Building of the Day: 356 Clinton 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: 356 Clinton Avenue, between Lafayette and Greene Avenues
Name: John and Alice Shepard House
Neighborhood: Clinton Hill (Clinton Hill Historic District)
Year Built: 1905
Architectural Style: Venetian Renaissance
Architect: Theodore C. Visscher
Landmarked: Yes

This house is one of the most unique private homes in Clinton Hill, if not the city. It is one of very few true Venetian Renaissance style buildings in New York.

Italian Renaissance design was popular at the turn of the 20th century, but few architects referenced Venice as a model, the Montauk Club being the only other Brooklyn building in this style from that time period.

From the street, this house appears very small, until you look towards the back, there is a lot going on behind the trim facade of this palazzo. The house is very symmetrical, which gives it gravitas. The hipped roof with the original tiles shelter a limestone balcony, with those wonderfully arched Venetian windows.

The short stairs welcome you to a wide porch, carved like the balcony, with Moorish style stars. The brackets holding up the porch are echoed in shape by the great patinated brackets in the eaves. On the left side of the house, by the apartment building, you can see a bay, and the beginning of a one story extension, giving this house much more square footage.

There was also a carriage house at the rear of the property. John W. Shepard was the assistant treasurer of the Title and Guarantee Trust Company.

[Photos by Suzanne Spellen]