A listing photo shows the breadth of the Italianate wooden country house, set back deep in the yard, with a porch overlooking Fort Greene from high ground.
Photo: Corcoran

We did not deserve the charming, butter-yellow house at 158 South Oxford Street, and we are poised to lose it. The 165-year-old house was never included in any landmark districts, and documents filed last month show plans to take it down and build 17 apartments, “most likely condos,” according to New York YIMBY, which broke news of a demolition permit last month.

The 1860 building — with its wide, farmhouse-style porch and lacy gingerbread details — looks something like an old country house and was built to be one, wrote Suzanne Spellen, the architectural historian who had called for the home to be included in an expanded historic district after a failed attempt to bulldoze its carriage house in 2007. Fort Greene, meanwhile, has recently been arguing over plans to put an apartment tower on top of a landmarked church, and there aren’t a lot of 19th-century wood-frame houses left in the neighborhood, Spellen pointed out.

A 1940 tax photo shows the building at age 80. Not much has changed, but the building was left out of historic districts.
Photo: Courtesy of the Municipal Archives/City of New York

The current owner is the artist Marc Lambrechts, according to Brownstoner, which reported that “the property has been owned by artists for decades,” given who he bought from: Richard Artschwager, who seems to have used the carriage house as a studio. Those owners appear to have kept the building in habitable shape, given a rental listing from October asking $13,500 for the downstairs duplex: a four-bedroom, 2,500-square-foot spread that could be taken furnished, Eames lounge included. The listing described it as both an “incredibly gorgeous ‘mini mansion’” and a “fairy tale country home.”

A listing shot shows off the rarest of amenities in Brooklyn: a wide, sunny yard the copy describes as “a fairy tale country home.”
Photo: Corcoran

The developer who filed plans is Shimon Kleinman, of Borough Developers, whose portfolio includes a handful of luxury condos with flat, clean, modern façades; big windows; and roof gardens or balconies. Kleinman’s bio describes his skill at “understanding how to utilize every inch of construction space.”

A listing photo shows the furniture included in a rental of the downstairs duplex, a 2,500-square-foot spread in the 3,100-square-foot mansion.
Photo: Corcoran

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