Picture this: Renovation plans for Brooklyn Heights eyesore 100 Clark St.

Eye On Real Estate

March 19, 2014 Brooklyn Daily Eagle Brooklyn Daily Eagle

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Surely Samuel C. West would approve.

Developer Newcastle Realty Services is planning to restore half-demolished 100 Clark St. in Brooklyn Heights so it would be fit for its original resident, who moved in a decade before the Civil War broke out.

West is listed in the 1852 city directory as a “commission merchant” who lived at 1 Monroe Place, according to Clay Lancaster’s book “Old Brooklyn Heights: New York’s First Suburb.” That address was used for the Greek Revival brick house back in the days when a stoop and staircase stood on that side of the building.

A new stoop and stair designed to “reflect” the original ones will be built, as this drawing presented to the city Landmarks Preservation Commission in 2011 indicates.

When reconstructed, the building won’t look exactly like it did when West first called Monroe Place – which is the widest street in Brooklyn Heights – home.

A mansard roof that was added later will be meticulously recreated, the drawing shows.

This style of roof, named for 17th Century architect Francois Mansart, enjoyed a huge wave of popularity in New York between 1868 and 1873 – a phenomenon architectural expert Christopher Gray of The New York Times called “mansard mania.”

The mansard roof 100 Clark is getting will have slate shingles – and an ornamental ironwork railing on the top of it, the drawing shows. There will also be an ornamental ironwork fence in front of the property.