm, with asymmetrical elements kept in a balance by the use of dormers, canopies and shed roofs. The rooflines, windows and doorways here just dance, keeping the necessary utility of the garage as important as the secondary use as a dwelling for the chauffeur. It’s really well done.

We don’t know who the garage was built for, was it someone on Washington, or Clinton Avenue? The more modern design of the building really doesn’t mean much, as it could have been built for a new owner of the oldest house on either block. The records are gone. Whoever designed it wasn’t a hack, or a journeyman, this is quite a sophisticated design. Could it have been Slee & Bryson, the masters of Neo-Tudor and Colonial Revival over in Flatbush, PLG and Crown Heights? We may never know. GMAP


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