Take an autumn stroll through Victorian Flatbush

November 20, 2019 Lore Croghan

Victorian Flatbush is a fine place for a stroll even on chilly, gray days. Photo: Lore Croghan/Brooklyn Eagle

A subway station with rocking chairs

If you don’t live within walking distance of Victorian Flatbush, normally I’d suggest you get there by taking the Q train to the Avenue H subway station. This quirky landmarked building looks like a cottage in the Adirondacks. It has a porch that’s held up by columns made of logs and furnished with rocking chairs.

But Q service to this part of Brooklyn is often suspended on the weekends for track maintenance, so you must check train schedules before you embark.

The porches on Westminster Road in West Midwood look so inviting. Photo: Lore Croghan/Brooklyn Eagle

The stroll starts in nonlandmarked West Midwood. Germania Real Estate & Improvement Co., which developed this micro-neighborhood, advertised it and other parts of Victorian Flatbush as “country living in the city,” the request for evaluation for landmarking says.

The houses on this stretch of Westminster Road were built around 1905. Many have porches on their first and second floors.

On the first block of Westminster Road after the intersection of Avenue H, you’ll hear wind chimes clanking on front porches whenever there’s a breeze.

One of the prettiest spots on this part of the walk is the intersection of Westminster Road and Glenwood Road, where the corner houses are especially big and beautiful.

This glimpse of West Midwood includes 1127 Glenwood Road, which is on the corner of Westminster Road. Photo: Lore Croghan/Brooklyn Eagle

West Midwood ends at the intersection of Foster Avenue.

Mary Pickford’s house

When you cross Newkirk Avenue, you’re in nonlandmarked Ditmas Park West.

Movie buffs will appreciate this: This micro-neighborhood has a house that Mary Pickford, the most famous actress of the silent-film era, was going to live in.

These Westminster Road houses are located in Ditmas Park West. Photo: Lore Croghan/Brooklyn Eagle

Vitagraph, a studio located nearby, built 1320 Ditmas Ave. for her in hopes of signing a contract with her in 1916. But she decided not to leave the studio she was working for, so she didn’t move into the lovely modified neo-Tudor home.

Mary Pickford’s would-be house is just a couple blocks away from the intersection of Ditmas Avenue and Westminster Road.

There, you’ll see eye-catching 1207 Ditmas Ave., which stands on a big lot.

The address of the house on this corner of Westminster Road is 1207 Ditmas Ave. in Ditmas Park West. Photo: Lore Croghan/Brooklyn Eagle

When you get to the intersection of Cortelyou Road, you’ll notice lots of places to get a bite to eat. Because daylight fades fast this time of year, I decided to keep walking and snack later.

Thank you, Dean Alvord

When you cross Cortelyou Road, you’re in nonlandmarked Beverley Square West. An architect named Thomas Benton Ackerson built it. The T.B. Ackerson Construction Co. was his development business.

These handsome houses are 358 Westminster Road (at left) and 354 Westminster Road in Beverley Square West. Photo: Lore Croghan/Brooklyn Eagle

One of my favorite spots in this part of the walk is the corner of Cortelyou Road, where the house at 358 Westminster Road has a twin house standing beside it at 354 Westminster Road. They have similar massing and similar first- and second-story front porches framed by similar two-story-high Corinthian columns.

And the next three houses on the block have terrific turrets with pointy roofs like witches’ hats.

When you cross Beverley Road, you’re in the Prospect Park South Historic District.

Architect Benjamin Driesler designed 173 Westminster Road in 1898. It’s located in the Prospect Park South Historic District. Photo: Lore Croghan/Brooklyn Eagle

Dean Alvord, a developer who was born in Syracuse, started building Prospect Park South at the end of the 19th century.

This neighborhood has a number of spectacular mansions. The houses on Westminster Road are lovely.

One of my favorite homes on this part of the walk is 115 Westminster Road on the corner of Albemarle Road.

The neo-Classical stucco house with a Spanish tile roof was built in 1918; Boris Dorfman designed it, the Landmarks Preservation Commission’s designation report about the Prospect Park South Historic District says.

This is handsome 115 Westminster Road in the Prospect Park South Historic District. Photo: Lore Croghan/Brooklyn Eagle

A street named Tennis Court

When you cross Church Avenue, you step into Caton Park. Westminster Road, which is mostly populated by apartment buildings, is outside the portion of this micro-neighborhood that’s included in the proposed historic district.

