Building of the Day: 820 President Street, Luxury Apartments of the Victorian Era

Brooklyn, one building at a time.

Name: The Verona
Address: 820 President Street
Cross Streets: Corner 7^th Avenue
Neighborhood: Park Slope
Year Built: 1888
Architectural Style: Queen Anne
Architect: John G. Glover
Other works by architect: Graham Home for Old Ladies; Van Glahn Brothers’ stables, homes and warehouses, all in Clinton Hill. Row houses and tenement buildings in Park Slope and Clinton Hill, Acme Hall in Park Slope
Landmarked: No, but part of a proposed expanded Park Slope Historic District

The story: In an effort to get high-class folk to move into apartment buildings, developers and their architects in the late 19^th century had to go all out to avoid elements that would remind people of tenements.

It’s ironic that an educated and amazingly well-traveled American audience would not approve of something so urbane and European as a finely appointed apartment. Wealthy Parisians, Londoners, and Venetians had been living in them for centuries.

The late 1880s gave Brooklyn’s more upscale neighborhoods their first luxury apartment buildings. Joining buildings like the Alhambra, the Arlington and the Montague was this one – the Verona.

Google Maps

Originally, this six-story apartment building was slated to be called “The Sheldon,” after its owner, C. B. Sheldon, who had it built in 1888.

The large luxury apartment building was designed to hug the corner of President Street and 7^th Avenue, one of the main thoroughfares of Park Slope. At that time, 7^th was much more heavily residential than it is today.

But Sheldon was a visionary, and saw that having store space on the ground floor would be convenient for his tenants as well as lucrative. He had his architect design three storefronts in the building.

The architect was John C. Glover. By the time he designed this building, he was in the latter part of his career, having been on record in Brooklyn since at least 1851, when he designed the Graham Home for Old Ladies in Clinton Hill.

It’s a beautiful apartment building. We don’t really notice its glory today, as the signage and storefronts on ground level lead us to mentally cut off the top of the building. Unless we have to, no one looks up.

If you did, you’d see a fine brick residence with terra cotta tile trim, bays covered with pressed metal, and impressive decorative brickwork trim.

Nicholas Strini for PropertyShark

The latter was a signature for Glover, who used some impressive decorative brickwork in his warehouses and other buildings for Van Glahn Brothers, one of Clinton Hill’s largest wholesale grocery businesses. Their main warehouse is now called the Rookwood Chocolate Factory building, on Park Avenue.

The Brooklyn Eagle talked about “The Sheldon” in an article about the many new flats buildings that were going up in the more exclusive sections of town. C.B. Sheldon and John Glover were in the vanguard, according to the article, printed on February 2, 1889.

They were responsible for a similar building being constructed on Union Street near 9^th Avenue, which is now Prospect Park West, as well as another group of flats buildings at 7^th and Garfield.

Number 820 President, the Sheldon, was originally to have two stores on the ground floor, with the elevator entrance to the building on 7^th Avenue. The main entrance was tucked away on President Street, with the words “The Sheldon” inscribed on the side.

There was another entrance on the other side of the building. Both had wide curved stairways with carved mahogany newel posts and bannisters.

There were only two apartments on each floor. They all had four bedrooms, a parlor, dining room, kitchen and bathroom. The walls and ceilings were all decorated and frescoed. Most rooms had a fireplace mantel with a beveled mirror and an open tiled hearth.

The apartments came with fine cased woodwork, chandeliers, steam heat, and electricity. The Eagle article said there was a private hallway leading to the servant’s room and the kitchen. The top floor of the building included a drying room under the roof where the servants could hang laundry.

The earliest residents of the Sheldon were who you would expect – lawyers, brokers, well-off merchants and businessmen and their families. Their names appeared in the society columns when they summered out of town or their children got married.

A year after Sheldon completed the building, he got rid of it. The Real Estate Record and Business Guide notes that he traded the Sheldon and the adjoining building in 1890 for a 1,700-acre stock farm in Colorado, plus $20,000.

Brooklyn Eagle ad, 1912

By 1912, a new owner had changed the name to “The Verona,” and it’s been known as such ever since. Subsequent ads for available apartments confirm that they were seven- and eight-room apartments, which in 1912 rented for $45 a $55 dollars a month.

Today, the building has 15 residential units and five commercial units. As you can see from the 1912 ad and the Google Maps photo, the 7^th Avenue entrance was where the store called Glitz is now.

Once again, a nod of appreciation to David and the other stalwarts at Save The Slope for their invaluable information.

Top photo: Kate Leonova for PropertyShark

Google Maps