Trying to verify "sleeping porch" is original in WT house by W Calder
Hello all. I am trying to head off a potential issue in the future in case DOB ever decides to be persnickety. (Imagine!) We own a 1-fam brick house in Windsor Terrace with a porch in front, like the ones on Howard Place, Fuller Place, Windsor Place, and parts of Seeley Street and 16th Street. These houses are all variations on the same design, a rectangular main house with a long rear extension for the kitchen. Here is an example floorplan from a recent listing:
Our house has some structure above the kitchen extension. If you look at the GMaps satellite view of Howard and Fuller, and of Windsor Place and 16th Street between 10th and 11th Avenues, you can see that a dozen-plus of these houses have rear extensions all the way up to the roof, while most do not. My inspector cursed like a sailor when he saw this, and claimed that this upper extension was clearly added later and never filed with DOB, which means there is a chance DOB could force us to *re move* one of our bedrooms in order to get anything else approved in the future.
Now, we’ve done some digging and found some some articles from the 1920s advertising houses for sale in “Calderville” with a rear “sleeping porch.” This almost certainly describes our rear bedroom above the kitchen. The room originally had nine windows, three windows each on three exposed sides, which I gather is what people called a “sleeping porch” back then. Here is a link to a picture of one in today’s Street View:
https://goo.gl/maps/LoeWDYAzop7wPiAC8
See those three windows encased in the red faux-brick siding? That’s one of these extensions that my inspector says are illegal. I’ve checked all of these houses in DOB and none of them have filings to build such an extension. A few of them do have inscrutable filings for *something* in 1932, but I don’t know for what.
The crux of the matter: my “illegal” room was there in the 1940 tax photo; and there are these ads for houses with sleeping porches in the 1920s; these suggest to me that the room is original. (The houses were built around 1915 IIRC – my guess is that the houses were built on spec, and the sleeping porch was an optional upgrade at the time of purchase… but that’s pure speculation.) Certainly the chance that the room was built between 1938 and 1940 seems absurdly low, and that seems to be the goal here: if it was built before 1938 than DOB will evaluate it under the pre-1938 code.
So I’m sure it is pre-’38, but I’d like to firm that up, because Heaven knows DOB will screw us any chance they get. So does anyone have suggestions for where/how to look to better establish the provenance of these sleeping porches?
Thanks in advance.
silas
in General Discussion 3 years and 6 months ago
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jimhillra | 3 years and 5 months ago
If the porch is on the Sanborns prior to 1961, then it can be repaired, possibly even torn down and replaced in a single renovation. However, if it was removed, and documented as such, then it’s likely not able to be re-built.
Guest User | 3 years and 6 months ago
Sorry I meant to say. If the porch was removed. Can it be reinstated based on the Sanborn if the FAR is exceeded.
Guest User | 3 years and 6 months ago
@jim what happens if OP finds their sleeping porch on the Sanborn but are over FAR?
jimhillra | 3 years and 6 months ago
Here’s another possibility; you could go to historic map works and look up the Belcher Hyde maps from 1929. Brooklyn is divided into 4 volumes, and each volume is broken up into many plates. The following link is for volume 1: http://www.historicmapworks.com/Atlas/US/680/Brooklyn+1929+Vol+1/.
I generally start by opening the Index of Volumes, which is a simple map showing the boundaries of each volume. Once you know what volume the property is in, you open that volume’s index map to see which plate your block is on.
Windsor Terrace can be in volume 1 or 3, depending upon which block. Howard, Fuller, and Windsor are in Volume 1, plate 34: http://www.historicmapworks.com/Map/US/1092/Plate+034/Brooklyn+1929+Vol+1/New+York/. Just about every house in the area is shown as a masonry two story with a one story masonry rear extension. The “sleeping porch” would be on top of the extension. If it was enclosed like the photo the OP posted, that would be a second story, not a porch. From the OP’s description of their room, it would be considered a second story.
The pr oblem here is establishing when it was built. To “grandfather” it, you’d need to establish its existence before 1961, which may be hard to do, as all of these houses were built without one prior to that date. The good news here is that the house definitely predates 1938 so OP can use the old code.
The bad news is that, if you cannot establish its existence, it may have to be legalized according to the current zoning and building codes. As mentioned in other posts, the next place to look is the Sanborn Map history. If the rear extension is shown as two stories prior to 1961, then you should be ok.
dorkofwindsor | 3 years and 6 months ago
You could also look in the 1940’s tax photos online.
cate | 3 years and 6 months ago
Indeed, sleeping porches were all the rage in the decade your house was built. As you say, it’s very likely the sleeping porch is original to the house, probably as an optional builder add-on. But the dob doesn’t care about architectural history. If you find the two-story extension indicated for your house on the Sanborn map, plus strengthen your case with photos of neighbors’ extensions, an advertisement for your house (or others) mentioning it, and other evidence, it should satisfy the dob. Also, if you can file any new renovations under the 1939 code, you will save yourself a ton of misery and expense. Best bet re architects is to ask your neighbors for recommendations. You can also search on this site for past Insider columns to see if any architects pop up again and again with projects in Windsor Terrace, which is not a recommendation but tells you they’ve done work in the area.
