Bay Ridge McMansion
Returning from our refinancing closing a couple of weeks ago, we drove down Ridge Boulevard in Bay Ridge for a few blocks. There were some very charming houses we saw. This one at the corner of 86th Street was not one of them.
Returning from our refinancing closing a couple of weeks ago, we drove down Ridge Boulevard in Bay Ridge for a few blocks. There were some very charming houses we saw. This one at the corner of 86th Street was not one of them.
I pass this house everyday and I have always felt that it was overbuilt. And if every house had to be built to my personal taste, the plans for this house never would have passed inspection. But just like the other well maintained houses in BR, this helps to keep my property values up. I don’t see police cars outside, or piles of trash spilling over the streets. I would rather have a over the top house with good neighbors than a boring looking house with noisy inhabitants any day.
If you look at the house on Google Maps, the front with that massive wall is truly hideous. I kinda like the house itself, but that wall just looks ridiculous without a moat…
This unfortunate structure sits on an old “Villa Lot” that on for nearly a century sat a sizable rectangular red brick center hall colonial. ” Villa Lots” were properties developed after 1900 on the newly graded blocks in the section of Bay Ridge from Shore Road up to Ridge Blvd. between roughly 79th Street and 86th Street. Notice this properties proximity on the google map to Fort Hamilton HS Athletic field. This school was the former site of the Crescent Athletic Club. The homes surrounding the athletic club were for the most part built on villa lots. Some still stand today. Others are long gone. The prior home sat grandly, high on it’s corner hill for many decades. It had steep sloping manicured lawns on all sides with accompanying appropriate hedges and old line landscaping , ie. some mature hydrangea bushes that had morphed into trees over the years. I recall, the original wood frame windows were all dressed with old style wide slat white venetian blinds with the old type fabric taping on each side. I was sorry to see it demolished but somehow sensed, as it sat on the market a few years back, that it’s days were numbered and it would be gone. I could never have imagined the European inspired monstrosity that would rise on it’s grounds. I turn away when I pass this Grecian pile of bricks and remember how dignified this corner used to be.
minard- I’m in Crown Heights. I just want to do something that will horrify the Great EVLL 🙂
bx, many aristocratic renaissance families had dwarfs in the households to amuse and delight them. Odd, but the past is a foreign country. The Duke so-and-so who built the Villa de Nonni had a particular attachment to his dwarfs.
As you say, it would not translate well to Bay Ridge. So I don’t want to give anyone any ideas…..
Meant to add- I was just referencing “Aquanet” He’s in a snit because he was called out on the sold thread. He was referencing that.
I’m not a big fan of obnoxious over the top new Mc Housing.. However, this one doesn’t look horrible. Its biggest crime is that it doesn’t fit the fake modesty of petty bourgeois North Brooklyn “brownstoners.”
sorry goldie. I know it didn’t. 🙂
bxgrl, dont even involve me in his silly comment! not worth it since it had nothing to do w/race to begin with. gracias and ciao.