Ornate PLG Limestone With Distinctive Roof, Mantels, Pier Mirror Asks $2.35 Million

There’s loads of original detail packed into this two-story limestone, and its distinctive Spanish tile roof lends it some decided curb appeal. Set in the Prospect-Lefferts Gardens Historic District at 171 Maple Street, the house is part of the original single-family enclave of Lefferts Manor.

It’s part of two rows of Neo-Renaissance-style houses designed by Brooklyn architect Axel Hedman, one on each side of the street, making for an impressive streetscape. The limestone houses have ornamental door surrounds, metal cornices and full height bays, some rounded and some angled, topped with the statement-making polygonal Spanish-tile roofs. They were constructed by E. H. Bishop & Son in 1909. The houses were advertised that year as “two story no basement houses” with “only one flight of stairs for the tired housekeeper to climb.”

Ads and articles in 1909 and 1910 describe the finely detailed interiors of the Bishop-built houses on Maple Street houses and a three-story row on Midwood Street as having built-ins, mantels, parquet floors and tiled bathrooms. The interior finishes were by Gustave E. Callmander, a decorator based in Bed Stuy. Finishes included elephant hide wall decorations in the dining room and an ornamental frieze in the foyer.

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The interior of No. 171 still contains many of the Bishop-built features. A wainscoted foyer leads into the parlor level, arranged with parlor in the front bay, a library in the middle, and dining room and kitchen at the rear. The parlor has wall moldings, window and door trim and a pier mirror, all painted white, as are all the details throughout the first floor. The library, or middle parlor, has built-in cabinets on either side of a mantel with mirrored overmantel. There’s another mantel in the dining room, along with a coffered ceiling, wainscoting and a plaster ceiling medallion. That wainscoting likely would have originally been taller and topped with a plate shelf, a fairly common feature for English-inspired dining rooms of the period.

The kitchen has been updated with cherry wood cabinets with glass-fronted uppers, stone counters and a mosaic tile backsplash. A door leads out to a rear deck.

The three bedrooms are all upstairs. There’s no floor plan, but if the layout is still original there should be one larger bedroom at front and one at back, with two smaller rooms to the side. One of those smaller bedrooms is in the listing as a home office. The bedroom in the front bay is pictured and it’s got parquet floors, picture moldings and a dressing area with original marble sink, built-ins and mirror. None of the bathrooms are shown, but according to the listing there’s a half bath on the parlor level and two full baths on the second floor.

The basement, which appears to be below grade, is finished off with tile floors, built-in storage and a laundry room. It is accessible from the front and rear yards. While the listing notes the basement is “very flexible space,” the house can’t be converted to a two-family because an historic covenant allows only single-family dwellings in the Lefferts Manor area.

Out back there’s the deck off the kitchen and, according to the listing, some 100-year-old rose bushes.

The house hasn’t been on the market since 2004, when it sold for $624,000. Listed by Bill Sheppard of Brown Harris Stevens, the property is now on the market for $2.35 million.

[Listing: 171 Maple Street | Broker: Brown Harris Stevens] GMAP

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