Caroline Ladd Pratt House

229 Clinton Avenue | also 214 Waverly Avenue | Clinton Hill | built 1895

Open on the map6 entries

The lot about 1940
About 1940. Via 1940s.nyc
The lot about 1985
About 1985. Via 80s.nyc

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.

  1. 1895

    Henry Crossman's wooden mansion gives way to the Frederic B. Pratt House

    The Frederic B. Pratt House, designed in 1895, replaced a large wooden house that Henry Crossman had built on the same lot. The New York Times called Crossman an original settler of Clinton Avenue. He made his money in umbrellas and parasols and sat on the boards of local transport companies, and the Times credited him with bringing Sunday cars to Brooklyn's street railroads.

    “The mansion replaced a large wooden house built by Henry Crossman, "an original settler of Clinton Avenue." Crossman made his fortune in the umbrella and parasol business…”

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  2. 1895

    Frederic B. Pratt, second son of oil magnate Charles Pratt, gets a wedding-gift house on Clinton Avenue

    Babb, Cook & Willard designed the house in 1895 as the second of three surviving wedding-gift houses for Charles Pratt's sons. Frederic B. Pratt (1865-1945), educated at Amherst, served as president of Pratt Institute and of the Chelsea Jute Mills. He collected art avidly and gave works to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  3. 1896

    A palazzo-style mansion with a caryatid-topped stoa masks its neighbor's side wall

    The three-story house is built of gray St. Louis brick with Milford granite trim and a roof of Spanish tile. A two-story stoa of six Ionic columns below and six caryatids and atlantes above hides the side wall of the house next door at No. 221. A cartouche over the second-floor window is inscribed 'Anno 1896'.

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  4. 1981

    November 10

    Pratt Institute uses the mansion as a dormitory for foreign students

    When the Clinton Hill Historic District was designated on November 10, 1981, Pratt Institute was using the house as a dormitory for foreign students, called the Caroline Ladd Pratt Building. The report noted that it was no longer the scene of elegant dinner parties but that many interior fittings survived and the institution kept it well maintained.

    “…now used by Pratt Institute as a dormitory for foreign students known as the Caroline Ladd Pratt Building…”

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  5. 2011

    Pratt Institute's president lives in the mansion, whose parlor floor was once rented out for events

    Brownstoner reported in 2011 that the mansion had been foreign student housing for many years and that its parlor floor could be rented out for events such as weddings. It was then the home of Pratt Institute's president, Thomas Schutte, and his wife, Tess. The institute owns the house, which is named for Frederic Pratt's wife, Caroline Ladd Pratt.

    Source: brownstoner.com

  6. 2017

    Matiz Architecture and Design restores the mansion's facade, windows and trellis

    Caroline Ladd Pratt outlived her husband and left the mansion to Pratt Institute, an institution the family had backed for years. In 2017 Matiz Architecture and Design finished a restoration of the house, repairing many facade and window elements and the exterior trellis.

    Source: Wikipedia

Further reading

Nearby

All 13 buildings with stories in Clinton Hill