Louis Bonert's $750,000 deal in Park Slope

In 1905 Louis Bonert put together a deal to sell a great many of the apartment houses he had recently built in Park Slope. The deal's value was estimated to be $750,000, a tremendous amount in those days. The deal was reported in both the New York Times and the Brooklyn Eagle:

Brooklyn Daily Eagle, November 18, 1905, p.1 ("$750,000 deal in flats")

New York Times, November 19, 1905, p. 18 ("In the Real Estate Field")

It is worth working through the list of addresses in the articles, both to confirm attributions we have already made, and to look for new buildings that we have not yet confirmed to be from Bonert.

The first set of addresses includes several of the buildings in the row extending from the northwest corner of 6th Avenue and 3rd Street. We discussed these buildings earlier on the blog and attributed them to Bonert, circa 1895:

407-415 3rd Street - unprotected

417-421 3rd Street - unprotected

423-427 3rd Street - unprotected

The articles indicate that several of the eight-family apartments on the north side of 3rd Street between 6th & 7th Avenues were included in the deal. Bonert built eight of these "double flat" apartments on the north side of the street, devoting a very generous 46' in lot frontage to each building. We now immediately recognize Bonert's signature enframements over the central (stair hall) windows. The buildings closer to 7th Avenue boast a doorway with full pediment and flanking columns. These buildings were constructed circa 1902-1903:

3rd Street between 6th & 7th Avenues, north side - unprotected

461 3rd Street - unprotected

461 3rd Street - detail

The deal also included some 4-story, 4-family flat houses in the south side of 3rd Street between 5th & 6th Avenues. These buildings are similar to others across the street, constructed by Louis Bonert circa 1895:

414-408 3rd Street - unprotected

The deal also included a few buildings from the 1894 row Bonert constructed at the southwest corner of 6th Avenue and 3rd Street:

6th Avenue & 3rd Street, southwest corner - unprotected

The deal also included the row of eight-family apartment houses on the south side of 3rd Street between 6th & 7th Avenues, matching the row across the street, and constructed by Louis Bonert circa 1902-1903:

466-450 3rd Street - unprotected

The apartments further from 7th Avenue lack the pedimented entablature, boasting instead Bonert's characteristic "florid classical" detailing around the doorway. Again we see his distinctive hoods over the central stairway windows:

458 3rd Street - unprotected

458 3rd Street - detail

458 3rd Street - detail

The huge deal also included a row of Bonert's earlier (circa 1894) "Green Man"-style, Romanesque-infected 4-family flat houses in 4th Street between 5th & 6th Avenues:

357-363 4th Street - unprotected

There's our friend, the Green Man himself, symbolizing our unity with Nature, peeking out from the spandrel panels:

359 4th Street - detail

The deal also included Bonert's row from the north side of 4th Street east of 6th Avenue:

389-393 4th Street - unprotected

Finally, Bonert threw into the deal the apartment building at the northeast corner of 6th Avenue and 3rd Street:

319 6th Avenue - unprotected

It was a huge deal for Louis Bonert, most likely one of the largest in his career, and one of the largest in Park Slope up to that time. Interestingly, the buyers were a couple of local guys, David Marks of 107 6th Avenue and A. E. Goldstein of 121 St. Johns Place.

Bonert went on to construct luxurious single-family limestone row houses on the entire south side of 1st Street and the north side of 2nd Street, in the park blocks, within the current Park Slope Historic District, financed perhaps by the proceeds from this colossal sale of his earlier apartment houses.

Probable Louis Bonert: 6th Avenue between Garfield Place & 1st Street

Updated: the row at the northeast corner of 6th Avenue and 1st Street is not by Bonert.

At the present time we have no documentary evidence regarding the east side of 6th Avenue between Garfield Place and 1st Street. However, knowing what we now know about the work of prolific Park Slope builder Louis Bonert, we are almost certain that the entire blockfront facing 6th Avenue is by him.

