Pining for the Joseph Steele House
Maybe it’s near where you live and you pass by all the time or maybe it’s in a neighborhood you get to less frequently, but it’s a house that you have an emotional attachment to even though you’ve never set foot inside. For us, that house is the Joseph Steele House on the southeast corner…
Maybe it’s near where you live and you pass by all the time or maybe it’s in a neighborhood you get to less frequently, but it’s a house that you have an emotional attachment to even though you’ve never set foot inside. For us, that house is the Joseph Steele House on the southeast corner of Lafayette and Vanderbilt. Whenever we walk by (which is frequently) we’re always hoping we’ll get to see something we haven’t before: Maybe the garden door will be open a crack and we’ll catch a glimpse of what the back stair look like. Or maybe a light will be on in the dining room and we’ll get to see if there are moldings on the ceiling. And, of course, there are the fantasies of someday living there. We’re not the only one with a certain affection for this place. Here’s what the AIA Guide has to say about the 1850 charmer:
An extraordinary relic from the days when these precincts were farm country. Greek Revival, with elegant narrow clapboards, a bracketed cornice with eyebrow windows, and a widow’s walk with a view of the harbor in those open, early days. It wears its age well, with dignity.
Indeed. For those of you coming to the Clinton Hill House Tour this weekend, make sure to and gaze at this beauty for a few moments. Do any readers have particular houses that they’ve formed similar attachments to?
That makes sense Asparagus – it definitely has that “ship captain’s” house look to me (seen a lot of them, having grown up on LI).
well, whatever the round thing is called, she loves it.
I was told by some old chap on that corner one day when I was asking about the house, that the tower at the top was used as a lookout for ships coming into the harbor. (you could see that far in those days, natch) The house belonged to an Admiral.
Someone told me that two sisters live in the house. It highlights that Clinton Hill (known with Fort Greene as the Hill in the nineteenth century) was subject to different waves of development, and that the solid looking rowhouses replaced free-standing mansions and country houses before them. It is a bright (yellow) spot on an otherwise dark corner. (Altho it is better since the Catholic school opened up its fence).
i always loved that house!!
unfortunately i wont be able to make it on sunday–how often do the tours happen?
The brick house at 8th avenue and 3rd street in Park Slope…… Be still my heart.
Is it a widow’s walk when it’s enclosed in glass, as this one is? Or is this a cupola?
Not again. Sigh. 10:55 is not me – well, you know the drill.
Love this house, as does my 10 year old daughter, it’s the rotunda on the top she wants!