Adding cornice and details to brownstone facade
Hi, we are looking at a brownstone that has a lot going for it but the facade is very bland. It does not have a cornice, no detail around the windows, no ledge below the parlor windows, etc., and this appears to be the original condition rather than them having been removed. It’s not landmarked so I suppose we could add these if we wanted, but does seem odd to in effect create new details that were never there rather than restoring what was lost over time. (Would also potentially stand out as the building next door is the same style, although there are plenty of more traditional brownstone facades in the area.) I know this is basically a personal aesthetic decision but curious as to whether anybody has ever seen this done.
Also, any thoughts on likely cost for doing this work would also be appreciated.
Thanks!
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in General Discussion 8 years and 4 months ago
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AndrewPorter | 8 years and 3 months ago
265 Hicks Street, at the corner of Hicks and Joralemon had its 1940s brick face stripped off and was restored to its original glory, with elaborate detailing, as show in this real estate listing:
https://lesliegarfield.com/properties/new-york/sale/hicks-street
So, it can be—and especially in a landmarked area—and should be, done.
farzanaakhi12 | 8 years and 3 months ago
The short answer is, yes; outside of a landmark district you can do just about anything you want to the front of your building. Building facades have been upgraded and changed throughout history, resulting in some high points in architecture design. This freedom, however, is also why landmark districts were created in the first place; to curb unrestrained excess and poor judgment that can actually reduce property values and damage neighborhood character. Adding details or restoring missing elements to a façade can be a huge improvement (see http://www.urbmatrix.com/congressstreet.html), but don’t assume that if historical detailing is good, vast amounts of it will be better. Whether a historic building or not, the scale and proportion of the details and the whole composition of the facade, can make the difference between creating a great design or an eye sore.
dougb | 8 years and 3 months ago
I’ve been spending time looking at Arch Fiberglass’s website – afcornice.com – their catalog has a huge number of reproduction cornices available. I’ve never priced them out though.
morralkan | 8 years and 4 months ago
There’s could be other reasons why some houses lost some exterior detail. My parents bought my childhood home, on the CH/Brownsville border in 1949. It was a 3 story building with a high stoop. My father, a doctor, was going to have his office on the ground floor, we would be living on the top floor, and the parlor level was going to be rented. My mother did not like the idea of patients entering a doctor’s office under a stoop, so she had the steps removed and a main entrance created at the ground level. (Well, two steps below the sidewalk.)
My aunt and uncle, just down the block, used their house all for themselves, but removed their steps and made a similar ground floor main entrance so that their home-based business would be more open to the street. In both cases, though, cornices and most other exterior detail was left untouched.
brikenny | 8 years and 4 months ago
I like to keep Victorian period homes with as many of their details intact as possible, but far too many were modernized, and many done quite badly. While I’m a firm believer in “to thine own house be true” it’s possible to add the details you want, whether they were there originally or not. If your house is genuinely over 120 years old you could consider replicating details of similar nearby homes. But if it’s newer, and never had such details, there’s another way you could go. Many homes without a cornice had some really nice “post-modern” ones created, in keeping with the original “spirit” of the neighborhood, but making no attempt to pretend to be a period original. In my home, the house had been de-stooped in the 1930s, but the one I put in copies the design and profile of the original brownstone stoop, but made of steel supports holding up cast-brownstone stair treads for a lighter look. It looks good, and isn’t pretending to be something it isn’t. Do n’t look at your house being devoid of details as a problem; look at it as a blank slate, full of opportunities! You have a lot of options, not just the simple copying of a period.
gracesankofa | 8 years and 4 months ago
I craved a brownstone with fireplaces and mantles and pier mirrors. But the one we wound up with didn’t have some of those details I had seen in other houses. So I added them. Everyone thinks it’s original! Go for it. Make it your own! The only advice I have is that you might want to wait a bit. Because these old houses often reveal unforeseen problems once you are living in them which carry a. Large price tag. It would be a shame to throw a lot of cash at elective plastic surgery in your facade and then run short when you need to do plumbing or electric or roofing work you hadn’t anticipated. Also, if you’re in a historic tract there are tax credits that allow you to shave off up to 20% of the cost of your renovations as long as your plans are approved first. So before you spend $ see if you are eligible as this would make the work more affordable. Finally, it’s the scaffold that’s expensive. So if you need one for facade work , consider what else you might do while scaffold is up such as installing split AC or AC units in your roof, or new windows in the 3rd floor. Etc
joearchitect | 8 years and 4 months ago
Most of the brownstone houses you see have long ago had their fronts reworked with cement stucco. Brownstone is soft and flakes off over time but masons can restore the surface and all the details with cement stucco that is colored to match the original brownstone color. When they restore a facade they chip off most of the existing detail, so for your job it does not matter so much that you have none there; they can create it just like on any other house. I would try to find a nearby house that you like that has a similar age and height as yours and let them copy the details from there. It is best not to mix and match details from different houses so pick one. Get a few quotes, but you can probably do this for $60 – 80,000 for a three story house.
BobMarvin | 8 years and 4 months ago
The absence of details in a 1940 tax photograph wouldn’t mean they were never there; OTOH their presence is also possible. I doubt that there were that many “modernizations” during the Depression, but in the immediate postwar years lots of people wanted to make their houses look “nice and modern” to the consternation of my generation. If we can believe the NYT RE section many millennials are doing the same re-muddling now:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/10/realestate/prewar-is-so-last-year.html?ref=todayspaper&_r=0
resident2 | 8 years and 4 months ago
You can get a historic photo of the property from the tax Department at Brooklyn Borough Hall.
During the 40’s & 50’s it was “fashionable” to remove and update the older styles and many lost their original details during this time. To replace them properly even though you are not in a landmark district will still be expensive; depending on the original style and the width and height of the property it may cost anywhere from $75,000 – 150,000
BobMarvin | 8 years and 4 months ago
There are many brownstones where the details were removed long ago, so neatly that the stripped down appearance looks “original”. The absence of a cornice is especially suspect. The building next door might have been “modernized” at the same time.