2009 House Tour: 129 Park Place

This essay completes our series of articles about the 2009 Park Slope Civic Council House Tour. This year's tour will be held on Sunday, May 17, 2009, from noon until 5:00pm. Advance tickets are available here; tickets are also available on the day of the event at the tour's starting point, 50 Prospect Park West. Keep in mind that all of the tour's proceeds are returned to the Park Slope community through the Park Slope Civic Council's unique grants program. As far as we know, no other community group in Brooklyn runs an annual grants program like ours. So come on out, visit some great houses, and help support your local community on May 17! And our sincere thanks to the generous, community-minded people who have agreed to open their houses to the public for this tour. You have done a great service to Park Slope.

Our tour house, 129 Park Place, is one of a row of five classic Italianate brownstone-faced row houses, built in 1874-75 by neighborhood builder John Gordon. It is within the current Park Slope Historic District. These are among the oldest houses in Park Slope, having been built within convenient distance from the horsecar lines that once ran in Flatbush Avenue and 7th Avenue, which provided easy access to the New York ferries at the foot of Fulton Street.

129 Park Place - Park Slope Historic District

The Italianate style is seen in the flush front; the fully-enframed windows; the rounded entryway with segmental-arched door hood; the naturalistic, acanthus-leaved brackets below the door hood; and the cast-iron stoop balusters resembling chess pawns:

129 Park Place - detail

This house lacks the original Italianate stoop newel posts, which can still be seen on the house immediately to the right:

131 Park Place - stoop newel post

The house to the right also sports a projecting, V-shaped bay window at the second floor. This probably represents a 19th-century attempt to "remuddle" an Italianate house into a more modern, neo-Grec V-fronted house. It's true the house gained a nice projecting bay. But, at what cost? The house lost not only the distinctive, segmental-arched door hood, but also the lovely, naturalistic brackets, which were replaced with the more geometric neo-Grec versions, resulting in a kind of bizarre, stylistic mish-mash:

131 Park Place - detail

In short, we're not sure we would have traded in a pristine Italianate door hood for that bay window.

The first owner of 129 Park Place was probably George W. Alexander, bookbinder, who is listed at this address in the 1879 Lain's Brooklyn Directory:

ALEXANDER George W. bookbinder 10 Astor pl N.Y. h 129 Park pl

Alexander's business occupied a series of locations in Manhattan over the course of several decades. By 1893 he no longer resided at 129 Park Place, but a sensational fire in his business on W. 18th Street in New York generated headlines for several days:

New York Times, June 22, 1893

As early as 1883, 129 Park Place was in the hands of Benjamin H. Bayliss, a lawyer in New York. Bayliss was a "man of faith" and was associated for many years with the Memorial Presbyterian Church at 7th Avenue and St. Johns Place in Park Slope. Indeed, the first evidence we have of his residence at 129 Park Place is a notice that he is searching for a precentor for his church choir:

Brooklyn Daily Eagle, January 23, 1883, p. 3

Bayliss was apparently as frugal as he was faithful, renting out rooms to lodgers over the years. An Eagle notice in 1895 recounts that one George H. Gardner of 129 Park Place, most likely a lodger, was relieved of his pocket watch on a trip to Coney Island after succumbing to the "easy familiarity" and excitements of that locale and to the "enthusiastic charms" of a Miss Stacy and her friend, Mr. "Hart Stag", from whom he had accepted the offer of a carriage ride at 3am:

Brooklyn Daily Eagle, September 21, 1895, p. 12

Benjamin H. Bayliss died suddenly at 129 Park Place in 1897, aged 54, of "paralysis", apparently while preparing to go to church:

New York Times, March 9, 1897

The Eagle notes that Bayliss was eulogized as an "every day good man" and was memorialized by his congregation in the form of a Tiffany window installed in Memorial Prebyterian Church later that year. The paper carried a drawing of the window, whose subject, "Christ Blessing Little Children", befits the man who ran the church Sunday School for 25 years:

