By Harold Egeln
Brooklyn Eagle

It seems something out of a fairy tale forest, plunked down on an acre of Bay Ridge land like the charming but bewitched house in Hansel and Gretel.

Just three days after Halloween it’s been discovered that the famed “Gingerbread House,� built in 1916 at 8220 Narrows Avenue and owned by Jerry and Diane Fishman, is for sale at a $12 million asking price.

The news comes initially from the Brownstoner blog, which posted the sale notice on Tuesday. “The Gingerbread House, the famous Arts and Crafts residence designed by architect James Sarsfield Kennedy, is for sale.�

The sale is being handled by the Brown, Harris, Stevens, a real estate firm even older than the legendary mansion. The organization was founded in 1873 and with offices in this city, Palm Beach and The Hamptons, with agents Bill Radtke and Peter Noonan in charge.

“It’s both world-class and otherworldly,� is the way its listing describes the house, “elegant� with “old world grace.� Reminiscent of an “early English country manor,� it was built in 1916-1917 as a cottage across from an older mansion owned by a family that built the super-sized cottage. The mansion has been gone for half a century.

The house, now across the street from Fort Hamilton High School, was formerly known as the Howard E. and Jessie Jones House, after the original owners, who were wealthy shipping merchants who settled in Bay Ridge. The community, originally known as ‘Yellow Hook,� was founded in the mid-19th Century as a resort town with mansions and hotels among farmlands and meadows.

The fabled 5,800-square-foot house is constructed of uncut stone boulders with six bedrooms, its undulating thatched roof made of asphalt featuring a towering stone chimney for three fireplaces. It has long been a familiar and favored site for generations of Bay Ridge residents and tourists.

The unique Arts and Crafts School style was designed by architect Kennedy, who also designed the Prospect park Picnic House. The style was lauded by 19th Century author Oscar Wilde. The house is listed as one of the world’s “most beautiful� at a place in Prague, according to local preservationist Victoria Hofmo.

One visitor from England who stumbled on the house called it something that was out of “Hogwarts� from the Harry Potter novels. The structure was declared a city landmark by the NYC Landmarks Commission in 1989 and it is therefore protected from development.

The Gingerbread House Owners Helped ‘Re-Green’ Bay Ridge

In 1985 Jerry and Diane Fishman bought the house. Jerry Fishman, son of Bay Ridge businessman Al Fishman, who grew up on nearby 84th Street, stepped into the local limelight, with his wife Diane, a writer, in late 1994 as part of a group of pioneering civic park activists.

Upset by the deterioration of Owl’s Head and Shore Road Parks, which had suffered neglect due to a lack of Parks Department funding in the 1980s, and was rife with vandalism and garbage, the Fishmans and others, including business leader Marty Golden, activist Larry Morrish and Congresswoman Susan Molinari, called a community action meeting at Adelphi Academy. The packed meeting room also brought out a bevy of civic and elected officials.

From that meeting, some said, the Bay Ridge parks renaissance movement was born with the formation of volunteer action organizations. The first, founded by the Fishmans, was the Bay Ridge Parks and Waterfront Council, which launched huge parks cleanup efforts and raised over $100,000 within a year.

Its success led to the founding of organizations such as the Narrows Botanical Gardens in Shore Road Park, the McKinley-Leif Ericson Parks Alliance, the Shore Road Garden Council, the Southwest Brooklyn Parks Task Force, and Dyker Park groups. The latest organization is the Sunset-Ridge Waterfront Alliance, promoting increased waterfront usage and access.

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