Designation date: December, 2014
The Chester Court Historic District consists of a picturesque assemblage of 18 Tudor Revival style houses set in two opposing rows along a cul-de-sac, along with an original brick wall that terminates the block. It was designed and built in 1911-12 by Peter J. Collins (1866- 1934), a prominent Brooklyn architect and developer who was born and raised in Brooklyn and served as the borough’s Superintendent of Buildings.
Although the Tudor Revival was well established in Brooklyn by this time as a style for freestanding houses, it had not been widely used for row houses, and the Chester Court houses are likely among the earliest Tudor Revival style row houses in the borough, if not the entire city. Their design was inspired by the renowned timber-framed “black-and-white” or “magpie” buildings of Chester, England, which primarily date from the 16th and 17th centuries, and from the “Black-and-White Revival” of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Chester Court’s houses are faced with Flemish-bond red brick at their first stories and stucco with false half-timbering above, alternating square-headed and round-headed openings at their first stories and angled and straight-sided oriels at their second stories. They remain remarkably well-preserved, as all of the houses retain their original clay-tile roofs and many retain their historic wood doors.
The wall at the end of Chester Court, which is attributed to Collins, screens out the adjacent Brighton subway line and contributes to the sense of the district as a distinctive self-contained enclave. Constructed of red brick matching that of the Chester Court houses, it features Flemish-bond pilasters and recessed decorative panels laid in English bond.
Today, Chester Court remains the inviting small street envisioned by Peter J. Collins more than a century ago, an unusually early grouping of row houses inspired by English medieval architecture that is strikingly unchanged from its early-20th-century appearance.
*Excerpt from Landmark Preservation Commission Designation Report
STATUS Designated Historic Districts
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Flatbush
Flatbush is a neighborhood in Brooklyn. It was founded by Dutch colonists in 1651. Flatbush was originally chartered as the Dutch Nieuw Nederland colony town of Midwout (or Midwoud or Medwoud) — from the Dutch words, med, "middle" and woud, "wood"— in 1651. Both names...
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