Brooklyn Daily Eagle, September 27, 1897, p. 5

His son Lucien, named after his maternal grandfather, apparently assumed ownership of 129 Park Place after his father's death. Lucien, who ran successfully for the New York State Assembly, is listed as the resident of 129 Park Place in the 1897 Lain's Brooklyn Directory:

BAYLISS Lucien S. lawyer 170 B'way N. Y. h 129 Park pl

Lucien continued the family's custom of letting rooms to lodgers. Several ads appear in the late 1890s Eagle for room and/or board at 129 Park Place:

Brooklyn Daily Eagle, March 29, 1899, p. 10

The association of the Bayliss family with 129 Park Place continues into the early 20th century. The New York Times on January 18, 1908, carries notice of the incorporation of the Economy Electric Company of Brooklyn, NY, one of whose directors is Donald Bayliss of 129 Park Place. By 1916, Lucien Bayliss is referred to as the "late".

In 1927, the Times recounts that Uno Dahlquist of 129 Park Place was killed in an automobile accident on the Montauk highway. Whether Mr. Dahlquist was a tenant of a still-resident Bayliss family, or whether the house was now a rooming house, is unclear. Mr. Dahlquist and four colleagues were returning from a job in Westhampton, Long Island, where they were engaged in painting a house.

2009 House Tour: 446 11th Street

446 11th Street, a small wood-frame house between 6th and 7th Avenues in the South Slope, presents several challenges to the researcher. #446 is the blue house on the right, behind the tree:

450-446 11th Street - unprotected

11th Street was renumbered in the late 19th century, possibly around 1890. Thus any citations to "446 Eleventh Street" prior to the renumbering will refer to another building, and we have not yet determined exactly when the renumbering occurred.

The renumbering was certainly complete by 1897. Thus we can try searching for the address in the online 1897 Lain's Brooklyn Directory, to see if we might find the name of the resident at the time. Unaccountably, the address does not appear in the 1897 Lain's.

An address search in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle yields just one citation, a "Situation Wanted" advertisement from 1900:

Brooklyn Daily Eagle, March 22, 1900, p. 10

Had the "respectable young girl" been currently employed at 446 11th Street, she probably would have specified "call at present employer's" in her advertisement, since it would have made it easier for prospective employers to obtain references. Thus it is likely that the girl was presently at liberty, and that 446 11th Street was her home.

Since there is no 1897 Lain's citation, but there is a 1900 Eagle citation, one might conclude that this house was built between 1897 and 1900. But 446 11th Street is probably a good deal older than that.

The reason involves what were called the "Fire Limits" of the city, or the building codes that specified whether a structure could be made of less expensive wood, or must be made of more expensive brick. The question of whether to extend the "Fire Limits" was constant throughout late 19th-c. Brooklyn:

Brooklyn Daily Eagle, May 4, 1892, p. 1 ("Fire Limits")

Discussions concerning whether and where to extend the Fire Limits were contentious, and have an eerie familiarity to those who follow development issues in present-day Brooklyn. One speaker, no doubt a builder of wood frame dwellings, argued against extension, claiming that the Fire Limits constrained business; that the Fire Limits constrained growth; that wooden houses provided necessary housing for workers; and even that brick buildings were more susceptible to fire:

Brooklyn Daily Eagle, February 14, 1889, p. 1 ("Brick or Wood?")

One of the few arguments missing here is that laws mandating brick dwellings are "elitist"!

The article concludes on another note highly familiar to those who have observed local civic organizations at work: after much argument, the question was deferred and the meeting was adjourned.

The Eagle indicates that in 1890, the Fire Limit in the 22nd Ward, which included Park Slope, was extended southward from its boundary at the time, the midline between 13th and 14th Streets:

Brooklyn Daily Eagle, May 4, 1892, p. 1 ("Fire Limits")

Thus in 1890, 446 11th Street, a wood-frame house, was already inside the Fire Limits. We must therefore conclude that the building, and its neighbors in 11th Street, all predate 1890, since their wood frame construction would not have been permitted once the Fire Limits included their block. If we could determine when the Fire Limits were earlier enlarged to include 11th Street, we could further pinpoint the age of these houses.

