Victorian Flatbush

Brooklyn, one building at a time.

Name: Colonel Alexander Bacon House, aka “Sophie’s Choice House”
Address: 101 Rugby Road
Cross Streets: Albemarle Rd. and Church Avenue
Neighborhood: Prospect Heights South
Year Built: 1900-1903
Architectural Style: Queen Anne
Architect: John E. Nitchie
Other buildings by architect: various office buildings, homes, churches in Manhattan, Brooklyn and surrounding suburbs.
Landmarked: Yes, part of PPS HD (1979)

The story: Colonel Alexander S. Bacon was a West Point trained Civil War officer who became a very successful lawyer after the war. He moved to Brooklyn in 1880, and in 1887 was elected to the New York State Legislature. There, he made a name for himself through the Bacon Investigating Committee, which was charged to investigate political shenanigans in Brooklyn. Throughout his career, as a politician, lawyer, and career military man, he was quite vocal about a number of topics, and gained great local fame and even a little notoriety. He even insulted Teddy Roosevelt in print. More on him in a Walkabout piece, one of these days. At the turn of the century, he was doing quite well, and decided to have a home built in the posh new neighborhood of Prospect Park South. (more…)

Brooklyn, one building at a time.

Name: Private House
Address: 1440 Albemarle Road
Cross Streets: corner of Marlborough Road
Neighborhood: Prospect Park South
Year Built: 1905
Architectural Style: Colonial Revival
Architect: Robert Bryson and Carroll Pratt
Other works by architect: Bryson (Slee & Bryson) Albemarle-Kenmore Terrace houses, Flatbush, other houses in PPS, PS, CHN, CHS, and PLG. Carroll Pratt – various houses in PPS.
Landmarked: Yes, part of Prospect Park South HD (1979)

The story: You can’t walk or drive through Prospect Park South without seeing this house. It’s on Albemarle Road, the main street and showcase block of the neighborhood, and it’s a huge behemoth in a neighborhood of large houses, sitting on a prime corner lot. The style of the house is called Colonial Revival, and it’s a catch-all of early American styles: English Georgian, Federal, Greek Revival, with a healthy dash of extra Classical and Victorian elements, in this case, all on some heavy architectural steroids. This was a home built to impress, and it does so quite well. (more…)

Brooklyn, one building at a time.

Name: Former Eusobio Ghelardi House
Address: 88 Buckingham Road
Cross Streets: Church Avenue and Albemarle Road
Neighborhood: Prospect Park South
Year Built: 1927
Architectural Style: Tudor Revival (Picturesque English Country Tudor)
Architect: Slee & Bryson
Other works by architect: many other houses in PPS, Albemarle-Kenmore Terrace, in Flatbush, houses in Lefferts Manor, Park Slope, Crown Heights North and South.
Landmarked: Yes, part of PPS HD (1979)

The story: Not all of the homes in Prospect Park South are hulking Victorian behemoths, and not all are Colonial Revival or Queen Anne. This particular home is a delightful Tudor style house that is quite deceptive in its own way. It’s one of the later homes in the district, built in 1927. Most of the houses in PPS were built between 1899 and 1915. It was designed by the firm of Slee & Bryson, who, twenty years before, were responsible for many of the aforementioned Colonial Revival houses. (more…)

Brooklyn, one building at a time.

Name: George Watson House
Address: 100 Rugby Road
Cross Streets: Church Avenue and Albemarle Road
Neighborhood: Prospect Park South
Year Built: 1900
Architectural Style: Swiss chalet inspired “cottage”
Architect: John J. Petit
Other Buildings by Architect: Otto Seidenberger House, Stuyvesant Avenue, 131 Buckingham Rd, 1510 Albemarle, and many, many more.
Landmarked: Yes, part of Prospect Park South HD (1979)

The story: As mentioned in today’s Walkabout, John J. Petit took his inspiration from many sources, and looked to other cultures for his inspiration for his Prospect Park South houses. Here he was inspired by the writings of Andrew Jackson Downing, the preeminent architectural writer of the mid-19th century. Downing wrote in his Architecture of Country Houses, that “the genuine Swiss cottage may be considered the most picturesque of all dwellings built of wood.” He went on to say that the ideal place for such a house would be as in Switzerland, on the side of a mountain or hill, and that anywhere else, the chalet would look ridiculous and affected. Downing would go on to note that if an architect wanted to use the chalet in a non-chalet environment, that the elements should be restrained, and toned down to fit the environment that the building would be situated in. Wise words that Petit took to heart. (more…)

Brooklyn, one building at a time.

