Sunnyslope (Bright Temple A.M.E. Church)
812 Faile Street | also 800 Faile Street | Hunts Point | built 1864
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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.
- 1859
Peter S. Hoe buys a 14.6-acre estate in West Farms
Peter S. Hoe bought this 14.6-acre property from Joseph Walker in 1859 for $20,000. The deed described it as land lately known as Cedar Mount. His brother Richard Hoe had bought a West Farms estate he named Brightside a year earlier, which may have drawn Peter to the area.
“Peter Hoe bought his 14.6 acre estate, "being that piece of land lately known by the name of Cedar Mount" from Joseph Walker in 1859…”
- 1864
Hoe sells Sunnyslope for about three times what he paid
Peter Hoe sold the estate in 1864 for roughly triple his 1859 price of $20,000. The landmarks report reads that jump in value, together with the house's style, as evidence that the stone mansion was built between 1859 and 1864. A later writer ranked it among the most beautiful and solidly built mansions in the Bronx.
“…the tripling in value of the estate in five years suggests that the estate house was built during those years…”
- 1864
A Gothic Revival stone villa echoes a design published by Calvert Vaux
Sunnyslope is a two-and-a-half-story stone house with gables, gabled dormers and a slate roof laid in colored horizontal bands. Its pointed-arch entrance on Faile Street opens through a projecting porch framed in heavy stone, beside a three-sided bay crowned with carved crenellation. It bears a distinct resemblance to Design No. 16, a "Picturesque Square House," in Calvert Vaux's widely known 1857 book Villas and Cottages.
- 1867
William W. Gilbert buys Peter Hoe's former estate, Sunnyslope
After Hoe sold to Mary Emmeline Stearns, the estate passed to Harriet S. Van Schoonhoven and then, in 1867, to William W. Gilbert. Robinson's 1885 atlas marks the Faile Street house as "W.W. Gilbert 'Sunnyslope'" and places Richard Hoe's Brightside separately, at the northwest corner of Hoe and Aldine Streets.
“Gilbert had bought Peter S. Hoe's estate in 1867…”
- 1919
Temple Beth Elohim buys the old manor house for a Jewish congregation
In 1912 a history of the Bronx described West Farms as a district in transition, its old estates cut up and few mansions left. Sunnyslope's grounds were sold off, but the house survived and in 1919 Temple Beth Elohim bought it to serve the area's Jewish residents. It later became home to the Bright Temple A.M.E. Church.
“Sunnyslope itself was sold in 1919 to Temple Beth Elohim to serve the Jewish community of the neighborhood…”
- 1981
Sunnyslope, now Bright Temple A.M.E. Church, is designated a landmark
The Landmarks Preservation Commission designated Sunnyslope on July 28, 1981, by then the Bright Temple A.M.E. Church at 812 Faile Street. At the July 1979 hearing one witness spoke in favor and no one opposed it. The commission called it one of the finest Gothic Revival houses in New York and a rare survivor of the rural South Bronx.
“SUNNYSLOPE, now Bright Temple A.M. E. Church, 812 Faile Street…”
Further reading
- Sunnyslope (Bronx)Wikipedia
Nearby
- 814 Manida Street2 entries
- 816 Manida Street2 entries
- 818 Manida Street2 entries
- 820 Manida Street2 entries
- 822 Manida Street1 entry
- 826 Manida Street3 entries