RobertGMarvin
in General Discussion 3 years and 6 months ago
To illustrate my point here’s a photo of an original ad for “two” and “three” story houses in Lefferts Manor/PLG (mine is one of the “two” story ones). BTW these houses are just under two and three thousand sq. ft. respectively when the maximum FAR in this R2 zones area is about one thousand. That doesn’t matter since the houses were built long before the 1961 zoning. [A9C19E30-62A4-485B-A83D-0E8F6E7F2F8F](//muut.com/u/brownstoner/s3/:brownstoner:b8XY:a9c19e3062a4485ba83d0e8f6e7f2f8f.jpeg.jpg)
RobertGMarvin
in General Discussion 3 years and 6 months ago
RE: first floors called basements; this is normal. My “two story” house has three stories by any rational definition. The basement, with the dining room, kitchen, laundry room (original maid’s room) and pantries, is one step down in front and at grade in the back. It’s over a cellar.
silas | 3 years and 6 months ago
@Susan those are all incredibly helpful tips, thank you! We haven’t done too much research yet because we are still months away (at least) from hiring an architect and filing any plans. But nice to have direction to some more places to look over the coming months!
@colonialrevival thanks as well. The interior, like any beadboard, has long since been replaced with sheetrock, and the window configuration has changed, and the exterior has been covered over with stucco. And on the inside, you need to step up to get into that room – the level of the floor sits above the level of the neighbors’ extension roof. I suspect that if we took up the floor, we would find the original roof intact underneath it! All these things give the impression that this room is a later addition.
But… you are correct about the similar finishings! I saw a real estate listing for a similar house from a couple years ago, and they have a similar room with the exact same base trim and a weird bench soffit along two of the walls. Like, the exact same bench soffit clearly designed and built by the same people. I wondered what a coincidence it must be if these two houses added this room later on and the rooms would turn out so perfectly identical.
But it makes much more sense if, as you say, they were an add-on by the original developer. It even makes sense that the extension roof would be there under the floor – they would have built a row of houses together, with roofs over the kitchens, without necessarily having buyers for them yet. When this or that buyer requested a sleeping porch, it would have been simple to just build it right on top of the roof. (Though, unfortunate – I hate having to step up into the room, and this makes me worry it won’t be feasible to lower the floor.)
This makes me feel a lot better about the extra bedroom. The next thing to figure out if we renovate will be FAR – it seems as if, like, [i]every[/i] house around here is over-built. Take the more common design, the orange brick barrel-front 3-story 2-family. I think most of these are 20×50, with 3,000 sq.ft. (or maybe even bigger); but in R5b zoning on 20×100 lots, the max is 2,700 sq.ft. Glancing at the tax maps these are all designated as “2-story” houses, even when the “first floor” is up a 10 foot stoop and the basement is 90% above sidewalk level…? Does the city just pretend that none of these basements count as living space?
So many idiosyncrasies in these houses! Clearly when we do move forward, we’re going to need an architect with a lot of experience in Windsor Terrace. If anyone has recommendations for such, we would appreciate that too!
Thanks all
colonialrevival | 3 years and 6 months ago
Sleeping porches were extremely common in early 20th century homes. I am typing this message from one as we speak. The floorplan you attached, with the 2/3rds lot-width extension already appended to the rear of the house, was also incredibly common among rowhouses built around then. In many of these cases, the “sleeping porch” was offered as an add-on by the developer. As a result, many houses in your neighborhood will have them, and there will likely be a few that do not. Those that *do* have them will likely have some variance among them — window count, etc — but all will likely have similar finishings lurking underneath, like the beadboard ceiling mentioned above.
With all of this known, as well as clear photographic evidence of your sleeping porch’s existence in 1940, it is incredibly unlikely that the DOB will come out of left field and have you tear it down. Inspectors are paid to be nervous about the things they’re legally allowed to look at (which is to s ay, not much). Whether or not you wish to embark on the research project is up to you. But from one homeowner to another, I don’t think you have much to worry about.
Jasperrose11 | 3 years and 6 months ago
Silas: Some things you may have already tried but just in case:
Have you checked the Sanborn maps? Access to the Sanborn Database for New York is available with from home as long as you have an NYPL or BP library card – they both have been allowing access during the pandemic. The maps will indicate the number of stories and any extensions.
If you didn’t find anything in the DOB *paper folder* for your house by requesting it in person then if your house is one of an identical row likely by the same builder it might be worth time pulling the folder for the houses at the start/end of the row and see if any info there might indicate an original sleeping porch at time of construction.
Painstaking ad hunting – Looks like you already found some ads for Calderville. I find that in this period sleeping porches are often mentioned in rental or sales ads for individual houses as a particular amenity. If you haven’t found anything for your house in the Eagle I would recommend Old Fulton History (free) and Newspapers.com (library card access). It can take hunting every possible i teration of the address (st, street, 16, sixteen etc.) to turn up what you need.
Any chance your bedroom has a wood slatted ceiling? Those are very common in sleeping porches.
An architectural survey of a proposed Windsor Terrace National Register Historic District was completed and is available online via the NY State Cultural Resource Information System. I honestly don’t remember if this level of detail was included but it might give you some hints if your house is within the area that was surveyed.
Good luck!