Landmarks Preservation Commission will try to save Dr. Maurice T. Lewis House from demolition

Sunset Park mansion is placed on agency's calendar for landmarking consideration

February 20, 2018 By Lore Croghan Brooklyn Daily Eagle

The building on the corner is Dr. Maurice T. Lewis House. Eagle photo by Lore Croghan

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The only freestanding mansion in Sunset Park is in danger of demolition.

The city Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) will try to save it.

On Tuesday, at its Lower Manhattan headquarters, the commission voted to place Dr. Maurice T. Lewis House on its calendar for consideration as an individual city landmark.

If the Renaissance-Revival-style house at 5501 Fourth Ave. does win landmark status, its owner will be barred from tearing down the building without the commission’s approval.

Chairwoman Meenakshi Srinivasan told her fellow commissioners that the owner of the property has applied for a city Buildings Department permit to alter the building — and it’s an alteration that would result in the mansion’s demolition.

Srinivasan said the LPC will hold a public hearing on March 6 about landmarking Dr. Maurice T. Lewis House.

City Finance Department records show that in November, an entity called SL 218 LLC with Shuang Lin as a member bought the property for $2.8 million.

The Buildings Department has approved the new owner’s “proposed horizontal and vertical extension” of the two-story house. It would result in the construction of a seven-story, 74-foot-tall building with 24 apartments and commercial space, filings found on the agency’s website indicate.

Designed by ‘One of New York’s Most Memorable Architectural Firms’

The eye-catching orange-brick house with a rusticated limestone base commands the corner of 55th Street. Its second address is 404 55th St.

The mansion was the home of Lewis, who was the president of the Bay Ridge Savings Bank.

In a 2013 Brownstoner.com story, architectural history expert Suzanne Spellen wrote that the house “conveys a rather majestic sense of dignity.”

She noted that Lewis — who was a consulting pathologist at Harbor Hospital on Cropsey Avenue for many years — and other Bay Ridge Savings Bank officials stopped a run on the bank after the 1929 stock-market crash.

The freestanding mansion was designed by architecture firm Harde & Short and built in 1907.

In a 2005 “Streetscapes” column in the New York Times, the late Christopher Gray called Harde & Short “one of New York’s most memorable architectural firms.”

The firm designed the iconic Alwyn Court on Seventh Avenue in Manhattan.