The buildings at the southeast corner of 6th Avenue and Garfield Place are consistent with Bonert's Neoclassical-style apartment houses. They are four story flat houses, fully faced with limestone over a brownstone basement, featuring full-height rounded window bays. The Garfield Place elevation is of "fancy brick" with limestone trim, and features rounded windows at the top story:

6th Avenue & Garfield Place, southeast corner - unprotected

The four-family flat houses feature paired classical entrances and "Greek ears" on upper story windows:

271-273 6th Avenue - unprotected

The style changes mid-block, where the buildings continue in a row very much like Bonert's Romanesque-inspired "Green Man" flat houses:

277-279 6th Avenue - unprotected

Except these buildings, if indeed they are by Bonert, lack the characteristic terra cotta spandrel panels below the windows. Also the top-floor window arches employ a keystone, which is unusual for Bonert.

Also uncharacteristically, Bonert's usual "clustered columns" flanking the doorway have been reduced to a single Romanesque column in these buildings:

281 6th Avenue - detail

The row concludes in a wonderful 8-family "double flat" apartment house featuring a rounded window bay overlooking the intersection.

6th Avenue and 1st Street, northeast corner - unprotected

6th Avenue and 1st Street, northeast corner - detail

So are these buildings by Bonert? At this time we can cite no documentary evidence supporting such a claim. However his hand seems quite clear to us. We would probably date these as "circa 1895", similar to the Bonert row running westward from the northwest corner of 6th Avenue and 3rd Street.

The double flat at the southeast corner of 6th Avenue and Garfield Place features a highly distinctive cast- and wrought-iron fence about the areaway:

6th Avenue and Garfield Place, southeast corner - detail

We knew we'd seen this unusual fencing somewhere else in Park Slope, and with a bit of digging we found it. Indeed, the same fence is found at 427 3rd Street:

427 3rd Street - detail

427 3rd Street is just below 6th Avenue, on the north side of the street, in the middle of a row confirmed to have been built by -- you guessed it -- Louis Bonert in 1895.

Louis Bonert: 4th Street and 6th Avenue, 1903 sale

We've already identified the building at the northeast corner of 6th Avenue and 4th Street as a Louis Bonert "double" apartment house (i.e. housing eight families), constructed in 1897. The following Brooklyn Eagle article records the sale of this building six years later, in 1903. The article doesn't add to our knowledge of the "vital statistics" for this building, to use Francis Morrone's term (i.e. builder/architect/date). But the article is noteworthy for its contemporary assessment of Bonert as having "constructed some of the finest and most artistically finished apartment houses in this fashionable district":

Brooklyn Daily Eagle, June 27, 1903, p. 11 ("Brokers Report a Fairly Busy Week")

The building, in yellow "fancy brick" with limestone trim over a brownstone basement, is indeed very fine, as we noted earlier. Note the gently rounded window bays, alternating with slightly angled bays, chimney stacks, and central stairway windows over the double-granite-columned entrance portico:

343 6th Avenue - unprotected

Note to the reader: With this 1903 Brooklyn Eagle article, we have exceeded the limit of the online Eagle at the Brooklyn Public Library, which runs only through 1902. The rest of the Eagle's run can be accessed at the wonderful "Fulton History" website. The articles do no load the way they do at the Brooklyn Public Library, so we cannot provide a hyperlink directly to the article as we have been doing with the BPL material. But the issues can be accessed via the search box at the Fulton History website. Many thanks to Fulton History for putting online material that the BPL has been unable to make available. The search key we used is highlighted in the article above ("Louis Bonnet", a typical misspelling of Bonert's name).

Note also that there is an error in the address cited in the article. The Bonert building at the corner of 4th Street is actually 343 6th Avenue, not 243 as cited above.

Louis Bonert: Six-family apartment houses, President Street, 1902

In 1902 Park Slope builder Louis Bonert was granted a permit for a row of four apartment houses on the south side of President Street between 6th & 7th Avenues. The apartments are immediately adjacent to a row of five 8-family apartments he constructed three years earlier, in 1899:

Brooklyn Daily Eagle, August 28, 1902, p. 16 ("Real Estate Market")

788-784 President Street - unprotected

The row represents an innovation in small apartment house design.

In his earlier, adjacent 8-family apartments, the staircase was set deep within the building, and had no external illumination or air. Each of the small windows in the center of each story illuminated the same room as the adjacent bay window:

790 President Street - unprotected

In these newest apartments, by contrast, the staircase was pushed to the front of the building and had its own external windows, illuminating the stair landing halfway between each floor:

782 President Street - unprotected

This innovation was made possible by the nearly 35-foot lot width of the new buildings, in contrast to the 30-foot width of the older buildings.