Name: Reid-Sperry House
Address: 1505 Albemarle Road
Cross Streets: Corner Marlborough Road
Neighborhood: Prospect Park South
Year Built: 1904
Architectural Style: Queen Anne with Medieval/Tudor details
Architect: John J. Petit
Other Buildings by Architect: 1510 Albemarle, 1519 Albemarle, 131 Buckingham, and many more in PPS
Landmarked: Yes, part of PPS HD (1979)

The story: This Queen Anne house is one of my favorites in Prospect Park South, a neighborhood with an abundant wealth of large and impressive houses. At over 3700 square feet, this is a lot of house. Part of me would love to have this kind of room, and would love every inch of spacious period goodness that I pray is in there. The other part of me runs screaming at the thought of proper upkeep, heating costs, and trying to keep a behemoth like this clean. It’s probably just as well that my admiration will be from afar. And there is a lot to admire. John J. Petit designed this home to be an anchor for the intersection of Marlborough Road and Albemarle, one of the more impressive street corners in Dean Alvord’s upper class enclave. (more…)

Brooklyn, one building at a time.

Name: Originally Louis McDonald House
Address: 1519 Albemarle Road
Cross Streets: Corner of Buckingham Road
Neighborhood: Prospect Park South
Year Built: 1905
Architectural Style: Prairie School with neo-Jacobean details
Architect: John J. Petit
Other buildings by architect: 131 Buckingham, the “Japanese House”, 1505 Albemarle Road, 100 Rugby Road, and other houses in PPS.
Landmarked: Yes, PPS HD. (1979)

The story: “Prairie School with neo-Jacobean details”? Yes, another example of the inventiveness and skill of John J. Petit. Here in Prospect Park South, he was able to use that inventiveness to create unusual and one-of-a-kind houses for Dean Alvord’s clients. Across the street, he designed a house using traditional Japanese elements. On other block, he successfully blended Mediterranean elements to a classic American Four-Square, and in others, he created fanciful Queen Anne Shingle Style houses, as well as Elizabethan and Tudor style homes, all with hints of other styles peeking through making them unique. He was also master of the Colonial Revival style of the day, his design for the house across the street at 1510, manages to remain elegant, even though he uses every Georgian, Federal and Greek Revival element possible. (more…)

Brooklyn, one building at a time.

Name: Private House
Address: 163 Westminster Road
Cross Streets: Beverley and Albemarle Roads
Neighborhood: Prospect Park South
Year Built: 1903
Architectural Style: Shingle Style Queen Anne with Neo-Gothic influences
Architect: John J. Petit
Other buildings by architect: 131 Buckingham Rd, (Japanese House); Otto Seidenberger House, Stuyvesant Ave, Bed Stuy; American Bank Note Building, Broadway, Manhattan.
Landmarked: Yes, part of PPS HD

The story: I’ve been working on a project in Prospect Park South, which is why I’ve been getting to know the neighborhood. Each time I’m there, I see something new. Boardwalk Empire is shooting there again, this time at a former BOTD, and I can see why they keep coming back – most of the neighborhood has that genteel small-town feel that is almost impossible to reproduce on a soundstage. This is not accidental. It’s exactly the feel that Dean Alvord, the developer of PPS was going for, and was so successful in delivering. (more…)

Brooklyn, one building at a time.

Name: Private house
Address: 155 Argyle Road
Cross Streets: Albemarle and Beverely Roads
Neighborhood: Prospect Park South
Year Built: 1906
Architectural Style: Shingle Style
Architect: George E. Showers
Other buildings by architect: 86 and 150 Argyle Road, 180 Marlborough Road, all PPS
Landmarked: Yes, part of PPS HD (1979)

The story: The Shingle Style of architecture is as American as apple pie. Inspired by the shingle clad homes of New England, built in the 18th century, the Shingle Style evolved into the favored architecture of the well-to-do of the late 19th and early 20th century. We can blame Charles Follen McKim for this, the equally talented, but often unappreciated partner of the much flashier Stanford White. (Mr. Mead was the business end of the firm of MM &W) His studies of Colonial-era buildings while working at the NYC offices of Henry Hobson Richardson would lead to his famous partnership, and also to a new style of building.
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Brooklyn, one building at a time.

Name: G. Gale House
Address: 1305 Albemarle Road, corner of Argyle Road
Neighborhood: Prospect Park South
Year Built: 1905
Architectural Style: Colonial Revival on steroids
Architect: H.B. Moore
Landmarked: Yes, part of PPS HD (1979)

The story: City records tell us that Mr. G. Gale moved to this house from a row house on Bainbridge Avenue in Stuyvesant Heights. He, or his family members, must have spent at least a couple of moments dancing around in this behemoth of a house, reveling in the sheer amount of space, exclaiming, “It’s mine, it’s mine!” I’m also sure his servants were not as thrilled. However, this house represents the kind of home that Dean Alvord, the developer and father of Prospect Park South had in mind; large, impressive and unusual.
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