When you turn onto Caton Avenue, you’ll see the Prospect Park Parade Ground. Some of America’s greatest baseball players, including Sandy Koufax, played there as youthful amateurs.

One reason I picked East 18th Street for the return loop of this stroll is that it takes you to Tennis Court. Isn’t that a great name for a street? Serena Williams and Rafael Nadal should have apartments there.

On East 18th Street where Tennis Court dead-ends, you’ll notice the entrance to the Knickerbocker Field Club, which was established in 1889. Though you can’t see them from the sidewalk — an apartment complex blocks your view — there are five tennis courts.

This apartment building, Chateau Frontenac, is located on a street called Tennis Court. Photo: Lore Croghan/Brooklyn Eagle

The most eye-catching apartment on Tennis Court is Chateau Frontenac. As the name suggests, it looks like a castle. The stone front entrance is decorated with heraldic symbols including porcupines.

A Brooklyn Borough President

When you can leave Tennis Court and head back down East 18th Street, you will walk past apartment buildings for a couple blocks. A judge ordered the landlord of one of these properties, 180 East 18th St., to repair the fire-damaged building or face civil penalties, my colleague Kelly Mena wrote recently.

When you cross Beverley Road, you’re in unlandmarked Beverley Square East. Thomas Benton Ackerson did the earliest construction in the neighborhood, between 1898 and 1901. Remember him from Beverley Square West?

Lewis Pounds also did a lot of Beverley Square East development with Delbert Decker as his partner, the request for evaluation for landmarking says. Pounds was the Brooklyn borough president between 1913 and 1917.

From left, here are 311, 315 and 321 East 18th St. in Beverley Square East. Photo: Lore Croghan/Brooklyn Eagle

The houses on this part of East 18th Street are so beautiful. I especially love the circular porch at 315 East 18th St.

A Spanish hacienda

When you cross the intersection of Cortelyou Road, you’re in landmarked Ditmas Park.

Pounds and Decker developed this micro-neighborhood, too.

As you stroll along, you’ll see the work of architects such as Arlington Isham, who designed Colonial Revival-style 456 East 18th St., and Slee & Bryson, who designed Colonial Revival-style 460 East 18th St., the Landmarks Preservation Commission’s designation report for the Ditmas Park Historic District says.

That’s 460 East 18th St. at left and 456 East 18th St. right beside it in the Ditmas Park Historic District. Photo: Lore Croghan/Brooklyn Eagle

The houses on the corners of East 18th Street and Ditmas Avenue are especially picturesque.

The Ditmas Park Historic District ends at Newkirk Avenue. A house at that intersection, 575 East 18th St., is eye-catching because of its Spanish Colonial Revival design.

Two neighborhoods, one historic district

Keep walking — in a New York minute, you’ll cross Foster Avenue.

This row of landmarked Midwood Park homes includes 664 East 18th St. (at right), which was designed by architect Benjamin Driesler and constructed around 1904. Photo: Lore Croghan/Brooklyn Eagle

The landmarked mini-neighborhood you’ll find here is called Midwood Park. A couple blocks away, at the intersection of Glenwood Road, there’s Fiske Terrace.

The two areas are combined into a single historic district.

This stretch of East 18th Street is lined with lovely houses from beginning to end.

John R. Corbin Co. was the developer of Midwood Park, the Landmarks Preservation Commission’s designation report about the Fiske Terrace-Midwood Park Historic District says.

The company cut beams, frames and trims for 30 different models of prefabricated Midwood Park houses at a factory located on East 56th Street near Jamaica Bay, a 2006 CityLand story about the neighborhood says.

Architect Benjamin Driesler designed 1721 Avenue H, which is on the corner of East 18th Street in landmarked Fiske Terrace. Photo: Lore Croghan/Brooklyn Eagle

Fiske Terrace is named for oil merchant George Fiske, who along with his wife and his brother owned the land where the micro-neighborhood is located. They sold it to T.B. Ackerson, which did the development there.

Follow reporter Lore Croghan on Twitter.

Eye on Real Estate is veteran reporter Lore Croghan’s weekly column on Brooklyn’s built environment. Whether it’s old as Abraham Lincoln or so new it hasn’t topped out yet, if a building is eye-catching, Eye will show it to you.