Going, Going...Almost Gone on Newkirk
Are you an adrenaline junkie who’s been having a hard time finding a house in Victorian Flatbush? Have we got the place for you. On Thursday, this 1931 mansion, which is currently classified as a church, is going on the auction block to satisfy an outstanding lien of $878,821. Given that this house sits on…
Are you an adrenaline junkie who’s been having a hard time finding a house in Victorian Flatbush? Have we got the place for you. On Thursday, this 1931 mansion, which is currently classified as a church, is going on the auction block to satisfy an outstanding lien of $878,821. Given that this house sits on a large lot and there’s tons of unused FAR, don’t be surprised if one of the unscrupulous developers tries to take you out with his auction paddle. Has there been any chatter locally about this? What’s this stretch of Newkirk like? The auction takes place on November 16 at 3 o’clock at the Kings County Courthouse, Room 261, 360 Adams Street. Good luck!
1927 Newkirk Avenue [Property Shark] GMAP
BTW,. when I Googled “Melrose Hall” this evening, I got the link to a great ghost story from the Brooklyn Eagle in 1884:
http://tinyurl.com/ymldno
Gertrude Lefferts Vanderbilt has a much more pedestrian version of this story in “the Social History of Flatbush.”
More great stuff–thank you Erin–i’ve bookmarked the websites.
I don’t have the Merlis and Rosenzweig book, but I have a photo of Melrose Hall in “Flatbush in the American Revolution”, put out by the Town of Flatbush Civic and Cultural Association in 1976 for the Bicentennial. That booklet also has a view of Melrose Park between Winthrop Street and Clarkson Avenue in 1883.
The plat map showing the boundaries of Melrose Park must have been the earliest one that shows my 1899 house–probably 1900 or 1901. I’d imagine the Brooklyn Historical Society must still have it in their library (which was closed during their renovation, but must be open by now).
Bob, I would love to see that map! I, too, have a fascination with Melrose Park… It just seems so surreal, all those huge mansions on lush grounds right off Flatbush Avenue! I always wondered how far up Flatbush it was located…
Do you have a copy of Brooklyn’s Flatbush, by Merlis and Rosenzweig? On page 14, bottom left is a picture of Old. St. Pauls on Flatbush, with the Clarkson Mansion in the background. There is a large picture of the Clarkson Mansion (eventually the Midwood Club) on page 52, I think after it was relocated. On page 56 is a great picture of Melrose Hall (the original Lane House) and the entrance to Melrose Park.
On the facing page, incidently, is a great shot of the house in question on this thred, the Thomas Brush House, built in 1899, designed by George Pallister, and the house next to it, designed by the same architect for his grandson. These houses are particularly noteworthy as they are entirely of brick construction. Particularly rare for Ditmas Park, although there are a few houses in PPS that were original brick, even more unusual, stucco (I think just three).
The W.A.A. Brown House in Melrose Park is pictured at the very bottom of this web page: http://home.att.net/~ebasics/flatbush2.html The picture is fuzzy, but the house is a monumental Tudor.
If you ever have any more info on houses in Melrose Place (particuarly photos, drawing or descriptions of other homes) please get in touch!
Thanks Erin–I enjoyed seeing your website, although I couldn’t find the photograph of the Brown House.I wonder if this was W.A.A. Brown who built the first spec rowhouse developments in Lefferts Manor in 1898,99, and 1900? I’ve read that he later built freestanding houses further south in Flatbush.
I’ve been fascinated with the Melrose Park development since I first saw it represented by dotted lines on old plat maps at the Long Island (now Brooklyn) Historical Society while researching my own house in the mid-70s.
There is a difference between the theory of restoring a house to a single family of today and a single family of yesterday. As Erin Joslyn says there would be staff quarters in the house. So your not only housing Parents and a few kids, you have several staff members that are living there too.
When people today say single family, they maybe have a nanny/au pair but doubt that they have a full staff of cook, maid, butler, nanny, etc. also living with them.
When everyone gets all up in arms about how houses in Victorian Flatbush and other areas have been carved up into multi family, and crusades that they have to be single family again or all is not right with the world…., they are being really selfish. A “single family” house used to house more then just a husband, wife and one of two kids.
I think the objection to using this house to accomodate an institution, is that the detail is usually stripped and the floorplan destroyed… As with the Albanian Mosque which has occupied a fabulous house on Albemarle Terrace in PPS. However, it sounds as though there’s nothing left there anyway. Condos sound to me like the way to go… I’m not sure institutions have taken much pride in keeping up the exterior in the past. Condo owners may see things differently.
Hey Bob –
I have two Brooklyn Eagle postcards depicting Houses in Melrose Park, the view is just off Flatbush Avenue, I guess up near PLG territory as you say.. Also the old Clarkson Mansion (c.1850)also stood in Melrose Park. It was later moved to a location off Church Avenue where it served as the home of the tony Midwood Club. There’s a few lines about Melrose Park in Flatbush Today (1908)… they mention the Brown house, which was situated there, as being one of the most impressive in Flatbush. The text suggests that this house was built at the turn of the twentieth century. There’s a fuzzy picture of it on my website.
Also, for anonymous at 4:04: The house was absolutely a single family, and like most large houses in Victorian Flatbush, had quarters for staff. The house next door was built for the owner’s son at about the same time… Also a single family and almost as large. It seems as though someone is restoring the neighboring house, but I could be wrong. Both houses have been owned in the past by actors/actresses – the houses are not that far from the old Vitagraph Studios.
I have never been in the house, but am sorry to hear that the detail has vanished. I was told by a fairly reliable source that the church/synogogue/school never occupied the whole building. I don’t know what was done with the rest of the house. Does anybody know the story?
See my website for more info on the house: http://home.att.net/~ebasics/dp.html
loser at 5:17 PM Wow, way to put one plus one together and get eleven!
Where did it say the job (that needed a review written) involves fact checking?!?
It says “…want that kind of optimism on my job review.”
For all you know, the job is for grooming poodles and 2:23 PM is a crap poodle groomer that needs someone really optimistic and uncritical to write a job review.
And notice the 😉 that a wink, as in making a joke.
Anyway, it’s Brownstoners lack of any basic fact checking that is being questioned. The entire premise that you would be dueling it out with a FAR crazed developer at the auction, is a flawed premise, as this is a land marked building, so all the theoretical FAR is a moot topic.
anon-2.23.
If you really work at a job that requires fact-checking then you might want to get your definition of “facts” sorted out. It seems to include any hypothetical scenario that offends you. I don’t think the OED would agree.