Carter's Review

The very handsome Queen Anne-style building at 105 Montague Street between Henry and Hicks streets in Brooklyn Heights was erected as the Montague Hotel circa 1885.

 It was designed by Parfitt Brothers who also designed the similar Berkeley and Grosvenor apartments further down the block at 111 and 115. 

According to a November 17, 2002 “Streetscapes” column in The New York Times by Christopher Gray, William Ziegler built the Montague and Henry Weil put the other two.  “There is no direct evidence that Ziegler and Weil were partners, but both lived in an older apartment house nearby, they built simultaneously and they used the same architects, Parfitt Brothers,” Mr. Gray wrote.  

Bottom Line

A richly detailed mid-rise building with a handsome stone base with tall windows beneath a red terra cotta façade with a gable roof framing quite handsomely if not proudly a rank of fire escapes that do not demean the building.

Description

The building has a very robust two-story stone base with a large center arched, five-step-up entrance with very handsome cast-iron light stanchions.  The rest of the façade is red terra cotta with handsome detailing including bandcourses and a figure of a man leaning forward at the apex of the building’s finial-topped gable.

There is a curved balcony above the entrance on the third floor beneath fire escapes.

The building originally did not have an elevator.

“According to the architectural historian Andrew Dolkart,” Mr. Gray continued, “Walter and Henry Parfitt were born in England and established an office in Brooklyn in 1875….For their Montague Street projects, the Parfitt brothers, joined in 1882 by their brother Albert, developed slightly differing façades.  The Montague has a robust granite base with extensive deep red terra cotta ornament, especially near the top, where a male figure peers down from the gable….An 1891 article in The Real Estate Record and Guide called the Montague ‘the finest of its kind in Brooklyn.’ It noted that Ziegler had taken extensive fireproofing precautions, so that the top floors were both safe and ‘the most desirable,’ since they had view over New York bay….A 1905 photograph showed an elaborate canopy reached to the curb, with a curved glass top, a type common in the period but no longer seen.”

In 1900, Louis Horowitz bought the building and converted it to a residential hotel and subdividing the rooms.  It became the Brookmont Hotel and in 1954 it was sold by the Brookmont Hotel Corporation, Philip Edwards president, to a syndicate represented by Benjamin Pulier, attorney.  It became a welfare hotel until it was converted to 25 co-operative apartments in 1980.

Amenities

The building has an elevator, a voice intercom, a roof deck and a laundry room, and is pet-friendly.

Apartments

Apartment 102 is a two-bedroom duplex with an entry foyer leads to a 13-foot-wide dining room next to a 10-foot-wide, pass-through kitchen and overlooking the lower level’s 14-foot-long living/recreation room with a 21-foot-high ceiling.  The downstairs living/recreation room adjoins the 15-foot-wide library with a fireplace and a hall leading to a 15-foot-long sleeping area which is beneath a 15-foot-long bedroom on the upper level.

Apartment 803 is a two-bedroom unit with 1,100 square feet with four skylights in the steeply slanted ceiling of the living room which is flanked by the bedrooms.

Apartments 203 and 304 are two-bedroom units with an entry foyer that leads past an enclosed 12-foot-wide kitchen to the living rooms with wood-burning fireplaces and broad bay windows adjacent to the 12-foot-wide and windowed dining rooms.

Apartment 201 and 601 are two-bedroom duplexes with 20-foot-long living rooms on the lower level that open onto a 12-foot-long dining areas and 8-foot-long pass-through kitchens on the lower level.

Apartment 504 is a two-bedroom unit with a 23-foot-wide living/dining room and an 11-foot-long pass-through kitchen.