You are currently browsing the tag archive for the 'Clinton Hill' tag.
WHO CAN GUESS where these very old houses are? City, neighborhood, intersection?
I’m not sayin’. At the end of this weekend, everything will be illuminated.
ANSWER: Accolades to Julie, who is the closest. These are the last two buildings on Vanderbilt Avenue at the corner of Park Ave, just east of the BQE. That’s a fascinating, eclectic block (Vanderbilt between Park and Myrtle, on the boundary between Fort Greene and Clinton Hill), with numerous architectural styles in evidence, and a few real gems. I almost bought a house on that block in March 2000 – fifth or sixth in from the corner of Park. It was equally old and unimproved, but larger, and was on the market for 330K. The timing wasn’t great for me and there was several feet of water in the cellar, which was daunting. But what an investment that would have been! Add it my long list of Real Estate Regrets.
BROWNSTONE VOYEUR is a joint project of casaCARA and Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn. The series, which has been a regular Thursday feature on both sites, is going on hiatus for the summer. This is the last installment of the season; look for it to return in the fall.
A 20-FOOT-WIDE BROWNSTONE in Clinton Hill, replete with 1870s detail — wide moldings, a flat arch opening between the front and rear parlors, a bay window at the rear — is the perhaps unlikely showcase for a locally acquired gallery of very modern paintings, and look how well it works.
The homeowners, Richard Montelione, an attorney, and Jack Esterson, an architect, enjoy browsing local fairs and shows of student work at nearby Pratt Institute to add to their collection, which they display against soft brown walls (Benjamin Moore’s Jamesboro Gold, to be exact), outlined with crisp white moldings.
On the parlor floor, above and below, furniture sources are: white sofa, Room & Board; coffee table, Gueridon; orange Ellipse chair, Modernica; Danish modern end tables, Horseman Antiques on Atlantic Avenue; TV credenza, Design Within Reach; white leather club chairs, Room & Board; round coffee table, ABC Carpet. The table lamps are Italian, from The End of History in Greenwich Village.
The dining table, below, is from Desiron and the leather chairs from Crate & Barrel.
Part four of the apartment-hunt quartet and then we’ll give it a rest.
Sunday morning I saw a historic goodie of a flat in Fort Greene, on a block I was always curious about: the glorious Washington Park, northernmost rim of Fort Greene Park, elegant since Edith Wharton’s day.
It was half the top floor, 2BR for $2,300, overlooking Olmsted and Vaux’s sea of green. The front parlor and attached alcove were good and intact, the back bedroom, kitchen, and bathroom very East Village in the ’70s.
.
It was four enormous flights up – and once inside the apartment, the second bedroom is a loft reached by ladder. Not for me, I told the broker, panting – for someone younger. (Not just that – it was very close to Myrtle Avenue and the projects, not the tonier, more beautiful, DeKalb Avenue end. If it was at the other end, I might have gladly climbed those stairs.)
Indeed, there was a young couple looking at the place. I hope they took it.
Then I drove around Clinton Hill, going up and down streets I hadn’t paid much attention to since my days at Pratt in the late ’80s (I’m an architecture-school dropout). On St. James Place and Cambridge Place, above and below, between Lafayette and Greene, I was amazed once again at the architectural richness of this borough.
Stumbled into one of the houses on the Society for Clinton Hill House Tour, below, a wood-porched Victorian relic.
I’m visualizing a nice, wide parlor floor with terrace in that area.
Recent Comments