Brownstone Architecture

[BrooklynLove]

the waves of new buildings going up throughout the city over the past few years got me to thinking about the early stages of the brownstone boom back in the 1800s. anyone on this board have an idea as to the architect(s) behind the original designs for brownstone architecture? obviously there was much variation on the basic theme over the late 1800s through early 1900s, but it would be interesting to see where the whole story started.

[Merry]

Walkabout : The Italianate Style, part 1


Remsen St, near Clinton, Brooklyn Heights


South Portland between DeKalb and Lafayette, Fort Greene


Adelphi St, near De Kalb Ave, Fort Greene


Pacific Street, between Nostrand and NY Ave. Crown Heights North


State Street, between Nevins and Bond, Boerum Hill.

For many people, the quintessential Brooklyn row house is the Italianate brownstone. The name conjures up the streetscape of rows of identical houses stretching down a block, with their tall stoops, majestic entryways, long windows encased in heavy window lintels, and deep sills. There is a perfect symmetry to their uniformity, a pleasing rhythm and solidity to these blocks, especially when paired with ancient trees, flower boxes overflowing with trailing vines and flowers, and heavy black cast iron railings and fences. This, for many, is classic Brownstone Brooklyn.

The Italianate style flourished from 1840 until around 1870. This coincides with the rapid growth of most of what we call Brownstone Brooklyn, and fine examples of these houses are found most frequently in the older neighborhoods fanning out from Fulton Landing and Brooklyn Heights. They appear, in lesser numbers, in later neighborhoods such as Crown Heights North, where they represent some of the earliest row houses in that neighborhood. There are very few, if any, in Crown Heights South or Prospect Lefferts Gardens, as development in those neighborhoods took place after the style had fallen out of favor. The inspiration for the Italianate brownstone was the 15th century Italian city palazzo, a style with classical detail, elegance and gravitas deemed eminently suitable for conveying prosperity and social position in a limited space. At the same time, the New England sandstone known as brownstone was gaining in popularity as an elegant and rich building material, and by the late 1840’s through the 1850’s, almost all of the new residential architecture, as well as churches and commercial buildings in Manhattan and Brooklyn were faced in this stone, praised for its “unostentatious magnificence”. The enduring popularity of this material is evidenced by that fact that we still call all row houses, whether brick, brownstone, limestone, or a combination thereof, “brownstones”.

What some people don’t realize is that brownstones are, in fact, brick houses faced with a six inch veneer of brownstone slab. The skill of the masons of the era was so great that these blocks of stone were joined together almost imperceptibly, so that the seams almost disappear on the flat surface, calling the observer’s attention to the elaborately carved doorways and windows. Unfortunately, in the building frenzy of the 1850’s and 60’s, builders often cut and laid the stone with the grain exposed, thinking no one would know the difference, or that it did not matter. As we all know now, improperly cut brownstone can scale and crumble and even fall off. The stone should always be cut and laid across the grain, so that water cannot enter the grain, freeze, expand and break the stone. Sadly, cutting corners in new construction is not a new concept. Those brownstones that show minimal damage and wear, after 150 years in the elements, were cut and laid correctly, those spalling, and in need of major resurfacing, were not.

The mid 1800's were the Age of Brownstone, an age that defines the city to this day. The neighborhoods of Brooklyn Heights, Cobble Hill, Carroll Gardens, Boerum Hill, Fort Greene, and Clinton Hill are greatly defined by the Italianate brownstone. Like any architectural style, it borrowed and combined with other brownstone-clad styles also emerging at the same time, such as the Neo-Grec, and Second Empire. All of these mid-century styles flourished in the above neighborhoods, and spread to the growing areas of Bedford Stuyvesant, Prospect Heights, Park Slope and Crown Heights.

Next time: the importance of the streetscape in the Italianate style, and what are those creepy, mutant vegetal bracket things flanking the front door, anyway? You won’t have to wait until next week to find out. Walkabout will appear twice a week from now on.

http://www.brownstoner.com/brownston...bout_the_i.php

[Merry]

Walkabout: Italianates, the Ornamental Imperative


Adelphi St, between DeKalb and Lafayette, Fort Greene.


