House of the Day

Colonial Revival in Prospect Lefferts Gardens With Fireplace, Sleeping Porch Asks $1.65 Million

This Slee & Bryson-designed Colonial Revival was built in 1916 and has a dining room, five bedrooms and three bathrooms.

by Stephen Zacks

10/28/2019 0

Like many Brooklyn neighborhoods, notwithstanding a series of financial panics between 1893 and 1911, this area of Prospect Lefferts Gardens developed over a period of about 30 years. The varied architecture of its blocks reflects the span of years and the multiplicity of trends popular at the time.

This house at the corner of Fenimore Street and Bedford Avenue in the Prospect Lefferts Gardens Historic District was designed by Slee & Bryson in 1916. Those economic recessions had spurred the first Populist Party movement in the U.S., but by the mid-1910s World War I dominated sensibilities, both perhaps contributing to the architectural return to American roots. The style of 169 Fenimore Street is Colonial Revival, with an exterior of Flemish bond brickwork and multi-paned windows, a projecting peaked-roof vestibule, and a mansard roof “pierced by hipped-roof dormers,” as the historic district report puts it.

Inside and out, the home closely resembles another Slee & Bryson creation we peeked into last week, a neo-Georgian house at 2124 Albemarle Terrace. 169 Fenimore Street has a large, impressive living room with parquet floors and a brick fireplace (probably gas burning) bookended by built-in shelves.

A staircase winds around one side of the fireplace, and French doors open to the dining room, which also has parquet as well as low wainscoting. Beyond that is the kitchen, recently renovated in a vintage style with wood floors, a ceramic farmhouse sink, and pale yellow appliances. It’s situated in a rear extension, and a door leads to a small awning-topped deck with steps to a garden. The backyard has a paved patio bordered by narrow landscaped beds.

Above the kitchen in the rear extension is a sun room-slash-sleeping porch. The second floor has two other bedrooms with two closets each and a recently updated bathroom with white subway tile walls and stained glass skylight. The top floor has another two bedrooms, one with two dormers and a smaller one facing the rear set up as an office in the photos. A bathroom on this level has a clawfoot tub and pedestal sink.

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In the cellar are a washer and dryer, toilet, shower and sink room, mechanicals and a rec room. The hot water heater dates to 2008 and the furnace to 2004, notes the listing, from Allison Jaffe of Key Real Estate Services.

As the crow flies, it’s about two blocks from Prospect Park; a human circumnavigating dead-end streets can walk to the park in about 10 minutes.

The house is offered for $1.65 million. Is it a worth checking out?

[Listing: 169 Fenimore Street | Broker: Key Real Estate Services] GMAP