It is quite possible that 446 11th Street, or at least its eastward neighbors with the single-story bay windows, could be as old as the 1870s. The single-story bay window seems to have become popular in that decade, as evidenced by these somewhat similar houses from 13th Street that we have definitively dated to 1870 based on Eagle citations:

246-244A 13th Street - unprotected

Many of these very old wood frame houses in the South Slope have lost much of their original character. With a great deal of effort (and money), however, some homeowners have been restoring some of the original grace to these neglected dwellings that once sheltered clerks, tradesmen, and "respectable young girls".

2009 House Tour: Henry Hulbert mansion

There's not a lot to say about Park Slope's Henry C. Hulbert mansion that hasn't been said many times before, so we won't say much about it other than that it is the starting point for the Park Slope Civic Council's 2009 House Tour, on Sunday, May 19, 2009.

Henry C. Hulbert house, 50 Prospect Park West - Park Slope Historic District

The building was designed in 1889-92 in bravura Romanesque Revivial style by Montrose Morris. Tour goers will have the opportunity to view the interior of the house, which now serves as the Poly Preparatory Country Day School's lower school. The building was recently enlarged by the addition of a new wing in 1st Street. The addition received extra scrutiny because it was being built within the Park Slope Historic District, but built it was, which serves as a corrective to those who would charge that Historic Districts "freeze" all new development. They do nothing of the kind, as this new building and others within the Park Slope Historic District demonstrate:

Addition, Poly Prep Lower School - 1st Street - Park Slope Historic District

Something about the original Hulbert mansion has always seemed slightly unsettling to us. Norval White and Elliot Willensky definitely capture this feeling, in their classic AIA Guide to New York City, in which they describe the building as "cadaverous". Executed in white Indiana limestone, unusual for a Romanesque Revival building, the structure can at times resemble a heap of bleached bones.

Henry Hulbert house, Prospect Park West - 1930s - Brooklyn Public Library

Limestone does not weather well, and can assume a melting look after the passage of many decades. Thus the building also brings to mind W. H. Auden's remark that his own face resembled a "wedding cake left out in the rain." (Auden was a heavy smoker.)



Hulbert made his fortune in the paper industry. One notes a distinct whiff of "new money" about the men of means who built the great mansions of Park Slope: they made their money in such pedestrian areas as cleansing powder and chewing gum... These are not the great patrician fortunes of the old Dutch families. There is an air of the "shop floor" about these men, or so it seems to us. Of course, money is money, in any age. Or at least it used to be!

2009 House Tour: 874 Carroll Street

The neo-Georgian residence at 874 Carroll Street was designed in 1904 by the firm of Mowbray & Uffinger, the same firm that designed the Dime Savings Bank in downtown Brooklyn, and also #1 Montgomery Place, among many other commissions in Brooklyn and Manhattan. This house was designed for the firm's senior partner, Louis M. Mowbray.

878-876-874 Carroll Street - Park Slope Historic District

874 Carroll Street exemplifies the innovative "American basement" house, successor to the earlier high-stooped brownstone basement, and the lower-stooped "Engish basement" configurations. Christopher Gray of the New York Times explains the differences in a "Streetscapes" column published June 5, 2005:

"The term English basement had been used to describe houses of the 1840's [or later] entered via four or five steps, with a reception hall in the front of the ground floor and a dining room at the rear. A kitchen and laundry were placed in the cellar - rendering them quite dark - and the principal floor, the second level, contained the parlor.

"By the 1860's, the high-stoop row house, the classic 'brownstone' (even though they were not all in brownstone), had emerged, with a different design. The ground floor was slightly below grade, with a room at the front and a kitchen at the rear - and fairly good light. It was essentially a service floor, directly accessible from the street for deliveries and tradesmen. The owner and family had to mount a high stoop of 10 to 12 steps to the main entrance, leading to a parlor in the front and a dining room at the back.

"[In an American basement house,] The entrance was through the ground floor, just a few steps above the sidewalk and leading into a reception room. The kitchen, at the rear of this floor, had daylight, and a stairway in the center of the house led to the second floor. There, the parlor ran the full width of the house at the front, and the dining room was similarly sited at the rear - the stairway remained in the center. Instead of having to walk upstairs to answer the door, as in a high-stoop house, the maid in an American basement house simply went from the kitchen directly to the front. And there was no high stoop."

