F. J. Berlenbach House
174 Meserole Street | East Williamsburg | built 1887
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The city photographed every building for its tax records around 1940 and again in the 1980s. NYC Municipal Archives.
Written with AI from the source each entry cites, then fact-checked.
- 1864
Carpenter Franz J. Berlenbach buys the two-story house that stood on the lot
Franz Joseph Berlenbach, a German-born carpenter and builder, settled in Williamsburgh in 1863 after living for a time in Milwaukee. In 1864 he bought an existing two-story frame house with a brick outbuilding at what was then 152 Meserole Street, now number 174. Both were demolished in 1887 to make way for the present house.
- 1887
Father and son replace the old house with a three-story Queen Anne tenement
In 1887 the architect Francis J. Berlenbach Jr., the carpenter's eldest son, submitted plans to the Brooklyn Department of Buildings for a new frame tenement, three stories high, at 174 Meserole Street, costing an estimated $4,500. His father is listed as the builder. The younger Berlenbach had worked in James Renwick's design office in 1880 and opened his own firm at 260 Graham Avenue around 1885.
- 1887
Carved wood ornament covers the clapboard facade, down to a glaring mask in the pediment
The Landmarks Preservation Commission praised the house's carving as a tribute to the elder Berlenbach's skill. Wooden features include an entrance hood, foliate bands, incised sun designs and half-timber forms. A bracketed cornice sits below a pediment whose carved band bears a mask that glares at viewers, with a sunburst in the tympanum, and a stained-glass transom tops the first story.
“…a pediment with a carved band ornamented by a mask that glares at the viewer below, and a sunburst tympanum…”
- 1899
The Berlenbach family lives in the house until 1899
The Berlenbach family occupied the house until 1899. The elder Berlenbach, born in Germany, had settled in Williamsburgh in 1863, and the neighborhood's population in the late nineteenth century was almost exclusively German.
- 2004
The house is landmarked on its fourth hearing, after earlier hearings in 1981, 1984 and 1990
The Landmarks Preservation Commission held a public hearing on April 20, 2004, where representatives of the New York Landmarks Conservancy, the Historic Districts Council and the Municipal Art Society testified in favor and nobody opposed. Earlier hearings had been held in 1981, 1984 and 1990. The Commission designated the house a landmark on May 11, 2004.
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