house
Tomorrow from 1 to 5 p.m. tour-goers will get a chance to visit five houses in the Heights, including an 1860’s brick house with restored 19th-century architectural details a noteworthy collection of Biedermeier furniture collection. Also on the tour: A 150-year-old sanctuary of the Zion German Evangelical Lutheran Church with stained-glass windows and recently restored ceiling murals. Reservations are recommended, at (718). 858-9193 and brooklynheightsassociation.org. Tickets, $30, on the day of the tour only, starting at 12:30 p.m. at 129 Pierrepont Street (near Clinton Street). Unfortunately, no kids under 13 are allowed (except for infants in front packs) so we’re not going to be making it. (We somehow made it through the Fort Greene tour with our one-year-old in a backpack without incident.) Can someone please take a picture for us of the triple-wide garden that is supposed to be on the tour!
House and Gardens Open Up [NY Times]


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  1. as a former volunteer at the Heights tour, it’s a good policy not to have the owners there. People will say any thought that pops into their head (“I would NEVER have chosen such a TERRIBLE color for this room — WHY would you do that???). You can call it impersonal, but I call it self-preservation.

    I don’t get 9:24 comments. If you don’t want to drool over houses, I think you probably should skip a house tour in any neighborhood.

  2. I haven’t gone on a Brooklyn Heights tour for years (mostly for the reasons anon 9:24 mentioned) but IIRC, unlike other Brooklyn tours, the owners are NEVER there in the Heights (which makes their tours seemseem kind of impersonal IMO).

  3. Am I the only person who finds these house tours kind of unappealing — particulary the Brooklyn Heights one where you are strictly going to drool over wealthy people’s sumptuous homes? At least with the ones in fringy, formerly run-down neighborhoods there is some sense that people are of going with an interest in seeing how the houses have been revived. I’ve been on a couple tours, and I didn’t really like the sensation of having the owners standing there with this sort of self-satisfied air as I wandered through their super-fabulous, expensive renovation.

  4. i am in favor of openness, heaven knows, but there were prominent “no photographs” signs at all the houses on the BH tour, I supposed to prevent future thieves from cataloguing the silver.
    So is it right of Brownstoner to solicit pix? These are, after all, private homes….Of course, every year I expect a “no sneezing” sign, too! At least this year the lines outside the houses were not half an hour long; can’t tell if this is because attendance was down or because they finally figured out crowd control.

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