In the 1897 Lain's Brooklyn Directory, Louis M. Mowbray's address is given as 240 Washington Avenue. He thus followed a well-beaten path from the older Clinton Hill neighborhood, to the emerging Park Slope neighborhood, around the turn of the last century.

A daughter, Virginia Mowbray, was born about 1902. The New York Times chronicles activities associated with her privileged childhood, including a blue ribbon in a horse show at the Brooklyn Riding and Driving Club in 1916. Miss Virginia Mowbray won in the polo pony class with "Beowulf, a big 15 hands roan pony." Members of the Brooklyn Riding and Driving Club were frequently to be seen in Prospect Park and along the Eastern and Ocean Parkways. Their clubhouse and stables were formerly located in Prospect Heights on Plaza Street, between Flatbush and Vanderbilt Avenues. The club staged frequent horse shows, indoor polo matches in Brooklyn armories, and other equestrian events.

Grand Army Plaza at Vanderbilt Avenue, looking north -
Brooklyn Riding and Driving Club at left

By 1921, when the Times announced Virginia Mowbray's engagement to Arthur Whitney, her father was deceased but her mother still resided at 874 Carroll Street:

New York Times, November 11, 1921

The marriage was not an unqualified success. The New York Times on July 18, 1925 revealed that the couple were estranged, and that she had submitted a "14 Point" list of conditions to her husband, to which she demanded signed agreement in order to preserve their matrimonial state. By this time Virginia was again living with her mother, who had removed to 616A Third Street in Park Slope. The Times dubbed Virginia Mowbray Whitney the "14 Point Wife" and published the list, which had been placed in public record as part of the case, in its entirety, along with several articles detailing charges and counter-charges:

New York Times, July 18, 1925

Arthur Whitney, it was recounted in the Times, "refused to sign the ultimatum because he said it resembled the 'terms of a victorious General to a foe he had forced to unconditional surrender.'"

The couple divorced, and Virginia Mowbray married Clark Miller on January 1, 1930. He died in 1935, and Virginia herself died in 1949, predeceasing her elderly mother, who placed the following notice in the Times in memory of her daughter, who had spent her childhood at 874 Carroll Street:

New York Times, July 18, 1949

2009 House Tour: 873 President Street

873 President Street is another of the many houses in Park Slope that retained a lengthy association with a single family through multiple generations. Built in 1878 and one of the oldest houses on the block, 873 President Street was designed by Stachlin & Steiger in a style reminiscent of a small country villa, which it must have resembled when the rest of the block was largely empty. It has a "stick style" overhang with wooden struts in the front gable.

873 President Street - Park Slope Historic District

873 President Street - detail

Francis O. Affeld, a native of Germany, was the first owner of this house. Affeld was a Civil War veteran who had been shot in the leg at the Battle of Kenesaw Mountain and was in numerous other military engagements. He is listed at this address in the 1879 Lain's Brooklyn Directory, where his occupation is given as "insurance", and he resided here with his wife, one son, Francis Jr., and three daughters, Antoinette, Louise, and Caroline ("Carrie").

The Brooklyn Daily Eagle records that the three girls attended Miss Rounds' School, later the Rounds Institute, in Clinton Hill. Antoinette Affeld graduated from Miss Rounds' School in 1897, and the Eagle account of the graduation ceremonies noted that "Miss Affeld will enter Vassar in the fall." However, Antoinette ultimately graduated from Columbia University in 1902 with a degree in secondary education.

Francis Jr. excelled in both baseball and tennis, and played for the Crescent Athletic Club, a former elite country club in Brooklyn (Fort Hamilton High School was later built on its Bay Ridge playing fields, and the St. Ann's School occupies its former downtown clubhouse). The New York Times, among its many accounts of the Crescent Athletic Club teams, noted on August 17, 1900 that Affeld Jr.'s batting average was .328.

