New-Old Brownstone Planned for Macon Street in Stuy Heights

Thanks to landmarking, a new building going up on a sliver of an empty lot between brownstones on Macon Street in Stuyvesant Heights will be a convincing replica of a 19th century Italianate brownstone. The four-story building at 361 Macon Street will have a traditional cornice, stoop, and moldings over the door and windows — the works.

Its stucco facade will be the chocolate color Edith Wharton so famously despised, and incised lines will mimic the square pieces of actual stone brownstone facades were once made of.

The rendering shows a brownstone designed to resemble the others in its row, but the look was inspired by 342 Macon Street across the street, according to YIMBY, which attended an LPC hearing on the proposal Tuesday. The commission has yet to take action on the proposed design because several commissioners were absent and others unable to reach agreement, said YIMBY.

You can see the whole proposal on the LPC’s website. The architect is Amil Lahi of Sion Associates. The firm is based in Floral Park, N.Y.

The building will have four units. Each unit will occupy one floor and average slightly less than 1,000 square feet in size.

AN LLC bought the lot for $295,000 in 2012. The name of the owner and developer is Meir Shaul of Rockville Center, N.Y., according to a new-building permit.

The commissioners were concerned about the use of appropriate materials on the facade, and also wanted bulk reduced in the rear so the building is the same size as its neighbors, said YIMBY.

The lot has been empty for decades, tax photos reveal, although it probably at one time held a house identical to the others in the row. The property is in Stuyvesant Heights close to the Brooklyn Public Library’s Macon branch and shops on Lewis Avenue.

New townhouses, some decidedly modern and others with a vintage feel, have taken off in brownstone Brooklyn in the last five years or so.

Notable examples are several sets of townhouse rows on State Street in Boerum Hill. Townhouses built to look convincingly historic under the aegis of the LPC are relatively rare.

[Source: NYY | Rendering: Sion Associates | Photo: Christopher Bride for PropertyShark]

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