Washington Park, near DeKalb Ave. Fort Greene.


Cornices on Grand Ave Italianates, Clinton Hill.


Remsen St. brackets. Brooklyn Heights.


Elaborate foliate bracket. Vanderbilt Ave, between Gates and Greene. Fort Greene.

A mid 19th century magazine, extolling the virtues of the Italianate brownstone, declared that, “the doorway is the most indispensable feature of the structure, and therefore calls loudly for adornment, and should generally be distinguished by more impressive decoration than any other feature”. Architects of the time must have been listening, and many went overboard, piling layers of ornament on the doorways of our buildings.

Perhaps even more than the other decorative elements, the doorways of the Italianate brownstone define the style. In the most expensive homes, the doorway is a porch at the top of the stairs, formed by large columns with ornate capitals, holding heavy door hoods that are either rounded, or classic triangular pediments, with heavy carved keystones above the doors.

These are flanked by enormous acanthus leaf brackets which face the street. Smaller acanthus brackets can often be found facing each other in the doorway, and for good measure, more acanthus brackets often frame the windows, and/or support the large window box shelves below the parlor floor windows. There are fine examples in Brooklyn Heights, as well as on Washington Park, in Fort Greene.

Most of the Italianates in Brooklyn do not have the columns, a feature for only the most expensive homes, but all have the acanthus brackets. Some of these brackets are beautiful in their expression of plant forms, and are in amazing condition. Some architects must have wanted to show off something different, and we can find fantastical combinations of leaves, flowers and decorative shapes. Some of these can be a bit disturbing at first glance, and to the modern eye, look like mutant plants run wild, or extruded foam, especially when the lines have been blurred by water damage, and badly painted over or “repaired”. The more creepily vegetal remind us that tastes certainly change over time, and that the desire to please a demanding public can often result in the overdone.

Like any architectural style, over the course of its popularity, the Italianate brownstone can be found in its pure form, as a gracious upper class dwelling, and its knock-offs, as details are simplified for more middle class houses, and again, simplified even more for smaller working class homes, and the acanthus bracket becomes a plain curved shape. As the years go by, similar styles emerge, and styles are mixed with wild abandon. The addition of a mansard roof, found often as a fifth floor, classifies these Italianates as Second Empire, named after the popularity of the mansard roof in the architecture of Napoleon II, in France. The addition of carved ornamental patterns incised into the brownstone, alongside familiar Italianate motifs, shows the influence of the Neo-Grec style, itself a popular style here in Brooklyn. The Anglo Italianate has a short stoop and an English basement. Because of their flat surfaces, Italianates and their cousins were easy prey for the “modernizing” of brownstones that took place in the 20th century. Cornices, window and door hoods, brackets, and even the graceful double doors have vanished on too many of our streets, leaving bare flat surfaces, “improved” by paint, stucco, brick and stone faces, and even vinyl siding. In many of our historic districts as well as unprotected areas, it is not uncommon to see the ornate stoops removed for ground floor entrances, and the tall parlor floor windows bricked in to hold standard window sizes, or doorways filled in to accommodate cheap factory doors. Fortunately, there are still surviving rows of intact Italianates in many neighborhoods, all of which remind us of why we love our brownstones. Long may they stand. Photo album on Flickr.

Charles Lockwood's Bricks and Brownstone remains the bible for our brownstone heritage, and was the source of much of the historic and stylistic information. If you love this stuff, you must own this book.

http://www.brownstoner.com/brownston...bout_itali.php

[Merry]

Walkabout: The Architects - Montrose Morris, Part 1


Montrose W. Morris, architect. (Wilhelmina Kelly, from her book, Bedford Stuyvesant)



This biography is the first in an ongoing series featuring the best of Brownstone Brooklyn's architects.

