The house at 1 Monroe Place was built in the early 1850s for Samuel Bell, a New York merchant, as a rental property. It was built later and separately from the adjacent houses, in the same late Greek Revival style.
Originally, 1 Monroe Place was three stories tall. It was a simpler, smaller house than today, with no Mansard roof, no rear extension, and no bay windows looking over Clark Street.
The first known tenant was a Brooklyn dental surgeon named William Dillingham, who ran his practice from the house.
Bell died within a couple years of the house’s construction. His daughter Elizabeth and her husband David Barker bought the house from Bell’s estate. The Barker family became the first owner-occupants, living in the house for about a decade. Barker was a portrait artist and gallerist in Manhattan.
In the late 1860s, Mary Jessop bought the house. She was a wealthy widow; her husband’s family owned the Sheffield Steel Works in England. Jessop added the 4th story Mansard roof and made elaborate interior renovations.
By the late 1890s, John & Agnes Weir owned the house. John ran the florist business known as “James Weir & Son” founded by his father. For decades, the flower shop had been located at the corner of Fulton and Pierrepont Streets in Brooklyn Heights. (John’s brother ran another branch of the family’s business which included the iconic, recently renovated “Weir Greenhouse” located across from the main entrance to Green-Wood Cemetery.) James Weir & Son continues in business today on Montague Street.
The Weirs made more renovations to 1 Monroe Place, including expanding the signature double-bay window on the Clark Street side.
After about a decade, the Weir family moved out of 1 Monroe Place. Like many single-family homes in Brooklyn Heights, it became a boarding house, and eventually the stoop was removed when the building was converted into apartments. For many years, the house was owned by a local doctor, Maxwell Lanes, who ran his practice from the ground floor offices at the Clark Street entrance.
In the 1960s, the house narrowly survived demolition, when the Cadman Plaza redevelopment claimed all of the houses across Clark Street and the corner church on the other side of Monroe Place.
After many decades in poor repair, the house hit bottom in 2008. Conditions had deteriorated so badly that an emergency call to the Department of Buildings on Memorial Day weekend led to an immediate demolition order. The wreckers managed to take off the Mansard roof and the third story, before the Brooklyn Heights Association convinced the Landmarks Preservation Commission to intervene and save the rest of the building.
The current owner bought the building in 2010 and undertook an arduous renovation that aimed to restore the building to its most grand condition, as it existed in the early days of the 20th century. The restoration was based on archival photographs such as the shot from 1916 shown above.
Old Brooklyn Heights 