Old Stone House
336 3rd Street | also 298 3rd Street | Park Slope | built 1934
Open on the map6 entries
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.
- 1699
A Dutch stone farmhouse is built beside this spot by the Vechte family
A stone farmhouse stood next to today's Old Stone House from 1699, built by Dutch immigrant Claes Arentson Vechte or his son Hendrick. The family farmed the surrounding land and harvested oysters from Gowanus Creek, shipping produce down the creek and across the water to lower Manhattan. Today's building is a later reconstruction of this house, known as the Vechte-Cortelyou House.
“…originally built adjacent to the current site by the Dutch immigrant Claes Arentson Vechte, or his son Hendrick, in 1699…”
Source: Wikipedia
- 1776
Maryland troops charge British positions at the farmhouse during the Battle of Long Island
During the Battle of Long Island, General Stirling and Major Mordecai Gist led Maryland soldiers in two assaults on British forces dug in at and in front of the Vechte-Cortelyou House. Of the roughly 260 to 270 men who fought, 256 were killed, and fewer than a dozen made it back to American lines. The stand is tied to Maryland's nickname, the Old Line State, and the state flag flies from the rebuilt house today.
“Stirling and Gist led the Marylanders in two attacks against the British, who were in fixed positions in and in front of the Vechte–Cortelyou House…”
Source: Wikipedia
- 1852
Railroad developer Edwin Litchfield buys the farmhouse, later used as a ball club's clubhouse
After Jacques Cortelyou's wife died, he sold the property to Edwin Litchfield, a railroad developer who was the area's major landowner and later sold much of his land to the city for Prospect Park. The old house stood about forty more years under a caretaker. In that time it served as a clubhouse for a winter skating team and for the baseball team then called the Brooklyn Superbas.
“Jacques Cortelyou sold the property to Edwin Litchfield, a railroad developer, in 1852.”
Source: Wikipedia
- 1897
The original farmhouse is razed and burned
The Vechte-Cortelyou House was destroyed in 1897, razed and burned. By then the grade of Fourth Avenue had been raised, leaving half of the old house below street level. The ruins were excavated in 1933.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1934
The Parks Department rebuilds the house from the old stones as a rest room
The city's Parks Department bought the land in 1923, and the ruins were excavated in 1933. The following year the house was rebuilt as a rest room with many of the original stones, though it sits slightly away from its first spot. It was restored again in the 1970s and 1990s and now houses the Old Stone House Historic Interpretive Center, run by a nonprofit under license from the Parks Department.
Source: Wikipedia
- 2021
A new musical about Park Slope's lesbian past premieres in front of the house
Piper Theater Productions staged the outdoor musical Prospect Hill at the Old Stone House in July 2021, with free performances on two weekends. Written by Mark Galinovsky and Lily Ali-Oshatz, it draws on interviews with over a dozen women who lived in the neighborhood in the 1980s and 1990s, when it was nicknamed "Dyke Slope." Piper planned it as the first in a yearly series of Brooklyn-themed new musicals.
Source: brownstoner.com
Further reading
- Old Stone House (Brooklyn)Wikipedia
Nearby
- Coignet Stone Company Building360 3rd Avenue | 8 entries
- William B. Cronyn House271 9th Street | 5 entries
- Public Bath No. 7227 4th Avenue | 8 entries
- Public School 39 (Henry Bristow School)417 6th Avenue | 5 entries
- Park Slope Library431 6th Avenue | 7 entries
- Greenwood Baptist Church461 6th Street | 2 entries