The Background
A turn-of-the-century apartment building in Brooklyn, New York was being gutted in advance of some major renovations. We were invited to come and salvage what we could and were pleased to rescue some beautiful items.
The Building
Sterling Place is the middle unit of five limestone-fronted townhomes. Built circa. 1900, it housed eight apartments on four levels. Each apartment consisted of a double parlour facing the street, a dining room, two bedrooms, a kitchen and pantry, as well as two bathrooms.
The parlours were divided by beautiful half-wall, pillared, fretwork spandrel units. Only two were in their original state; the other six had been hidden behind new walls of 2 X 4s and drywall! The parlour in Unit 8 was the source of our 8 ft X 5 ft. beveled glass mirror, framed by fluted pillars and with a 3 1/2” oval shelf below.
Every apartment in this building had raised panel baseboard in each room, measuring 18” high. Several kitchens had pressed tin ceiling panels. There were two small claw-foot tubs and quite a number of unique double basin porcelain kitchen sinks. Other goodies we found include decorative brass hooks, (single and double), ceiling and wall mounted light fixtures, tin dumbwaiter doors, brass doorbells, and lots and lots of doorknob sets. Interior doors were made of beech and measured 89” X 32”, were 1 3/4” thick and in almost perfect condition.