559 Bedford, WB, 1

Brooklyn, one building at a time.

Name: Built as Millard Fillmore Smith House, now Congregation Arugath Habosem
Address: 559 Bedford Avenue
Cross Streets: Corner Rodney Street
Neighborhood: Williamsburg
Year Built: 18901886
Architectural Style: Queen Anne
Architect: UnknownPeter J. Lauritzen
Landmarked: No

The story: We tend to call any large house in this city a “mansion,” but this one certainly stands up to the name. It’s an enormous 45 by 60 foot house, with over 6,000 square feet of living space. It was built for the head of Brooklyn’s largest clothing manufacturer, and is not far from his factory and company headquarters, which were also in Williamsburg. The house belonged to Millard Fillmore Smith, and his company was called Smith Gray & Company, the largest manufacturer of boys and children’s clothing in the entire country.

Smith Gray & Co. was founded by Millard’s father, Edward Smith, and his brother-in-law, Allen Gray. Theirs was a New York success story. Smith was a tailor, cutter and fitter in Lower Manhattan, in 1833, and Gray was a patternmaker. During their day, children’s clothing was “made to measure” for the wealthy, or made by mothers at home, there were no companies manufacturing children’s clothes. They launched the first wholesale ready to wear boys and children’s clothing company, selling mostly down South. The Civil War killed his business, but in 1864, Smith tried again, opening a factory on Broadway in Williamsburg, a retail store on Bedford Avenue, and then a much larger five story cast iron fronted retail store and factory on Broadway.

The business took on new partners, and continued to grow, needing more and more buildings to contain the ever growing operation. Smith’s son Millard Fillmore Smith joined the company in 1880. They would eventually open a large and handsome store in Downtown Brooklyn, and a store in Manhattan, at the same time their factory space increased yet again in Williamsburg. Their wholesale business made them the largest clothing manufacturer in the country. Edward Smith died in 1892, and Millard became president of the company. He remained president until his own death in 1911.

Millard Edward had this house built in 18901886. Unfortunately, any other building records have not turned up. This is probably the work of someone established, so hopefully the records are somewhere in existence. I would love to know who the architect was. (UPDATE: It was P.J. Lauritzen) It’s a grand brick and terra cotta structure. The terra cotta trim on this house is just wonderfully over the top, and makes it even more noticeable on the street. The tower probably had a conical roof, covered in slate tiles. It would have been a fine complement to the great loggia porch with the sunburst detail on the third floor.

Millard Smith was very active in the Williamsburg community, and the larger Brooklyn community. He was also the part owner and treasurer of the Brooklyn Union Publishing Company, which published the Brooklyn Standard Union, a rival daily paper to the Brooklyn Eagle. Like many wealthy men, he also sat on the trustee board of two banks, the Hamilton Trust and the Broadway Bank. He was also a founding member of the Hanover Club, which was just down the street from this house, as well as a member of the posh Crescent Athletic Club, the Union League Club, and the Riding and Driving Club of Park Slope. He was also a member of the Kismet Temple of the Mystic Shrine.

Smith and his wife lived in this house with their three daughters and two sons. Their youngest son, Millard Fillmore Smith, Jr. died of appendicitis at the family’s summer home in Lake George, in 1907. He was only 20, and a graduate of Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute. One of the daughters, Marlon, had her wedding reception at the house after getting married at a nearby Episcopal church in 1909. One of the ushers was Lauritz Lauritzen, a son of architect Peter J. Lauritzen. Lauritzen was the architect of several of Smith Gray & Company’s stores, including the beautiful store in Downtown Brooklyn. He must have been a family friend, and may have been the architect of this house, although I have no evidence of that.

Like his son, a sudden death overtook Millard Smith, in 1911. He hadn’t been feeling well in the afternoon of November 21, 1911, and had come home to take a nap. One of his daughters found him unconscious. He died at the hospital of a cerebral hemorrhage. His funeral took place at the house, with over 400 people crowding into the mansion, which was filled to capacity. He’s buried in Green-Wood Cemetery.

Smith Gray went bankrupt in 1914, and a year before that, the family put the mansion on the market. The Real Estate Record and Builder’s Guide opined in an article on Bedford Avenue that the house was being marketed for use as a clubhouse or a “studio building.” During the mid-1920s, the house was home to the Jacobson Association, and the 1930s, was home to the Brooklyn Civic Club. Today, the mansion belongs to Congregation Arugath Habosem, which has owned the building since 1966. GMAP

559 Bedford, WB, 4

559 Bedford, WB, 2

1965 Photo, when building was a Yeshiva. Brooklyn Public Library
1965 Photo, when building was a Yeshiva. Brooklyn Public Library

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What's Your Take? Leave a Comment

  1. Thanks for doing a BOTD about this one!
    Williamsburg has always puzzled me. This neighborhood has some of the worst housing stock in Brooklyn, but it’s now become one of the most expensive. People are renovating modest wood frame houses.
    The quality buildings that exist, like this one, are probably never going to go the way of similar, newly gentrified mansions in Clinton Hill or Park Slope. This is located in the center of the Satmar area. Check out the buildings just south of this on Bedford – there’s another townhouse and some grandly designed turn of the century flats buildings.
    You would think someone with deep pockets would come calling from the Northside, and walk away with one of the only original mansions in the neighborhood.

  2. Just down the street on Bedford are some 4-floor flats buildings, the type that would be renovated for $1million-per-floor condos in Park Slope.
    If I have my Williamsburg history correct, this area as well as Broadway (near Peter Luger) used to be sort of a Millionaire’s row. It was the center of a banking district after the civil war. Cornelius Vanderbilt had a mansion on the water. The Williamsburg Art & Historical Society (kings country savings bank) is a remnant of this era.
    The millionaires are back now, but 1 mile north.

  3. Yes, I agree, they won’t sell, and it would be an awkward place to live.
    Streeteasy lists 0 recorded sales between 500 and 800 Bedford Ave, indicating that this isn’t exactly a hotbed of real estate activity!
    My point was merely that there are brownstones and mansions in Western Brooklyn, in one of the most expensive neighborhoods in the city, yet they will be an island untouched by the current wave of gentrification affecting all adjacent areas.

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