House of the Day: 405 Clinton Avenue
This is big news, people. The idiosyncratic mansion that William Tubby designed in 1889 for Charles Adolph Schieren, a leather manufacturer, inventor, politician and philanthropist, has hit the market after years of neglect and deterioration. The Romanesque Revival/Queen Anne hybrid has been owned by the same person since 1990, and unfortunately he has not had…
This is big news, people. The idiosyncratic mansion that William Tubby designed in 1889 for Charles Adolph Schieren, a leather manufacturer, inventor, politician and philanthropist, has hit the market after years of neglect and deterioration. The Romanesque Revival/Queen Anne hybrid has been owned by the same person since 1990, and unfortunately he has not had the means to maintain the historic house in the manner it deserves. Many in the neighborhood have hoped he would sell it before it was too late, so this comes as great news. There are no interior photos, but given the open windows and, we hear, lack of heat in the house, it’s gotta be in pretty rough shape. Let’s hope there’s some well-heeled preservationist out there who’s got the mojo to buy the place and return it to its former splendor. The asking price for the 6,300-square-foot place is $3,995,000.
405 Clinton Avenue [Brooklyn Properties] GMAP P*Shark
Serious Dumpster Action on Clinton Avenue [Brownstoner]
Pierre–I hope you win the lottery.
Amazing place. I had the chance to chat up one of the guys cleaning the place this past Friday and he tells me it will need an absolute gut restoration. I then spoke to the broker Roger Hackette who confirmed that this amazing will place will need EVERYTHING from scratch. Now with that in mind I am not sure why it is priced so unrealistically. The Washington Ave mansion has been sitting @ $3m forever and will continue to do so but i guess owners are not in a hurry…not smart IMHO especially with the Wall Street folks exsanguinating like hell.
Absolutely spectacular mansion though and like Townhouselady I will buy this thing in a heartbeat if I hit the Lottery 🙂 LOL
Ah the fantasy ! Oh la la A real castle right here in Brooklyn.
I think we should get that co-housing group to buy this place and fix it up so they can co-house in it. 😛
@ gkw -there’s nothing about that house that can be “cookie cutter” & what’s wrong with stainless steel appliances?
Oh and the point to all that was that it was never lived in by a Pfizer.
I agree with Sam. Even a flame war about which neighborhood has better schools has got to be better than a bunch of recycled Zagat’s restaurant reviews (and more on topic for this blog).
Fred,
The Pfizer Mansion (280 Washington Avenue) was the home of Fanny Erhart and her husband Rudolf Erbsloeh with their four children (1 son and 3 daughters). Fanny was the daughter of Charles Erhart. Charles Erhart was a co-founder of Pfizer with his cousin/brother-in-law Charles Pfizer.
Fanny lived in the house until the teens when she sold the house to Walter Rappelyea Davies and moved down the street from The Plaza Hotel.
It’s unclear why she sold. It was shortly after her only son died at the age of two. Also her husband was in a bit of trouble because he was hiding money for his German friends in dummy companies.
Walter R. Davies was a lawyer who handled the Boerum Estate among others and was the treasurer of the Brooklyn Commitee for the Prevention of Tuberculosis which was headed be Frederic Pratt.
In 1925 Davies leased the house to The Brooklyn Public Library. It served as their offices for five years. He then sold it to St. Angela Hall Academy and was used as a nun’s residence and a school library.
The twin house at 282 was the home of Fanny’s brother William H. Erhart who was the chairman at Pfizer from 1929-1940. William was married to Frances Huntington, the daughter of the president of Dime Savings Bank. She died suddenly in 1902.
And so on and so on. . . .
Also, the house isn’t 12,000 square feet as reported. It’s closer to 10.
I love this place, as I imagine most people in the neighborhood do. The description says it was home to two NYC mayors. I had always heard it was home to a mayor of Brooklyn pre-NYC unification days.
I’m also confused by the dimensions given in the description. 30*70*95. 30 wide, sure, 70 deep, probably, not sure what the 95 is. 105 foot lot, so I guess the old carriage house (I think there is one behind this that fronts onto Waverly) is separately owned.
I think this is a completely reasonable price. This place is much more interesting than the Pfizer mansion. Did the mansion on the same block several doors south of this place go for $3.4 or $3.5 (the former dilapidated mansion/church). If I only had the money…
sam, I’m not sure what the school ratings have to do with this topic. Regardless, if you read the articles on the subject, particularly with regard to PS 8 in BH, you would realize how controversial and biased the ratings are; hardly surprising, given the DOE is behind them. I think they are really a misleading indicator of a school’s quality (full disclosure, I live in BH. But I would not give much weight to the “C” given to PS29 in Cobble Hill too). I think the test scores, as shown on insideschools.org, are a much better indication of how the school is doing.