First there were four houses in this pretty colonnade row, with matching dentilled cornices, long slender windows, and thick columns in front of the facades that suggested grandeur—though the columns were made of wood, not marble.
They were likely built in the 1840s when Greek Revival, colonnade-style houses were in vogue in Manhattan and Brooklyn.
Easily accessible to the ferries that plowed the East River to Manhattan, the single-family dwellings at 42-48 Willow Place in Brooklyn Heights were probably occupied by middle-class residents who worked in New York but sought the slower pace in the enclave known as Willowtown.
As a decade passed and Brooklyn Heights’ reputation as a fine bedroom community of lovely brownstone row houses rose, 42-48 Willow Place seemed to fall into disrepair.
An 1853 Brooklyn Evening Star article described the houses as “in the most filthy condition imaginable and requiring immediate attention.”
Despite that alarming report, the late 19th and early 20th centuries seemed to pass uneventfully for the four houses. Occasional newspaper articles cited domestic squabbles and burglaries.
Live-in servants were sought, marriage licenses were taken out, death notices of generations of residents were announced.
But 42-48 Willow Place’s days as a united sisterhood of family homes was coming to an end.
“The row that included 46 Willow Place can still be seen intact on a map of 1929, but by the time of the circa 1940 tax photos only two in the row, Nos. 44 and 46 (third photo), were still standing,” wrote Suzanne De Vries at Brownstoner.
By the 1960s, only Number 46 remained. The missing houses in the former colonnade row were replaced by three modernist dwellings that still surround the antebellum survivor—which was home to one family for more than 50 years before it was sold in early 2026 for $4.1 million.
What’s next for 46 Willow Place? Hopefully that green construction board indicates not a tearing down but rather an overhaul to restore this lonely holdout back to its pre-Civil War beauty.
It may never be as historically glorious as the colonnade row across the street at 43-49 Willow Place, which was so striking, Berenice Abott took a famous portrait of it in 1936.
But 46 Willow Place deserves to remain in the cityscape as a reminder of Brooklyn Heights in the days when colonnade rows were the fashion, even if the imposing columns were simply wood.
[Third image: NYC Department of Records & Information Services]