359-365 1st St
1891
Robert Dixon

Built by developer Peter Larsen, these 4 two-and-a-half-story brownstones were originally designed as a group of nine residences by architect Robert Dixon. They feature a full-height angled projecting bay and a main entrance surrounded by carved classical motifs, crowned by a molded projecting cornice and pilasters.

They display some of the main characteristics of the Renaissance Revival style, which in the 1890s came to influence the then-popular Romanesque Revival, and became the preferred style from about 1880 to 1910. The simple, restrained Renaissance-inspired designs have an interest in classicism, with buildings featuring light-colored facades and subdued classical ornaments concentrated around the door and window openings, often with motifs of wreaths, baskets of fruits, and garlands of flowers. Dixon’s work can be found in several areas of Park Slope, as well as in the Clinton Hill, Fort Greene, and Dumbo Historic Districts.

298 6th Ave
1895
LB Valk & Sons

Founded in 1859, St. Matthew’s was the first English-speaking Lutheran church in Brooklyn. Its parishioners were first and second-generation German immigrants who began worshipping in English as a means to assimilate into American culture. After leasing space in other churches for many years, they bought this lot in 1885 to build a large church for their growing congregation.

The structure has an impressive bell tower and stained-glass façades. The steeple originally had a sharply pitched roof, with a stamped metal cornice and small gargoyles at the corners. The brick was a natural golden or buff color, with lighter limestone trim.

In 1948, St. Matthew’s merged with other Lutheran churches, and the building became known as Maranatha Temple, a non-denominational church. In 1985, it was sold to the Mission for Today, Holy Tabernacle Church. It was recently sold to a developer, and a demolition permit was issued by the DOB. New construction does not need to be contextually appropriate or regulated by LPC.

405-371 3rd St.
c.1880

Once development started in Park Slope, buildings were constructed in the popular middle to late 19th-century residential architectural styles. The earliest was the Italianate style, fashionable between 1840 and the mid-1870s.

Rowhouses in this style are characterized by elaborate projecting ornaments with an emphasis on repetitive forms. Early examples usually have flush brickwork, later replaced by brownstone, round-arched doorways, and double doors. Segmental arches were often used over windows, and round or segmental arches over basement windows. Windowsills were usually supported on small corbel blocks, one at each end. The basements and stoop sidewalls were usually rusticated, and the cast iron stoop handrailing and yard railings were generally balustered. Roof cornices were supported by widely spaced foliate brackets, often arched to relate to the windows below.

This block at 3rd Street is an interesting example of rowhouses in this style, maintaining its cohesiveness and most of its original features.

437-461 & 450-478 3rd St
1903-04
Pohlman & Patrick

These Renaissance Revival buildings were also developed by Louis Bonert, and feature a 38ft-wide floorplan, full-height round projecting bays, and a classical main entrance with pilasters supporting a pediment. They are very similar to another group of apartments built the same year by Pohlman & Patrick at 804- 820 8th Avenue. Twelve of these buildings were erected by Bonert in 1903, eight on the south side of the street and four on the north. The following year he would build four more buildings on the north side, this time with Thomas Bennett as the architect, but replicating the original design. The result is one of the neighborhood’s most notable blocks, representative of the height of real estate development.

Just one year after completion, real estate dealer John Pullman helped Bonert sell these and other properties, including over forty single and double flat houses, to David Schwartz and Elias A. Goldstein for $750,000 (about $25 million today). It was considered the largest property sale at the time.

373-365 & 363-355 6th Ave
1892
Walter M. Coots

As development intensified in Park Slope, multiple dwellings gained increasing favor as the preferred residential typology during the second half of the 19th century. They were typically four-story structures without elevators in the popular styles of the time and differed from tenements as they had only one apartment on each floor.

This group was developed by one of Park Slope’s most prolific builders, Louis Bonert, who hired prominent architect Walter M. Coots. They had previously collaborated when designing 338 356 6th Avenue and continued working on 6th Avenue over the next few years, developing Nos 345 353, thus creating a cohesive and unique corridor between 5th and 7th Street.

The four residential brick structures include a brownstone-faced mixed-use building on the corner lot. The top story features arched windows with decorative panels below, as well as continuous cornice detailing.

338-356 & 345-353 6th Ave
1891
Walter M. Coots

This group of 5 four-story flats were the first to be built on 6th Avenue by Louis Bonert, with designs by Walter M. Coots.

Although Coots opened his office in Manhattan, by 1885 he was listed in Brooklyn directories and became one of the most noted architects of the late 19th century. His work can be found in the Park Slope, Crown Heights North, Prospect Heights and Alice & Agate Courts Historic Districts, as well as in the Cobble Hill, Bushwick, and East New York neighborhoods.