In 1903, Francis O. Affeld Jr. became engaged to a neighbor, Miss Edith Keiser of Carroll Street:

New York Times, October 11, 1903

Edith died in 1914, aged 34, leaving two children including Francis O. Affeld 3rd. In 1917 Francis Jr. remarried, to Bertha Lilian Bacon, a graduate of Vassar College who was active in the League of Women Voters:

New York Times, June 10, 1917

Bertha Bacon Affeld, a founder of the Vassar Club of New York, died in 1927, aged 48, leaving her husband twice a widower.

By 1930, Francis O. Affeld 3rd had married Elizabeth Namack of Balston Spa, New York, a graduate of Wellesley, and he was serving in the legal staff of Governer General Dwight F. Davis of the Phillipines. While there, the couple were blessed with their first child, a son, Francis O. Affeld 4th. By 1933, they were back in the United States, and were living in Great Neck, Long Island, when Elizabeth, aged 25, was killed suddenly in an automobile accident.

All this time, the family patriarch, the original Francis O. Affeld, remained at 873 President Street. It seems that his daughters Louise and Carrie never married, but remained living with their father in Park Slope. Francis O. Affeld finally died in 1939, aged 96 years, at 873 President Street:

New York Times, July 18, 1939

At some point his son, Francis O. Affeld Jr., returned to live at 873 President Street until he, too, died there, in 1953, at age 77.

New York Times, February 12, 1953

The Park Slope Historic District designation notes that Louise Affeld lived at 873 President Street for more than 90 years, having moved in at age two in about 1878.

2009 House Tour: 626 6th Street

626 6th Street, together with 624 6th Street next door, was built in 1898-99 for Charles G. Peterson. These two buildings closely resemble the great row of houses around the corner, on Prospect Park West between 6th and 7th Streets, which had been developed in 1896, also by Peterson.

626-624 6th Street - Park Slope Historic District

The buildings are essentially Neoclassical in design, and executed in a handsome light-colored brick that became popular in the second half of the 1890s. Columns and entablature frame the doorway, while egg-and-dart detailing surround the parlor-floor windows.

626 6th Street - detail

Peterson is perhaps best known today for his row of matching buildings on Prospect Park West, around the corner. But in 1901 he became reviled as the man who ruined "Sportsmen's Row", the stretch of 8th Avenue just off Flatbush Avenue. He did this by developing the lots north of the Montauk Club with houses that faced Plaza Street, exposing their backsides to the stately homes across 8th Avenue, where many pinnacles of Brooklyn society lived. Some members of the Montauk Club tried to fend him off by raising a subscription and buying these lots from Peterson when the plans became known. But the subscription failed; Peterson proceeded; and some of the members quit the club as a result.

Brooklyn Daily Eagle, February 7, 1901

By 1923, 626 6th Street was owned by James J. McCullough. McCullough had earlier married Kathryn A. Tilyou, sister of George C. Tilyou, and the two brothers-in-law became business partners and founders of Steeplechase Park in Coney Island. James and Kathryn had eight children, so even so a large house as 626 6th Street might have felt a bit tight for space. In 1923, the New York Times announced the engagement of one of their sons, Edward J. McCullough:

New York Times, September 30, 1923

James McCullough is said to have invented the "shooting gallery" and operated several of these amusements in and around New York. McCullough died in 1934.

New York Times, February 20, 1934

2009 House Tour: 759 Carroll Street

759 Carroll Street is one of a row of eight neo-Grec houses begun in 1886 by neighborhood architect-builder John Magilligan. Each house is three stories over raised basement, faced with brownstone, and features a full-height, two-sided bay. The entire row is within the current Park Slope Historic District.

759 Carroll Street - Park Slope Historic District

In 1887 this new, "first class" house and its next-door neighbor, "all improvements complete", were offered for sale by Magilligan in an advertisement placed in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle.

Brooklyn Daily Eagle, September 4, 1887

Oddly, the address of this house does not appear in the 1897 Lain's Brooklyn Directory.