The late 19th century was a time of big money, big growth, and big ambitions in a big city. Enter a family man, society swell, bon vivant, good singer, canny businessman, and damn good architect. Stanford White? No – Montrose W. Morris, of Bedford, Brooklyn, one of the finest architects to paint the canvas of our Brooklyn landscape.

Montrose Morris was born in Hempstead, Long Island on March 20, 1861. His family moved to Brooklyn, and he was educated in Brooklyn public schools, and at the Peekskill Academy. It was a common practice of the time for would-be architects to apprentice themselves to successful practitioners, and learn the craft. Morris studied under Manhattan architect Charles W. Clinton, who with his partner, Hamilton Russell, were responsible for some of NY’s most iconic buildings, including the 7th Regiment Armory, on Park Ave, the Apthorp and Graham Court Apartments, and the Moorish style Masonic Temple, now famous as the New York City (Dance) Center. In 1883, after seven years with the Clinton firm, Morris opened up his own office on Exchange Place, which he maintained until his death in 1917. Lower Manhattan was home to the headquarters and warehouses of the growing numbers of successful industrialists, wealthy merchants, and financial and legal wizards whose business he was courting. The Brooklyn Bridge had just been completed, and many of the clients he sought were making the move to the quiet suburbs of Clinton Hill, Bedford and St. Mark’s. To woo these clients, in a brilliant strategic move, Morris bought about half the block of Hancock Street, between Marcy and Thompkins Avenues in Bedford, and on a 20 foot lot, designed and built a home that became both his residence and his showroom. The houses he designed on Hancock Street are among his best, and the area contains the largest concentration of his work still standing.

Today, many people think that the large, ornate Queen Anne on the corner of Marcy and Hancock in Bed Stuy was the Morris family home. It is his design, but his home stood next door, sadly now an empty lot. His home burned down in the late 1960’s or early 70’s, in a massive fire that also greatly damaged the corner house. From descriptions and rare photographs, we know that the Morris home was a showpiece, indeed. Here Montrose utilizes a design concept that he would repeat in all of his row houses, and in the Hulburt Mansion in Park Slope; individual houses are joined by common design elements, such as a roof line, arches, dormers or other architectural features, so that the whole is greater than its individual parts. Morris’ own home at 234 Hancock, built in 1885, was joined to 232 on the corner, built three years later, and seem to be one continuous large house, with almost a cacophony of ornament and materials - bays, balconies, loggias, arched entryways, jutting dormers, turrets with high conical peaked roofs, stained glass windows in varying sizes and baronial chimneys. Inside, the Morris house featured the latest in stylish design. The Brooklyn Eagle positively gushed over the features in the house, the biggest thrill coming from the second story balcony that looked down on the dining room and library below, an extravagant use of space. All through the house, fine woodwork, stained glass and decorative features dazzled the almost twenty thousand people who the Eagle states passed through the doors when it opened as Morris’ model home.

“The box stoop and entrance hall opens to the reception hall, or library, which is two stories high, with dome ceiling, paneled walls and high wainscoting, with rafters in the dome all built with English oak. The center of the dome, twenty-five feet high, has elaborate stained glass and is lighted by electricity...Looking down from the second story balcony to the reception room there is a view of the parlor and dining room opening off the same, lighted by iron lamps suspended by chains and giving a picturesque effect.”

A photograph of this room was printed in the Architectural Record in 1894, the only photograph of the interior of this amazing house. After showing the home as a model, the Morris family moved in. In the coming years the home was often used for entertaining clients and friends, and hosting meetings and socials for the many civic and social organizations Montrose and his wife belonged to. He went on to develop the other parcels of land on the block, houses mentioned often in this column. For John Kelly, an Irish immigrant who had made a fortune on a steam fitting invention, Morris designed a handsome Italian palazzo style brownstone mansion across the street at 247. His most famous group of attached houses lie next door to his, the red brick and terra cotta group at 236-244 Hancock, and the masterful Romanesque group of houses at 246-252 Hancock. Equally important were the group next to the Kelly house at 255 – 259 Hancock, and a couple of blocks away, the eclectic brick and terra cotta Romanesque Revival at 68 Macon St, which is notable for its second story balcony, and the magnificent ornamental details on the façade. A block away, a very sedate group was built at 198-204 Jefferson Ave. This body of work greatly contributes to the beauty of Bedford Stuyvesant. Astonishingly, none of these buildings are landmarked, although efforts are in progress on that regard right now. See all of these buildings on my Flickr page.

