It’s been known as one of the best preserved Dutch Colonial landmark in Brooklyn — a storied farmhouse predating the American Revolution.
Over its greater than two and a half centuries, the elegantly proportioned Wyckoff-Bennett Homestead — with its gently curved roof, dormer home windows and columned porch perched incongruously amid the buzzing visitors and bustling condominium blocks of the borough’s Madison part — has housed solely three households since 1766.
However to the dismay of native preservationists, that’s now historical past.
Emptied of its antiques, broken by vandalism and in a state of disrepair, the historic property, now priced at $4 million, faces an unsure future as one of many metropolis’s dwindling breed of colonial relics — of which barely a dozen of the oldest stay — threatened by age and improvement pressures.
The property’s final occupants, Annette and Stuart Mont, a psychotherapist and her enterprise government husband, purchased the 4,000-square-foot home replete with old-world furnishings for $160,000 in 1983 — about $480,000 right now — along with an 1899 barn, all on a 22,000-square-foot property, comprising half an acre of land at 1669 E. twenty second St., off Kings Freeway.
Elevating their two kids with the unique dishes and silverware, swords and flintlock rifles, a horse-drawn sleigh and home windows scratched with Hessian graffiti, the Monts tried promoting the property to the town a number of instances over the past 20 years earlier than talks collapsed in acrimony. Nonetheless, the household welcomed schoolchildren and different guests for academic excursions. Annette died in 2013, Stuart three years later. Their son Ira, who didn’t reply to a number of requests for remark, and daughter Randi bought it to the present sellers, companions listed in metropolis data as twenty second Road Traders LLC, in October 2021 for $2.4 million.
The town’s Landmarks Preservation Fee designated the farmhouse a landmark in 1968, however simply its exterior is protected against alterations, with nothing else on the property safeguarded. And now, a brand new era of occupants stands to make it their very own — though precisely who which may be, and what plans could come, stay cloudy.
A yeshiva and a synagogue not too long ago voiced curiosity in buying or renting the homestead, two of the publicity-shy traders confirmed in latest conversations. However that’s now off the desk, they mentioned.
An indication on the barn with a cellphone quantity says, “LOT FOR SALE 22,000 SQ. FT. (WILL DIVIDE).”
Avraham Dishi, one of many property’s co-owners and president of Elysee Funding Firm, a property administration company with intensive holdings in New York and Florida, confirmed they'd been in talks with a yeshiva however he mentioned, “they need it to hire, we don’t need to hire.”
He mentioned the companions have been open to different buy presents and makes use of, difficult by landmark restrictions. “I believe you'll be able to possibly ask permission so that you can transfer it to a special location,” he mentioned.
(A spokesperson for the landmarks fee, Zodet Negron, mentioned the company would wish to approve any transfer of the farmhouse on or off the property, and that it could not be granted flippantly. The home was already reoriented within the Eighteen Nineties, when the road grid was minimize and it was turned from going through south to west. She mentioned the company had no say within the possession or use of the home and property.)
Now, Dishi mentioned, the home and one lot it sat on have been being supplied for about $1.5 million, and the remainder of the property with the barn for $2.5 million. The unique asking worth for every little thing totaled $1 million extra, however Dishi mentioned, “No person pays 5 for this factor.”
Dishi, who has been hit by metropolis lawsuits for constructing violations on different properties and was listed by former Mayor Invoice de Blasio as one of many worst landlords — though he's not on the Public Advocate’s present record — voiced doubts a couple of sale given the landmark restrictions. “We are going to take as a lot that we are able to as a result of we wish out,” he mentioned.
An earlier name to the quantity on the on the market signal reached certainly one of Dishi’s fellow traders, a Brooklyn neighbor who mentioned he lived two blocks away and gave his identify solely as Isaac. He mentioned “the barn and the property are on the market, not the home.” Requested in the event that they may be bought to a yeshiva, he mentioned: “We don’t know who's a buyer. Now we have no buyer but. A couple of cellphone calls, simply speak, solely speak, nothing occur.” He gave a determine of $250 per sq. foot which, for 22,000 sq. toes, equals $5.5 million.
Reached once more in November, he repeated that the home was not on the market and that no patrons had come ahead.
“Who’s going to purchase a landmark?” he mentioned.
Dishi mentioned the home can be fastened up for later sale.
The property’s final final result has raised considerations amongst neighbors.
One in every of them, Joe Dorfman, has contacted Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso’s workplace for months with pressing questions on its destiny. Dorfman not too long ago stopped by the location and met Isaac, who — that point — mentioned he had a purchaser “coming in” for $5 million. Isaac talked about presumably transferring the home and mentioned the possible purchaser was already doing “due diligence.”
One other man there, who gave his identify as Steve, instructed Dorfman he represented a yeshiva “that desires to construct on this property.” Steve mentioned they wished “to maintain the home and switch this neighborhood right into a shul.” He instructed Dorfman, a retired insurance coverage investigator, that he was placing collectively a letter of intent for the yeshiva’s buy and had already spoken to the landmarks fee “so I do know what we are able to and might’t do.”
Amid the homestead’s unsure finish use, one facet stays clear: Its general situation has fallen from grace.
The landmark fee’s Enforcement Division issued the house owners two latest citations labeled “Warning Letter” for failing to keep up the location “in good restore.” The primary was issued Aug. 9, 2022 for “Failure to keep up fence.” To keep away from “attainable substantial fines,” it instructed the house owners to use instantly for a allow to do the work. A second warning, dated Sept. 23, cited a “Failure to keep up facade and roof,” and likewise requested an software for that work.
