Brooklyn, one building at a time.

Name: Private House
Address: 415 Clinton Avenue
Cross Streets: Greene and Gates Avenues
Neighborhood: Clinton Hill
Year Built: 1860s
Architectural Style: Italianate
Architect: Unknown
Landmarked: Yes, part of Clinton Hill HD (1981)

The story: Who wouldn’t love to have a porch like this? Deep enough and high enough so you aren’t sitting curbside; and spacious enough for chairs, a couple of tables, or whatever you want for summertime enjoyment, or a moment of quiet reflection while watching a rainstorm clean the streets of dirt and debris. Perhaps that was the idea when this grand porch was added to this home, around 1900. Before that time, it was still an impressive home, home to some of the Hill’s wealthier folk. This house, along with 401, just on the other side of the Schieren mansion next door, share many similarities, enough so that the experts at the LPC determined that they were built by the same anonymous architect and/or builder. This would have been quite common for the late 1860s when the houses were built.

415’s lot was purchased in 1858 by Frederick A. Platt, who had the house built, but the records are unclear as to whether or not he actually ever lived here. We do know from records that in 1871, the house was home to Richard Underhill, who died here that year, and whose funeral took place in the home. In 1882, the house was home to Samuel (sometimes listed as Solomon) W. Johnson, who was the founder of the American News Corporation. But he didn’t actually buy the house until 1894. It was probably Johnson who had the then-unfashionable old house updated, with the addition of the porch and other details.

A new stoop was added, as well as the bannister, and a new classically inspired main entrance vestibule, and a side entrance. This was added to what was already a very solid brick box-like Italianate house, with a full height side bay, complete with a mansard roof, arched brownstone lintels, and a fine bracketed cornice below the mansard roof. Like its neighbor at 401 Clinton, the house shares the same cast iron fencing: unusual arrow-shaped railings with sharp arrowheads and feathered fletching.

Over the years, the house was in the news for several deaths and a couple of break-ins. Adelaide Johnson, Samuel’s wife, died here at home in 1893. James Mitchell, the president of the New York Stock Exchange, was a guest here, visiting his friend Samuel Johnson. He hadn’t been feeling well, but was up for a card game with the boys in the house on a late April night in 1896. The next morning, he was found dead in the bathroom. He was sixty years old.

By 1911, the house belonged to Walter H. Redman, a wealthy lumberman. On the evening of January 20th, the family had gone out to dinner. The butler and cook were downstairs in the kitchen, and the other servants were given the night off. A bold thief broke in upstairs and was in the middle of ransacking Mrs. Redman’s jewelry box when the family came home. He escaped with some of her jewelry, exiting the same way he got in – an upper window. The police surmised that the thief had known the servants would be out or beyond hearing range, and would have taken more than the $5,000 worth of jewelry had the family not come home, and Mrs. Redman not come upstairs.

This was not the first burglary here. In 1885, thieves broke in while the Johnson family lived here, and stole $100 worth of silverware. And so it goes, even in the finest neighborhoods. By the late 1970s, when the area was being surveyed for landmarking, this house was in rather run-down condition, although pretty much intact. A tax photo from the ’80s shows as much. Today it is one of the avenue’s grand homes, but no longer a single family. The building, at generous 25 by 65 feet, now has 11 units. GMAP

401 Clinton, believed to be by the same buider, is on the left, followed by the Schieren house, then 415.
This is 401 Clinton, built at the same time, probably by the same builder. The railings, with their unique arrow design, are the same at 415 Clinton.

Side of house, showing carriage house behind the main house.

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