Next time: Morris’s plans pay off and he hits the big time with huge commissions, and expands from Bedford throughout upper crust Brownstone Brooklyn.

http://www.brownstoner.com/brownston...bout_the_a.php

[Merry]

Walkabout: MW Morris- the Commissions Cometh


John Arbuckle House. 315 Clinton Avenue, Clinton Hill. 1888.


John Arbuckle House. 315 Clinton Avenue, Clinton Hill. 1888


285-289 Dekalb Avenue, Waverly and Clinton. Clinton Hill, 1889


Imperial Apartments, Pacific Street at Bedford. Crown Heights North. 1893


855-857 St. Marks Avenue. Crown Heights North. 1892

One of the many people who toured Montrose Morris’ model home on Hancock Street was developer Louis B. Seitz. In 1889, he commissioned Morris to build a new kind of building for the area, an upper class apartment building. Morris designed the Alhambra, arguably the best of his many apartment buildings. A terra cotta trimmed brick building taking up the entire block front of Nostrand Avenue, between Macon and Halsey, the Alhambra is classic Romanesque Revival Morris. Here, he echoes his group of houses on Hancock and goes even better, with loggias stretching across the upper stories, elaborate dormered towers, and terra cotta trim joining the disparate parts of the building. Inside, huge apartments offered the best of single family home living, with gracious appointments, and lavish detail. In spite of strikes by bricklayers, and other delays, the building was a huge success. Seitz was pleased to offer Morris two more upper class apartment building commissions in Bedford, all three buildings now protected as NYC landmarks, the Renaissance Apartments, also on Nostrand, and the “Dakota of Brooklyn”, the Imperial Apartments in nearby Grant’s Square, on Bedford and Pacific. (1893). He also designed the smaller Bedfordshire Apartments next door to the Imperial, in 1892.

His success in these ventures was paying off. Commissions were coming in right and left in the late 1880’s, through the 1990’s. More apartment buildings were designed, including the Roanoke (originally the San Carlo Hotel) in Fort Greene, the Arlington, on Montague St. in Brooklyn Heights, the Montrose, on State and Hoyt (demolished), and the Lenox and Montauk on St. Mark’s and Flatbush. Another major commission was the expansion of the St. George Hotel, also in Brooklyn Heights. Morris’s grand tower, festooned with flags, opened in 1890, and still stands today.

The innovative joining of several houses under one roofline at 246-252 Hancock St. inspired developer Joseph Fahys to commission two groups of houses in Clinton Hill. 285-289 and 282-290 DeKalb Avenue, near Waverly, carry the theme of the whole being greater than the parts, both groups appearing to be one large house, with the Montrose trademarks turrets, stained glass windows, Romanesque arches and mixed building materials, tied together with bands of carved Byzantine trim, repeated decorative half columns, and ornamented by cherubic and fantastical faces. A similar group appears at 855-57 St. Mark’s Avenue in what is now Crown Heights North, a double house, built for two members of the same family. The houses built in 1892 in limestone and brick, feature a tall turret with a bell shaped roof, second floor loggia, and common decorative elements joining the two. The house also has an elegant two story carriage house in the rear.

