Lovable Lesser-Known Landmarks: A Morris Montrose design plus other fine 19th-Century housing

Eye On Real Estate

September 2, 2015 By Lore Croghan Brooklyn Daily Eagle

The Renaissance in Bedford-Stuyvesant was designed by Montrose Morris to resemble a Loire Valley chateau. Eagle photos by Lore CroghanThe Renaissance in Bedford-Stuyvesant was designed by Montrose Morris to resemble a Loire Valley chateau. Eagle photos by Lore Croghan

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Right this way to the Renaissance.

One of the leading lights of late 19th-Century Brooklyn architecture, Montrose Morris, designed the Bedford-Stuyvesant apartment house at 480 Nostrand Ave. that bears this name.

It’s meant to look like a Loire Valley chateau, with turrets, and a façade of buff brick and terra cotta laid out in subtle stripes.

Built in 1892, it’s an individual city landmark. Howard Hershkovich and Thomas Anderson of Boston Road of Brooklyn Associates bought it for $12,500 from the City of New York in 1994, city Finance Department records indicate.

The Renaissance is on a list of lesser-known but thoroughly lovable Brooklyn landmarks that we devised by consulting the National Register of Historic Places. These historically significant buildings get less attention than borough icons like the Williamsburgh Savings Bank clock tower or the magnificent Brooklyn Academy of Music opera house. We took photos of all of them to offer them a little adulation.

These eye-pleasing late 19th-Century residential properties are also on our list:

* There’s so much more to Dyker Heights than its famous Christmas lights.

Take a look at Queen Anne-style Saitta House at 1135 84th St., which was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2007. Designed by architect John J. Petit and built in 1899 for wholesale fruit dealer Simone Saitta, it’s a little bit Tudor, a little bit Medieval, and has a lot of nice lawn on a hilltop.

The house belongs to the Santo family, Finance Department records indicate.

* Is that a witch’s hat on that roof?

A tower with a pyramid on top of it rises above this cluster of 1880s-vintage Neo-Grec rowhouses at 375-379 Flatbush Ave. and 185-187 Sterling Place. They look like they belong in a Tim Burton Halloween movie.

These distinctive brownstone homes with ground-floor storefronts are listed on the National Register of Historic Places and are in the city-designated Prospect Heights Historic District.

An estate owns 375-377 Flatbush Ave. and Yasuo and Marrel Ihara own 185 Sterling Place, according to Finance Department records. Gary and David Guttman bought 187 Sterling Place for $1.61 million in 2012, Finance Department records indicate.