Crown Heights House Tour Tomorrow
Big day tomorrow: The Crown Heights North Association is hosting its annual house tour! For the fourth year in a row, there will be a wide range of historic architecture on display: Eight houses, including a restored mansion on St. Marks Avenue, and two churches. The day starts with an opening ceremony at 10 a.m….
Big day tomorrow: The Crown Heights North Association is hosting its annual house tour! For the fourth year in a row, there will be a wide range of historic architecture on display: Eight houses, including a restored mansion on St. Marks Avenue, and two churches. The day starts with an opening ceremony at 10 a.m. at St. Gregory Church at 991 St, Johns Place and self-guided tours run from 11 to 4. Buy tix in advance online for $20 or for $25 onsite the day of.
Very nice poster!
Sorry I missed a paneled basement and an original shower. Busy renovating my shack.
I’m a serious house tour nerd and need no convincing to attend but, to my delight, the gf agreed to come with me to Crown Heights on Saturday. We had such a great time: people were very friendly and we saw some neat houses. No fancy renovations here, just a lot of pride in home ownership and the neighborhood as a whole.
I don’t have the brochure with me but I particularly loved the arts-and-crafts 2-family, the mansion on St Marks (I saw it last year when it was for sale — impressive progress made since then), and the “Neo-Georgian” further west on St Marks. This last house — built around the time of the First World War IIRC — was a real surprise. It had a great layout with a breakfast room off the galley kitchen; a sleeping porch as part of the master suite; 2 bathrooms per floor upstairs (all with original fixtures including an extraordinary wrap-around shower); closets everywhere. Down in the cellar was a bar that looked like the upholstery on a 1960s Cadillac. Quite the den! Could be an amazing project to restore this house.
I missed both of you, Dona and Brooklynista. I was running around like crazy. I’m also glad you had a good time. It was such a perfect weather day for a house tour.
Snaps, next year! Same to novanglus. First Sat. in October.
We are exhausted and thrilled! It was so great seeing you, donatella! Isn’t that church also magnificent? The Tiffany window in St. Bart’s is so incredibly beautiful. And the St. Mark’s house is such a treasure. MM and I saw it several years ago when it was first put on the market. The front of the house was sagging and the inside was a mess, not to mention a Collyer. The owner you met is doing the restoration as a real work of love- the community is just thrilled with what he’s doing and we extracted a promise to have the house back on the tour when it’s done.
Thanks for the kind words about the poster. The flower is made of actual rowhouse facades in the neighborhood. The background is an African handprint fabric MM has that I scanned in and vectorized. I loved that the pattern such a combination of African and Victorian.
Brooklynista- I didn’t get to see you 🙁
Fantastic poster. Really great.
Nice poster design!
It was great! The St. Marks limestone mansion, as expected, did not disappoint. No doubt about the stained glass and woodwork, but I must say — I’ve never seen a cellar that had fancy wainscotting like that! Not to mention the ancient steam jet shower. Swoon. And, Donatella, I think that house you’re talking about that your friend was crazy about was the other one on St. Marks. We were crazy about it as well. Took a bit of imagination to “see” it in all it’s potential glory, but the bones to work with? Fabulous!
Overall, I think what we enjoy most about the Crown Heights House Tour is that it’s so REAL! Real down to earth people who are working their hiney’s off to reclaim real old houses in various states of real need for restoration and repair. And, while they may not have an army of high-end contractors, architects and designers to show off the heights of their imagination and/or the depth of their pocketbooks, you can really feel the warmth and welcome as they share their great houses with lots of determination, love and pride. We thoroughly enjoy this tour every year. Many high fives for a job well done, MM, Bxgirl and CHNA!
Beautiful artwork, Bxgrl. It worked really well on the totes too. Really pretty. So nice to see you Saturday. My friend and I had a great time on the tour. We met a lot of nice people and had a lot of fun. We were looking for Ms. MM but missed her. We saw that huge renovation on St. Marks. Absolultely stunning woodwork and stained glass windows. Whoa, what an ambitious undertaking. Renovating that house is like a career. The churches were a beautiful discovery and my friend went crazy about the brick house (forgot on what block), the house that was being sold — the run down brick with the 5 bedrooms that was being sold (like an open house). I think she would have bought it on the spot if she had the money! We didn’t see #8, the modern renovation. We were running out of time.
I love the poster as well. A nice, illustrated approach to it.