Mark W. Allen House

665 Clove Road | West New Brighton | built 1920

Open on the map4 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. 1920

    November 9

    Mark and Bessie Allen buy a Clove Road corner and build a Craftsman bungalow

    The Allens bought a large vacant corner lot on Clove Road at West Raleigh Avenue from the Competent Home Building Company, a developer Mark Allen helped run. He sold off the eastern part and kept a corner parcel of 100 by 138 feet. There, in 1920-21, he built a one-and-a-half-story Craftsman house clad in wood shingles, with a cobblestone chimney and front piers, larger and more complex than the more generic bungalows on the neighboring lots.

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  2. 1923

    Mark W. Allen goes to the State Senate and pushes for bridges to New Jersey

    Allen, who arrived on Staten Island as a carpenter and grew a large building-supply business, sat in the New York State Senate in 1923 and 1924. He helped bring about the Goethals Bridge and the Outerbridge Crossing, the island's links to New Jersey. He lost a race for Borough President in 1929, stayed active in civic groups, and lived here with his family until his death in 1958.

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  3. 1950

    Lila Allen tells an interviewer that her Clove Road house is her hobby

    Mark Allen raised five children here with his first wife, Bessie, who died in 1936. He then married Julia Maud Smiles in 1937 and, after her death in 1945, Lila A. Zorn of West New Brighton. In a 1950 interview, Lila Allen spoke proudly of the residence, saying "My home is my hobby." The family kept living in the house after the senator died in 1958.

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  4. 2006

    June 13

    The Allen house becomes a city landmark over its owner's objection

    The Landmarks Preservation Commission designated the Mark W. Allen House, citing its well-preserved Craftsman design and Allen's role in developing West New Brighton. At the April 18, 2006 hearing six speakers backed the designation, among them Councilman Michael McMahon and the West Brighton Restoration Society, while the owner of the house spoke against it.

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

Nearby

All 8 buildings with stories in West New Brighton