Open Thread: The Most Beautiful Building In Brooklyn Heights

By on October 1, 2012 12:05 am in Architecture, open thread

If you thought Best Burger in Brooklyn Heights was a tough choice, we continue the Brooklyn Heights Blog’s Best Of The Heights Open Thread with a category that I, for one, find next to impossible—thanks to an embarrassment of neighborhood riches…

What do you regard as the Most Beautiful Building in the Heights? Church, residential, commercial, whatever makes you swoon every time you walk by. As long as it’s made of wood, brick, concrete or masonry, has a door and windows, it’s up for consideration. Please include the address and why you believe it’s the consummate in architectural splendor.

If you’ve missed previous “Best Of” surveys, see them here: Best Burger, Best Dry Cleaner, Best Pizza Pie, Best Handyman, Best Car Service and Best Vet & Dog Walker. (Photo: Chuck Taylor)

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  • lois

    The building I “covet” is the set back carriage house at (153?) Willow Street between Pierrrepont and Clark. Aside from the building, you have parking, a nice little garden on one side and a slightly larger garden on the other side with a very unusual (Redwood?) tree. That’s my ideal building!

  • lois

    Actually, it’s 151 but I can’t figure out how to edit or correct my comment.

  • fred

    st anns church, inside and out…a favorite of art tourists from abroad. they are doing a tribute to brooklyn heights on friday, oct 16th at 6 p m coctails, dinner and a ‘heights’ show to 9 30 pm.. call 1 718 – 875 – 6960

  • pssnyc

    I have to agree with both choices. Add to that the building on the corner of Pierrepont and Henry (pictured above) and the Brooklyn Historical Society building.

  • Nick A

    While not one building, I would like to vote for the row of 5-6 massive Italianate townhouses on Columbia Heights just north of Pierrepont. Taken as a group I think they are a perfect representation of townhouse living in the city, and they all have nicely maintained facades.

  • GHB

    I love the mansions on Montague Terrace next to the playground. It’s really hard to pick one building, because the Heights is full of some real beauties! The one pictured at Pierrepont and Henry is beautiful, but that hideous awning thingy knocks it down a notch for me. Hoping the renovation they’re doing will include the removal of that eyesore.

  • Gerry

    @ GHB – that mansion you love is not on Montague Terrace it is on Pierrepont Place.

  • elemengee

    The building at the corner of Montague and Clinton Streets across from St. Ann’s — look up — it’s a building we all just bypassed until it was cleaned up and refurbished – check out the detail. They don’t make buildings like that anymore.

  • Carlotta

    @lois – It is a Redwood.

  • Knight

    My favorite is the former Herman Behr Mansion (pictured above) on the SW corner of Henry & Pierrepont. The stone work, the balconies, and the roof appointments are like none other that I know in the area. And apart from its beauty, it also has a history that adds to its allure: in its time it has been everything from a Franciscan novitiate house to a hotel with a seedy reputation amongst longshoremen.

  • ColumbiaHeightster

    The one in the picture. Cannot walk by it without gawking at it.

  • Andrew Porter

    There’s a gorgeous multi-family building on the west side of Willow between Clark and Pierrepont, with Romanesque Revival turret, intricate terra cotta on the facade, entrance doors with multiple small panes of glass, and an inset balcony on the front.

    Also: the house on Pierrepont with the turret, written up in Brownstoner a few months ago.

    We happily suffer from an embarrassment of architectural riches here in BH.

  • AnnOfOrange

    My first choice(s) — the wooden houses on Cranberry, Middagh, Poplar and on Hicks between Cranberry and Middagh. Most have been lovingly restored and are rare treasures of an earlier era.

    For me a close second — the Rhoden carriage house on Cranberry east of Willow; for many years there was a rotating exhibit of John Rhoden’s sculpture in the small display window.

  • Robert Moses

    1. The BQE.
    2. The BQE.
    3. The newsstand on the corner of Montague & Henry.
    4. Shake Shack

  • Jorale-man

    Buildings: 1 Pierrepont Street and the building on the SW corner of Clinton and Montague
    Townhouses: Much of Remsen between Hicks & Henry; the brownstones on Willow Place just north of Pierrepont
    Pre-Civil War: the wood-framed houses on Cranberry and Orange Sts.
    Misc: Plymouth Church, Orange St.

  • http://selfabsorbedboomer.blogspot.com Claude Scales

    It’s hard to pick a favorite, as the Heights has so many fine examples of various styles. A few that I like very much that haven’t been mentioned: there’s a very elegant example of the Romanesque revival style on the north side of Remsen a few doors west of Henry (I’ve forgotten the number); also on Remsen, between Henry and Clinton, the Brooklyn Bar Association building; and the Cranlyn apartment building at the southwest corner of Cranberry and Henry, a fine example of the prewar art deco style.

  • HeightsGuy

    For street-scape, the west side of Hicks Street just south of Joralemon, which encompasses an interesting row of integrated townhouses, a gorgeous Firehouse, and a row of five carriage houses. There is something very charming and human scale about that location. I also love the cobble stone and flagstone sidewalk in front of the carriage houses.

  • Gerry

    @Jorale-man – you mean One Perrpont Place and NOT One Pierrepont Street

  • Jorale-man

    @Gerry – you’re right. It’s easy to get places and streets confused around here!

  • Boerum Bill

    Borough Hall…as long as Marty isn’t standing in front of it! LOL!

  • http://www.flickr.com/photos/13189502@N02/ Eddyenergizer

    My vote is for the double entrance apartment building 111-117 Montague.

  • lori

    Gerry – One Pierrepont Place doesn’t exist – it was torn down years ago – it’s where the Pierrepont Playground is now, altho one of the rooms still exists at the Museum of the City of New York.

  • Gerry

    @ Lori – One Pierrpont Place does exist it is the only home on the small street a duplex mansion next to the play ground – says “No. 1.” in the window on top of the door.