Directly across the street, on the west side of 6th Avenue, stands another group of 5 four-story brick and brownstone structures by Bonert and Coots. Dating from 1893, the buildings feature details in the Neo-Grec style, maintaining the geometry and expression of their façades. This group is also the location of the Park Slope Ale House, at No. 356, a popular local hangout for over 30 years.

432-446 6th St
1887
J. J. Collins attributed

The Queen Anne style, popular from about 1870 to 1890, is characterized by an asymmetrical massing of forms and details, contrasting materials, colors and textures, eccentric details, projecting bay windows, juxtaposition of window pane size, multi-paneled wood doors, multiple, tiled or slate-covered gables, with dormers and chimneys.

This group of houses developed by Theresa B. Collins are a notable example of this style. Although the design is attributed to her husband, they have a striking resemblance to a group of houses designed by prominent architect C. P. H. Gilbert at 54-64 Prospect Place. Collins hired Gilbert in 1887 to build four houses at 340-344 9th Street in the newly popular Queen Anne style, and would later commission another six houses to be built at Prospect Park West. Gilbert would go on to create some of Park Slope’s most eclectic and beautiful rowhouses, designing mansions for the elite in several Brooklyn neighborhoods, as well as in Manhattan.

402 7th St
ca. 1880

Wood frame houses are among the oldest structures in Park Slope. A few can still be found in the neighborhood, especially in its southern area, possibly due to the late implementation of the city’s “fire limits” (the boundary within which it was illegal to erect a wood house).

This example at 7th Street was first recorded on a fire insurance map in 1886. It features elements from the French Second Empire style, which had been the predominant style after the Civil War, although it appeared only briefly in Park Slope. Its typical feature was the slate mansard roof with iron cresting, as well as enframement on windows, moldings, imposing cornices, and double front doors with horizontal panels at knob height and kickplates at the bottom. The arched doorway, however, was often almost indistinguishable from its Italianate predecessor and was crowned by a low arched or triangular pediment.

415-419 7th St
1869-70

This red brick structure was originally built as the All Saints Episcopal Chapel. The congregation grew considerably over the next two decades, prompting the construction of a larger building on 7th Avenue, completed in 1893.

The chapel was purchased in 1903 by the Emanuel German Evangelical Lutheran Church, a congregation formed in 1884 by several families who left St. John’s Lutheran after it ceased to be a strictly German- speaking church. They had previously purchased a church in Williamsburg, but in 1901 the city condemned all the buildings in the area for the construction of the East River (now Williamsburg) Bridge. The chapel was home to this congregation until 1948 when it merged with St. Matthew’s Lutheran Church. Not much is known about the use of the building for the next decades, but in 1992 it was purchased and restored by Kingsboro Temple.

441-457 7th St
1887
Charles G. Peterson

By the mid-1870s the simpler Neo-Grec style supplanted the rounded, ornate Italianate, and its later variations, as the preferred style for rowhouses and other residential buildings.

Popular until about 1890, Neo-Grec architecture is characterized by extremely stylized classical details, angular forms, and incised detailing formed by mechanical stone cutting; high stoops with massive, angular cast-iron handrails, fences, and newel posts; massive door hoods and enframements with angular decorative elements resting on stylized brackets; double-leaf wood entrance doors with angular ornament; stylized, angular incised window surrounds; projecting angular bays; and projecting cornices resting on brackets.

The style is the second most popular in the Center Slope, with both rowhouses and flats designed in it.

This group of nine brownstones at 7th Street is an interesting example of Neo-Grec rowhouses. They were developed by Charles G. Peterson, a local builder, and architect who in 1886 had completed two Neo-Grec houses at 7th Avenue (Nos. 360 & 362). He would later build another long row at 7th Street (Nos. 583-603), featuring three-sided bays, high straight stoops, wrought iron hand-railings, and slender cast iron newel posts.

Most of Petersen’s work is located within the Park Slope Historic District, including examples in the Romanesque or Renaissance Revival style, and some Neo-Classical buildings.

286-88 7th Ave
1891-93
John Welch

Founded in 1867, the congregation of All Saints Episcopal Church met initially at a Military Hall at the corner of 5th Avenue and 9th Street. Its first building (All Saints Chapel, Site 7) was a small brick structure on 7th Street, built in 1870. After years of financial difficulties, the church moved in 1891 to this Romanesque-Moorish structure designed by Scottish-born architect John Welch, who had just completed the Church of St. Luke in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn, to great critical acclaim.

The overall configuration of the building recalls the shape of an Early Christian Basilica, with a small sanctuary apse reminiscent of those of Italian Renaissance architect Donato Bramante. It also features two distinctive towers, a bright barrel-vaulted interior with ornate terra cotta detailing, and many stained-glass windows, including one by Louis Comfort Tiffany. After a fire in 1976, some of the interior and east front of the church needed to be rebuilt, and much of the stained glass was replaced.

Today, All Saints is a growing and diverse congregation, with activities and events open to all members of the community.