Building of the Day: 282-290 DeKalb Avenue

Brooklyn, one building at a time.

Name: Row houses
Address: 182-290 DeKalb Avenue
Cross Streets: Waverly Place and Clinton Avenue
Neighborhood: Clinton Hill
Year Built: 1890
Architectural Style: Queen Anne
Architect: Montrose W. Morris
Other buildings by architect: 285-289 Clinton, across the street, Arbuckle Mansion-315 Clinton Ave.
Landmarked: Yes, part of Clinton Hill HD (1981)

The story: While Montrose Morris designed a great many of his finest buildings in Bedford Stuyvesant, he also has fine examples of his architecture in other neighborhoods. Take Clinton Hill, for instance. Here designed a mansion for John Arbuckle, at 315 Clinton Avenue, and was the architect of several other buildings on that street: limestone row houses at 184-188 Clinton, and the apartment building at 515 Clinton. He also designed another mansion near Clinton and Myrtle that was torn down in the 1940’s. And then we have the two groups of houses on DeKalb Avenue.

The houses at 285-289 DeKalb get a lot of press, most recently, because of the sale of one of these grandly appointed mansions. This set of buildings is quite striking, with the turreted corner house, the strong arched doorways, and elegant combination of red brick and limestone, with classic Morris terra-cotta and stained glass. Many don’t even realize that the group across the street was his design as well.

These houses are actually more “Morris” than the others. They are reminiscent of his group of houses at 246-252 Hancock Street, which he designed in 1888. On DeKalb, as on Hancock, he designed his group of five houses to appear to be one very long and large house under a center roof. But he didn’t just copy himself on DeKalb, there are differences. He improved on his ideas of 1888, and this group is a masterful completion of his Hancock design. These houses are much narrower. The corner houses are 18 feet, while the three interior houses are 16.5’ wide. This makes it much easier to float his center roof pediment over the space, and not have it look out of proportion.

Morris places his large pedimented roof across the center houses and then anchors the group with the corner towers and turrets. On the top floor under the pediments is his signature colonnade of deeply set arched windows, not quite forming a loggia, one of Morris’ favorite devices. A great deal of the Morris repertoire is here: the carved bandcourses under the colonnade, and on the towers, the carved Byzantine leaf trim, the mixture of building materials: in this case rough cut and smooth brownstone, an interesting use of shingles and roofing materials, and a generous use of stained glass. Morris also loved his running collonettes: those halved mini-columns that run across the entire set of houses on the parlor floor level. Take a look at the close-ups of the details, the beauty of the carved ornament, and the little extras such as the carved faces. This is a great group of houses. GMAP