THE “WEIRFIELD” HOUSE ON THE HILL (1850)
******************************************************************************************************************************** Brownstone Detectives investigates the history of our clients’ homes. The story you are about to read was composed from research conducted in the course of one of those investigations. Do you know the history of YOUR house? ******************************************************************************************************************************** If Bushwick Avenue were a family, it would likely be an entertainingly and curiously dysfunctional clan. It would maybe be something akin to that harmless uncle who comes to Thanksgiving dinner, doesn’t talk about politics, but engages in witty banter and sips a few too many vermouths. Some houses on the avenue present as mindlessly conforming rowhouses — lined up at attention like toy soldiers. Squeezed within some of those rows, however, we sometimes find structures that seem oh-so-slightly out-of-place – as though they were built in – and transported from – another time and galaxy. One such structure is a 172-year-old house that appears as though it should be sitting alone upon a hill with a view to unfolding valleys of pastureland. THE HOUSE ON THE HILL In the mid-1800s, No. 1250 Bushwick Avenue was the only house on the south side of Bushwick Avenue between Weirfield and Margaretta (Halsey) Streets. The house was erected in approximately 1850 and, in its day of glory, stood on a knoll about six feet above street level, flanked on either side by immense maple trees. The grounds sloped gently down to a stone wall, five feet above the grade of the street, which extended along the street frontage from Weirfield street to Margaretta […]
