Building of the Day: 673 St. Marks Avenue

The BOTD is a no-frills look at interesting structures of all types and from all neighborhoods. There will be old, new, important, forgotten, public, private, good and bad. Whatever strikes our fancy. We hope you enjoy.

Address: 673 St. Marks Avenue, between Nostrand and Rogers Avenues
Name: Private House
Neighborhood: Crown Heights North
Year Built: 1888
Architectural Style: Queen Anne
Architects: E.G.W. Dietrick
Landmarked: No

Why chosen: Every architect must want that client who says, I don’t care what’s in style, I want you to give me something completely different, something that no one else will have. This house may have answered that call. The house was built for Francis C. Creamer by EGW Dietrick, who was better known as a suburban architect, with a number of Colonial Revival homes to his credit, outside of the city. On the face of it, he designed a rather classic medium sized 3 story and an attic Queen Anne, with a heavy porch with double columns, a small turreted bay, and side bump out bays. But what is going on with those bricks? Clinker bricks, which are burnt looking dark bricks once discarded as imperfect, have been chosen for their rustic qualities, and set in odd angles so they protrude from the facade here and there, like a bristling hedgehog. Where another QA house may have had terra-cotta or carved stone ornament, Dietrick used the bricks to form abstract patterns and give the house texture, reminiscent of Black Forest cottages. Unfortunately, over the years, repairs to the clinkers were not done by experts, and parts of the facade were cemented over with poorly done attempts to copy the brick texture. Paint didn’t help either. Regardless, the house, which recently got a partial fix-up, is still rather unique, and a fun place to wonder about. I wonder what it looks like inside, and how many rooms it has. Equally jealousy raising is the presence of a good sized back yard with a large, 2 story carriage house in the back, built after the house, in 1892. Works for me.

View of 2 story carriage house at rear of property.