The new row features many characteristics associated with the Neoclassical style including dentils, egg-and-dart detailing, and "Greek Ears" on the central windows:

782 President Street - detail

The apartments also feature Bonert's by-now-standard "florid classical" doorway:

782 President Street - detail

These apartments are uncharacteristically small in scale, housing only six families in each. Also rather uncharacteristically, the facades are flat and feature no projecting rounded bay. The top-floor windows, however, are arched, in an echo of a feature Bonert has not employed since 1895.

Bonert would soon explore this "wide lot" apartment configuration to even more striking effect nearby.

Louis Bonert: "Quiet Dignity" in President Street, 1900

Normally we ignore buildings within the current Park Slope Historic District, both because they are already protected by the Landmarks Preservation Commission, and also because anybody who wants to read about them can do so by consulting the current district's Designation Report.

We make an exception today to visit some apartment houses built by Louis Bonert in President Street between 8th Avenue and Prospect Park West:

945-953 President Street - Park Slope Historic District

Below is the description for these buildings, copied in its entirety from the Park Slope Historic District Designation Report:

"Nos. 945-953. Begun in 1900, these five apartment houses of limestone have paired entrances and stoops except at No. 945. They are four stories high and have full-height, bow-fronted bays. Designed with a simplified neo-Classical detail, they lend a quiet dignity in this block of one-family residences." (pp.87-88)

"Quiet dignity" is a great way to describe Bonert's small apartment houses. But what's exceptional about this entry is that Louis Bonert's name appears nowhere within it. Somehow the fact that he built these apartment houses escaped the notice of the Park Slope Historic District's original researchers.

Bonert sold the President Street houses to "a Manhattan capitalist" in one of the largest Brooklyn real estate deals of 1901. A Brooklyn Eagle article describes the deal, noting that the buildings are "among the finest" of their class and that the apartments are "handsomely decorated" and "constructed of the best materials throughout":

Brooklyn Daily Eagle, November 26, 1901, p. 20 ("$207,000 Realty Deal")

The deal was notable not only for its size, but also for the fact that Brooklyn real estate was beginning to attract the interest of Manhattan-based capitalists. It was a kind of "break-through" deal for Louis Bonert, who would later put together even larger real estate deals, as we shall soon see.

The Eagle followed up a few days later with another article whose headline ("Manhattan Capital in Brooklyn Apartment Houses") stretched across seven columns, the entire page:

Brooklyn Daily Eagle, November 30, 1901, p. 17 ("Manhattan Capital in Brooklyn Apartment Houses")

The article reviewed the deal for Bonert's President Street apartments and featured them in an illustration:

Brooklyn Daily Eagle, November 30, 1901, p. 17 ("Manhattan Capital in Brooklyn Apartment Houses")

Brooklyn Daily Eagle, November 30, 1901, p. 17 ("Manhattan Capital in Brooklyn Apartment Houses")

Even without the Eagle documentation, the apartments are immediately reminiscent of Bonert's nearly identical apartment houses in 6th Avenue:

951-953 President Street - Park Slope Historic District

615-617 6th Avenue - unprotected

The classical detailing around the doorways is identical:

953 President Street - detail

615-617 6th Avenue - detail

All of which begs the question: if the President Street apartments, with their "quiet dignity", are worthy of inclusion in a Historic District, are not the identical 6th Avenue buildings, by the same builder, equally worthy? Why are the President Street buildings included, but the 6th Avenue buildings excluded? And what about all the other Louis Bonert buildings we have been so laboriously documenting on this blog? They seem to exude as much "quiet dignity" as these President Street buildings.

Alone amongst all of Bonert's apartment houses, the President Street buildings are in the current historic district. Like much else about the current district's boundaries, it makes no sense to us.

At any rate, at least we now know who is the builder of the President Street apartments. If you are the kind of person who has a hardcopy of the Park Slope Historic District Designation Report lying about (and, if you are reading this, we suspect you are), then fetch it down off the shelf, turn to page 87, and write "Louis Bonert: Brooklyn Eagle, November 26, 1901" in the margin, and your copy will be ever so slightly more complete.