The house owners have since filed to do the repairs, Negron mentioned, including that a preservationist from the fee visited the location in November telling the house owners what repairs have been wanted and carry them out. They agreed to make the fixes expeditiously and paint the home within the spring, she mentioned.
Along with the structural points, Isaac instructed Dorfman that he had additionally discovered empty vodka bottles and syringes on the property, and had boarded up the home windows and turned on the lights to discourage squatters.
Ron Schweiger, Brooklyn’s appointed historian since 2002, mentioned he visited the location and heard from Isaac that the home had been vandalized with damaged home windows, water flooding, a ceiling collapse, and doorways pulled off their hinges — requiring a re-padlocking of the again door to discourage intruders.
“He’s dealing with the sale,” Schweiger mentioned. He mentioned Isaac “hemmed and hawed” on the asking worth.
“He requested me if I’m ,” Schweiger mentioned. “I mentioned if I win the Powerball.”
He not too long ago returned and located a number of the home windows repaired and lifeless shrubbery minimize however the fence nonetheless “deplorable.” He additionally discovered a failed inspection discover on the door. He mentioned he met with Reynoso’s workplace in late November to transient them on the scenario and that they mentioned they'd alert Mayor Eric Adams’ workplace.
Dorfman mentioned he had additionally been emailing Reynoso’s workplace to share his alarm concerning the state of the landmark. He included images of the damaged property fence with sections mendacity on the bottom and a screenshot of a 311 message from the town’s Division of Buildings saying it had closed a service request to test unlawful work there as a result of it “couldn't acquire entry to the placement.” (The division posted a discover on the door Nov. 7 saying the inspectors had failed to achieve entry to insure compliance with development and zoning codes in response to a criticism.)
In response to Dorfman’s considerations, the borough president’s constituent liaison, Marie Ann Meyr-Carolan, replied to Dorfman on Sept. 20 enclosing a response from the Landmarks Preservation Fee. It mentioned: “Not all of the heaps are on the landmark web site. Solely the home and one different lot is on the location.”
In response to the town’s Division of Finance map, the landmarked home sits on a 100-by-100-foot lot close to Avenue P, adjoining two different numerous 40 by 100 toes, and 60 by 100 toes — this one with the barn.
The landmarks fee additionally instructed the borough president’s workplace: “Now we have been attempting to achieve the brand new proprietor of the constructing however haven't been capable of get him to answer our letters.”
And it concluded with this plea: “In case your constituents might photograph the constructing and ahead to us [sic] on occasion we'll attempt to preserve reaching out to the brand new proprietor.”
The home, which a historic marker calls “one of the best preserved, and thought of by many essentially the most stunning instance of Dutch Colonial structure in Brooklyn,” was constructed someday earlier than 1766, in keeping with an inscription on a beam in an outdated barn, which has since been demolished. The builders have been Henry and Abraham Wyckoff whose forebear had arrived in New Amsterdam in 1637. The household identify had been Claeson however the British, who took the colony from the Dutch in 1664, anglicized the identify to Wyckoff.
In 1835, the farm of 100 acres with meadows and woodlands was bought by Cornelius W. Bennett who traced his ancestry to Brooklyn’s earliest settlers in 1636. Bennetts lived in the home till Cornelius’s great-great-granddaughter, Gertrude Ryder Bennett, a poet and memoirist who grew up visiting the Canarsie Indians and watching horse races on Ocean Parkway, died there childless in 1982 — a 12 months earlier than it was purchased by the Monts, Brooklynites with European roots torn up within the Holocaust. Among the many treasures it brimmed with was an edict of April 3, 1776 ordering homeowners “to protect for the KING’s Use” bushels of rye, wheat and barley for redcoat troops.
In 1974, six years after the town landmarked the home, Bennett bought it listed on the Nationwide Register of Historic Locations. However her efforts to get the federal authorities to purchase it failed. After the Monts bought it, they mentioned, the town approached them in 1999 with a suggestion of $2 million plus further for the contents. However 10 years later, it dropped its provide to $1.38 million, together with the contents, appraised at $92,035, discounting the value, it mentioned, to account for the Monts’ occupancy at $40,000 a 12 months for one more potential 15 years of lifetime.
They spurned the provide. “Let my children fear about it,” Stuart Mont mentioned in 2010. I’ll die some day.”
After the Monts died, their kids took a number of the furnishings, and donated and bought others to a different Brooklyn landmark going again to 1720, the Hendrick I. Lott Home at 1940 E. thirty sixth St. in Marine Park, the place Stuart Mont had served on the board, in keeping with Alyssa Loorya, vp of Pals of the Lott Home.
“The individuals wished the home swept clear,” she mentioned, referring to the Wyckoff-Bennett traders. Objects acquired by the Lott Home, she mentioned, included rifles, Revolutionary swords, clothes, a big Dutch chest known as a kas, and a two-person sleigh from the late 1800s of the sort portrayed within the Clement Clarke Moore poem, “A Go to from St. Nicholas,” generally generally known as “The Night time Earlier than Christmas.”
The Wyckoff-Bennett Homestead is much from the one endangered relic within the metropolis. Of some 70 outdated Dutch homes in New York within the Nineteen Fifties, barely 10 stay in Brooklyn and just a few elsewhere. They embody the town’s first landmark, the Pieter Claesen Wyckoff Home in Canarsie, constructed earlier than 1652, and the Dyckman Farmhouse in uptown Manhattan from about 1785.
“It’s a quickly dying breed,” mentioned Loorya.
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