Montrose Morris’ most socially important commissions at this time were the huge mansions for the wealthy industrialists he had been courting from the beginning. One was for John Arbuckle, on Clinton Ave, one of Brooklyn’s most prestigious streets. Arbuckle was known as the “Coffee King”, and was enormously rich from the sale and distribution of his Yuban coffee, and the ships that carried it. In 1888, Morris designed a large semi-detached red brick and brownstone mansion at 315 Clinton Ave. It is a beautiful Romanesque Revival mansion with Renaissance detailing. The second story oriel is especially fine, and the attention paid to the side of the house is remarkable. A long porch once ran along the side of the house, but that is gone. The carriage house at 306-8 Waverly is probably a Morris design, and was the carriage house for the Arbuckle mansion. Morris also designed a mansion further north, at 181 Clinton, near Willoughby, for a Standard Oil executive, but that house was torn down, along with several others, during WWII, for the Willoughby Houses. Still standing, however, are his houses at 184-88 Clinton, built in 1892. See these buildings on my Flickr page.

Next week: the concluding chapters; Montrose Morris, developer and social lion, some disappointments, his Park Slope masterpieces, a change in architectural style, and his mark on Brooklyn.

http://www.brownstoner.com/brownston...bout_mw_mo.php

[BrooklynLove]

All absolutely gorgeous.

[MidtownGuy]

So much beauty...all boroughs considered, NYC has as much beautiful architecture, and of as many styles, as any city in the world...bar none. It's endless.

I love Brooklyn. I used to live on South Portland mentioned above...amazing block. South Oxford on the next block is also amazing. I lived on several beautiful streets in Fort Green while I was a student, and I miss that neighborhood sometimes.

[antinimby]

All that was then, this more like what is now:

[ToastyPotato]

Hahah, I was just at a block with those the other day on Jackson St. There was a nicer looking new building across the street though.

[Derek2k3]

Originally Posted by MidtownGuy

So much beauty...all boroughs considered, NYC has as much beautiful architecture, and of as many styles, as any city in the world...bar none. It's endless.

I agree, the problem is that the good stuff is always interrupted by garbage which waters down the entire streetscape. Ft. Greene is surrounded by trash; Atlantic Yards, public housing, the BQE, LIU, Atlantic Avenue.

Park Slope and Brooklyn Heights/Carroll Gardens are the only neighborhoods I've been to where you can walk for blocks and blocks without being accosted by something offensive.


What kind of architect would put this


a block a way from this.


To think Mr. Gourlay posted on this forum to defend that trash.

[BrooklynLove]

Originally Posted by Derek2k3

Park Slope and Brooklyn Heights/Carroll Gardens are the only neighborhoods I've been to where you can walk for blocks and blocks without being accosted by something offensive.

Depends where you're walking in Park Slope. But I guess this depends on whether you're using the 1980s or 2000s definition of Park Slope.

Quite possibly more density of beauty in Crown Heights actually. It's an amazing place to stroll. But put your iPod away.

[Merry]

This entry isn't really about brownstones anymore, but continuing with Montrose Morris...

Walkabout: Montrose Morris - Full Circle


Clarence W. Seamans Mansion. St. Marks Avenue, Crown Heights North. 1903. Stable can be seen at left rear. (Brooklyn Public Library, taken in 1905.)


17 Prospect Park West, Park Slope 1899


18 Prospect Park West, Park Slope. 1898


22 Prospect Park West. Park Slope. 1899


123 Eighth Avenue, at Carroll. Park Slope. 1894

This is the fourth in a series about Montrose Morris, one of Brooklyn finest architects working at the turn of the 20th century. Previous articles can be found here.

Like most architects of the day, Montrose Morris embraced the new Classicism, as popularized by the Chicago Exposition of 1893. Gone were the dark brownstone and brick, and the free wheeling exuberance of the Romanesque Revival and Queen Anne styles. The light colored building materials, serious sturdiness and sheer impressiveness of Beaux Arts and neo-Classic architecture were a reflection of the age of robber barons and big money, and that’s what Morris’ clients in the late 1890’s and early 20th century wanted. In Park Slope, Morris took this new Classicism to heart, but tweaked it, and imbued some of these new commissions with the old Morris touch. The first of these new buildings, in 1894, was corner townhouse at 123 Eighth Ave, at Carroll St. The Classical details are especially fine on the front entrance and on the Carroll St. side of the building. On Prospect Park West, Classical details are combined with a Morris loggia at 17 PPW, while all of his PPW limestones have similar detailing in the stonework, Classical relief columns, arched entries and windows and pedimented dormers. As per usual, with Morris, many are in complementing pairs; 16, 17 PPW (1899), my favorites - 18, 19 PPW (1898), and a single, 22 PPW (1899). All of these houses have large windows facing the park, and all are examples of a restrained elegance in design.