Louis Bonert: First 8-Family Apartments, President Street, 1899

Our unfolding story of Louis Bonert, Park Slope builder, next shifts a few blocks away from Park Slope's Bonert epicenter to President Street, between 6th and 7th Avenues. We here find the first 8-family apartment houses positively associated with Louis Bonert; up until now, from what we have been able to discover, he has built 4-family apartments exclusively. 8-family apartments are of course more efficient in that the overhead of the stairwell, hallway, and landings are shared by eight apartments, rather than just four.

Brooklyn Daily Eagle, April 11, 1899, p. 14 ("New Buildings")

798-796-794 President Street - unprotected

Note the Brooklyn Eagle's description of these articles as "tenements". These buildings are 30' wide, or 15' per apartment. Bonert's early "Green Man" apartments, by contrast, were usually 19-20' wide, and his newer limestone-faced apartments in 6th Avenue were a spacious 23.5' wide. And those earlier buildings held only a single apartment per floor. Thus the 15'-wide apartments necessitated by an 8-family configuration on a 30' lot might seem rather narrow by comparison.

The Brooklyn Eagle once again mangles Bonert's name, citing him as "Bonnert" or "Donnert". Any suspicion that these apartments might have been built by someone else is resolved by an article about a year later, which recounts how Louis Bonert trades two of the finished buildings to a "syndicate of capitalists" for a block-front of lots in Bedford Avenue, on the other side of Prospect Park:

Brooklyn Daily Eagle, June 16, 1900, p. 22 ("A Big Real Estate Deal")

We now recognize the President Street buildings as classic Park Slope 8-family apartment houses. Certain stylistic details echo some of Bonert's earlier buildings: three stories of brick, trimmed with stone, over a limestone-faced first story, over a brownstone basement, with full-height, rounded window bays:

792 President Street - unprotected

The buildings exhibit graceful notes perhaps not often associated with "tenements", including small stained-glass windows (not all of which survive). Note also the use of narrow, elongated "Roman" brick:

790 President Street - detail

Bonert's signature florid capitals and pediment embellish the doorway and windows:

792 President Street - detail

Look closely to see winged figures peering out from some of the buildings.

792 President Street - detail

Is Bonert revealed here as an angelologist?

Below, from Google's "street view", the buildings in Bedford Avenue, across Prospect Park, most likely another Bonert row of 8-family flats.

Bedford Avenue, Lincoln Place to St. Johns Place

Louis Bonert: 6th Avenue & 3rd Street, southeast corner, 1898

For the next chapter in our ever-unfolding tale of prolific Park Slope builder Louis Bonert, we return once more to the corner of 6th Avenue and 3rd Street. Two Brooklyn Eagle notices, published one day apart in 1898, announced Bonert's plans for a row of five four-story, four-family flats extending up 3rd Street from the southeast corner of 6th Avenue:

Brooklyn Daily Eagle, April 14, 1898, p. 14 ("Real Estate Market")

Brooklyn Daily Eagle, April 15, 1898, p. 14 ("Real Estate Market")

The reference to the corner building as a "frame" structure is clearly erroneous. By 1898, this corner was well within the "fire limits", the boundaries within which wood-frame construction was forbidden; only a stone structure could have been built here in 1898.

These are some of the more austere, yet elegant, apartment buildings constructed by Louis Bonert. He once again sets aside "fancy brick" in favor of smooth stone for the facade. He retains a protruding rounded window bay, but the bay is now extremely shallow and understated. The upper-story windows lack any kind of framing:

446-444-442-440 3rd Street - unprotected

What little ornamental flourish Bonert allows himself is confined to the first floor. His doorways are surrounded by a minimally decorative framing, with dentils above. Smooth-faced voussoirs contrast with rusticated stone at the basements.

But the framing around the first-floor bay windows is truly distinctive. We're not even sure how to describe the look... it appears somewhat as if every other stone has been removed from around the window!

446 3rd Street - detail

The corner building is much the same in the upper stories, although Bonert reverts here to a somewhat retrograde brownstone facing. The basement is consistent with the adjacent row, but the classical doorway with columns and entablature hearken back to Bonert's earlier work.

442-440-438 3rd Street - unprotected

With the completion of this row, Bonert could view his own buildings on all four corners of this intersection. He started building on the southwest corner in 1894; continued construction on the northwest corner in 1895 and on the northeast corner in 1896; and concluded here on the southeast corner in 1898. Truly the intersection of 6th Avenue and 3rd Street must be considered the "Louis Bonert epicenter" of Park Slope!