In 1898, on the very same day, an interesting conjunction of advertisements appeared in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle: a "Situation Wanted", from an employee of 759 Carroll Street, and also a "Help Wanted" from the residents, seeking a replacement employee. One hopes that the termination of the business relationship was amicable:

Brooklyn Daily Eagle, April 21, 1898

At any rate, it is clear that the residents in 1898 included two children. A subsequent "Help Wanted" advertisement from May 12, 1902, requested a "Swedish girl" with flexibility to accompany the family to the country.

It is quite possible that the two children of the 1898 "Help Wanted" advertisement included Maguerite Limond and William Stewart Limond, Jr., children of Mr. and Mrs. William Stewart Limond. Some years later, in 1914, the New York Times recorded the marriage of Miss Marguerite Limond to the Rev. H. A. L. Sadtler in St. Johns Episcopal Church. The wedding reception was held at 759 Carroll Street, the home of the bride's parents:

New York Times, June 11, 1914

Maguerite Limond Sadtler's husband was for many years rector of St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Rahway, New Jersey. But in June, 1939, Rev. Sadtler died, and his wife Marguerite and daughters Margaret and Jean moved back to Marguerite's childhood home, 759 Carroll Street, to live with Marguerite's by-then-widowed mother. Mrs. Limond herself died in October, 1939, and her passing was noted in the New York Times:

New York Times, October 6, 1939

Marguerite remained at 759 Carroll Street, the house where she grew up. On January 4, 1942, the New York Times recorded the wedding of her daughter, Jean Sadtler:

New York Times, January 4, 1942

One wonders whether Jean Sadtler's wedding reception was held, like that of Marguerite Limond, her mother, in the parlors of 759 Carroll Street?

Thus can one house shelter succeeding generations of the same family over the years.

2009 House Tour: 467 14th Street

467 14th Street is the center of a row of five Queen Anne-style houses designed by Brooklyn architect W. O. Tait and built for Christopher C. Firth in 1890-91.

465-467-469 14th Street - Park Slope Historic District

The row is characterized by the high, peaked gables at the houses on either side, and by the rough-faced arched stone voussoirs above the windows throughout the entire row.

467 14th Street, Park Slope Historic District - window detail

The curvilinear ironwork on the stoop and areaway is original to the house.

465 14th Street, Park Slope Historic District - ironwork

The 1897 Lain's Brooklyn Directory lists Jay H. F. Bowman, contractor, as the resident of 467 14th Street. But in 1898, Bowman appears to have defaulted on his mortgage and lost the house at auction to Thomas F. Nevins:

Brooklyn Daily Eagle, June 30, 1898, p. 14

Nevins, a banker whose office was at 66 Broadway in New York, was only able to enjoy the house for a few years before he too fell into financial straits. The Brooklyn Daily Eagle of August 13, 1901, carries a lead story of the bankruptcy of the firm with which Nevins was associated, G. Edward Graff & Co., with detailed listings of personal assets being claimed by the receiver in the case, including 467 14th Street:

Brooklyn Daily Eagle, August 13, 1901, p. 1

The house was seized from Nevins and sold, apparently, to members of the Goldschmidt family. The 1897 Lain's directory shows them all in residence together in Duffield Street, downtown, along with their occupations:

GOLDSCHMIDT Ascher woolens 710 B'way N. Y. h 137 Duffield
GOLDSCHMIDT Bernard clk h 137 Duffield
GOLDSCHMIDT Isaac woolens 710 B'way N. Y. h 137 Duffield
GOLDSCHMIDT Jacob fish 97 3d av h 137 Duffield

We know that at least Isaac and Jacob moved to 14th Street. The September 8, 1902 Brooklyn Eagle lists Isaac Goldschmidt of 467 14th Street participating in a Grand Jury:

Brooklyn Daily Eagle, September 08, 1902, p. 18

And the December 15, 1902, edition of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle carries an obituary for Jacob Goldschmidt, "late of 467 Fourteenth street":

Brooklyn Daily Eagle, December 15, 1902, p.5

In all, rather a string of misfortune for the various residents of this house! One hopes that fortune smiled upon the remaining Goldschmidts and subsequent residents of 467 14th Street.