In 1900, Montrose got a huge commission – the largest private house in Brooklyn, to date. Clarence W. Seamans was the head of Union Typewriter, at the beginning of the 20th century, the largest business machine company in the world. He was also a financier, sitting on the boards of Brooklyn’s Schermerhorn Bank and People’s Trust Bank. During the 1890’s he began buying up land in the fashionable St. Mark’s District, on St. Mark’s Avenue and directly behind this plot, on Bergen St. He held a competition to choose an architect for his new home, and chose the designs of Montrose Morris over the others.

Morris designed an enormous three story building with an attic, servant’s wing, porte cochere, and Bergen St. stable, all in the style of the Italian Renaissance, according to both the Brooklyn Daily Eagle and the New York Times. When the house was finished in 1903, it cost over a million dollars, and was praised as the finest house in the city. Each room had a different theme, an Oriental room, an English dining room, etc, and all were done in the finest rare woods, marble and stone available, with solid silver hardware and fittings. Seamans and Morris spent two years combing the world for furniture, fabrics, artwork, and decorative items. The NY Times, on March 29, 1903, described every public room in the house, noting even that all of the closets had electricity, and were designed to have the lights go on when the doors were opened.

While the exterior design is more Neo-Renaissance than any other MM houses, he managed to include at least one loggia in the front, and we find that Morris has not abandoned the designs that first brought him fame and started his career, back at his house on Hancock St. Here’s what the Times had to say:

“A large reception room is situated in the center of the building, two stories in height. Opening off the reception room are a drawing room, a music room, an Oriental room, dining room, library and billiard room.”

This is the same basic design Morris used in his own home, in the corner house on Hancock and Marcy, and for all we know, elsewhere as well. But here, money is no object, so as the Daily Eagle reports:

“There will be a grand staircase 10 feet wide leading right and left up to the gallery above. Another staircase will connect to the second story with the porte cochere by which guests can ascend to lay aside wraps before descending down the main staircase to the reception hall……On the third floor there will be a ballroom and art gallery, 35 feet by 60, with a high dome ceiling extending to the roof.”

Oh, there were also two bowling alleys in the basement, sheathed in enameled brick, “a decided novelty”, the notes the Eagle. And there was to be an enameled brick tunnel connecting the house to the stable, which opened on to Bergen St, which was for the servants use, and for tradesmen’s deliveries.

The Seaman’s Mansion on St. Mark’s Avenue was to be Morris’ most expensive and finest work, especially the interiors. The estate was surrounded by the large, expensive homes of many of Brooklyn’s wealthiest elite, including the Strauss family of Abraham and Strauss. Clarence Seamans must have enjoyed his opulent home, but only for another twelve years, he died in 1915, at the age of 61. By the end of the 1920’s, early 1930’s, St. Mark’s Avenue’s was losing its cachet for the rich, and although the area remained an upper class enclave, one by one, the mansions and their large grounds were replaced by large apartment buildings, as a house that once housed under 20 people, including servants, was replaced by buildings housing hundreds. Brooklyn was growing, especially because of the recent arrival of the IRT subway line. The Seaman’s mansion was torn down in 1928, and was replaced by the Excelsior Apartments, a fine building in its own right, but it would have been great to have been able to see this exceptional home as a house museum. This grand building, costing over 1 million dollars at a time when the average home cost about $26K, filled with the finest woodwork and features, stood for a mere twenty-five years. Pictures for this article are on Flickr.

http://www.brownstoner.com/brownston...montr.php#more