City Deems Fort Greene Manse Unworthy of Protection as Demo Looks Imminent
The butter yellow Italianate wood frame on South Oxford in Fort Greene will be replaced with an apartment building if plans go ahead.
The house this week. Photo by Anna Bradley-Smith
A last ditch attempt by the public to save the butter yellow Italianate manse on Fort Greene’s South Oxford Street through landmarking appears futile.
The city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission has determined, for a second time in its history, that the eye-catching wood frame house at 158 South Oxford Street does not meet the criteria for landmark status due to what the commission says are extensive alterations.
In a statement to Brownstoner, a rep for LPC said the commission received a Request for Evaluation of the property in January, and after reviewing the request, supporting materials, and prior LPC research, the agency determined that while the house still has some historic fabric, alterations mean its existing architecture doesn’t meet landmark standards for individual designation.
In November 2025, developer Shimon Kleiman applied for a permit to demolish the three-story wood frame and in December he applied for a new-building permit for a five-story building with 17 apartments and 10 off-street parking spaces, records show. Neither of the permits have been issued.
While the demolition permit hasn’t been issued, it has been approved, meaning the wrecking ball is likely not far off. Since Brownstoner reported on developments in January, permits have been issued for a green construction fence to support the demolition work, records show.
While the permit applications list Kleiman as the owner, city records show the property has been transferred from artist and longtime owner Marc E. Lambrechts to 158 NY LLC. Lambrechts appears to be part of the LLC, signing for both the buyer and seller in the deed transfer and transferring the property to the LLC for no money. In 2014, the artist sold a neighboring compound at 164 South Oxford Street to a developer for $7.5 million.
Located between Hanson Place and Atlantic Avenue, the mansion was called a “rare beauty” by Brownstoner columnist Suzanne Spellen in 2010. She noted its “beautiful Gothic trimmed porch and symmetrical windows” and urged “there are only a handful of these houses left, and very few in such good shape. Let’s protect them now, rather than when the ‘dozers are rumbling up the street.”
At the time, the house was on the list for the proposed expansion of the Fort Greene Historic District. However, that expansion never materialized and the house is not landmarked.
Brooklyn building historian Jeremy Lechtzin told Brownstoner that “digging through land records, census records, maps, city directories, and other original sources I was able to document that 158 South Oxford was likely built in 1846.”
Lechtzin said the property was part of the Cowenhoven Homestead and was among 28 lots sold at auction in 1844 to George S. Howland. Dry goods merchant William Beach purchased eight lots from Howland, and by 1846 he built 158 South Oxford Street, funding construction with $4,000 in mortgages.
Beach seems to have built the property as an investment as he sold it the same year, Lechtzin said. The first family to live in the house were Leprelette and Elizabeth Moore and their four young daughters. A map of 1850 shows the house in place on the residential block.
Prior to street renumbering, the house was known as 124 South Oxford Street.
Related Stories
- Mid 19th-Century Fort Greene Manse to Be Demolished for New Apartment Building
- Building of the Day: 158 South Oxford Street
- The Decaying Splendor of a Fort Greene Manse
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For 20 years I have lived on this block, delighting daily in this magnificent nearly 200-year-old house, sitting proudly on its slight rise above the street. It turns my stomach to think that Lambrechts and Kleiman are turning this rare bit of Brooklyn’s history into splinters for the sake of mammon. They’ll surely replace this beauty with the most dispiriting architectural dreck. That’s what happened when Lambrecht sold the 19th-century row-house at 164. It was replaced by a hulking parody of a Parisian mansion, with conspicuously cheap brick and PVC moulding, right up to the sidewalk. Out of context even with the neat cornices and brick facades of the city’s Atlantic Commons development, much less the several remaining brownstones. We must brace ourselves for even worse at 158 South Oxford.
Has the commission never heard of restoration????
Alterations such as those this home has suffered are still popular among the fashionable set, and their shallow, inexperienced architects who want to express their inner whatever sacrificing miles of old growth walnut, mahogany, oak, pine, and burled woods of all sorts, woods that cannot be found today if you are buying legally. We are left with interiors that look like community college dorm rooms. That destruction includes ornamental plasterwork and other details.
The idea that we tolerate that everyday vandalism, and condemn this home for exactly the same alterations show the commission should be renamed the The Developer/Demolition Commission! Look at the lame excuses that have been given for shallow and destructive decisions over the last couple of years, like the, in my opinion, messy Dangler mansion debacle and the destruction of the carriage repository and showroom, both of which were pure vandalism to please developers. The decisions were so questionable, it left many wondering if money had changed hands. Perhaps the commission knows of another carriage showroom by a nationally important Gilded age architect of the first quality?? As someone who has been involved in historic preservation of more than 60 years, I am disgusted.
This is sickening that this beautiful house and property was not considered worthy by the Landmarks Committee. This beautiful property will be replaced by some boring piece of architecture. New York City is losing so much of its significant architecture to more glass and steel high rises.
It’s horrible that this beautiful mansion is going to be demolished. There’s already so many new apartment buildings that has been erected in the name of affordable housing. Very few can afford to live in them. Many are empty and most are so shoddy that the tenants are complaining and looking to move out. Why can’t they just leave this mansion standing? Ugh!