Renaissance Apartments

The buff Roman brick building with circular corner towers on the southwest corner of Nostrand Avenue and Hancock Street has been standing since 1892. The Renaissance Apartments building was one of several in Brooklyn designed by a local architect, Montrose W. Morris, for real estate investor Louis F. Seitz. The building was listed in the New York and National Registers of Historic Places in 1995 and became a New York City Landmark in 1986. The five-story building holds 25 rental apartments.

The Renaissance Apartments building was fancier than the typical multi-family tenement-style dwelling of its era and aimed to attract middle-class residents who favored rowhouses. The building has been compared to a French chateau from the Loire Valley with its slate mansard roof, terra cotta decorations, and three round corner towers with conical roofs and finials. Above the Nostrand Avenue entrance, the second through fourth floors are vertically joined in a triumphal arch. Pairs of two-story columns with Corinthian capitals decorate the bays flanking the arch. The facade has a striped effect with continuous bands of terra cotta alternated with courses of buff brick. Use of lighter-colored brick and more refined details as seen in the Renaissance Apartments became fashionable in the 1890s.

The Brooklyn architect, Montrose Morris (1861-1916), was born in Hempstead, New York but soon moved to Brooklyn. He designed his own residence in Bedford-Stuyvesant on Hancock St. and allowed the public to tour the home to promote his business. An investor named Louis Seitz hired Morris to design the Renaissance Apartments after he was pleased with the nearby Alhambra Apartments (500-518 Nostrand Avenue) that Morris designed for him. Morris also designed the Imperial (on Bedford Avenue at Grant Square), a grander version of the Renaissance Apartments. The Renaissance Apartments building (sometimes listed as 140-144 Hancock St.) was sold in December 1899 by David A. Barnes to an unnamed investor for $110,000. It was last sold in 2020 for nearly $1.5 million.

The ground floor held space that was advertised for rent as doctor's or dentist's offices in 1925; the building superintendent was Mr. Sealey. There was only one vacant apartment in the building in March 1926; the "light and airy" apartment was offered for a "reasonable" rent. The apartment building's owner served as its management; the apartments were updated by the early 1930s and typically offered six to seven rooms, a bath and shower, an Electrolux refrigerator, wood parquet flooring, and "every modern improvement." A seven-room apartment rented for $65 in 1931. By the mid-1980s, the building was vacant and partially sealed until it underwent renovations. In recent years, rent ranged from about $1,500 to $2,500 for the studio to three-bedroom, one-bath units.

Anonymous. "The Real Estate Market." Brooklyn Daily Eagle (Brooklyn) December 18th 1899. 11-11.

Anonymous. "Nostrand Ave, 488. Advertisement." Brooklyn Daily Eagle (Brooklyn) March 13th 1926. Classifieds sec, 18-18.

Anonymous. "Nostrand Ave, 488. Advertisement." Brooklyn Daily Eagle (Brooklyn) November 27th 1931. Classifieds sec, 36-36.

Anonymous. "Bedford Section. Advertisement." Brooklyn Daily Eagle (Brooklyn) September 25th 1932. Classifieds sec, 56-56.

Dillon, James T. Designation Report LP-1433, Renaissance Apartments, NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission Designation Reports. March 18th 1986. Accessed January 28th 2022. http://s-media.nyc.gov/agencies/lpc/lp/1433.pdf.

NYC Historic Districts Council. Renaissance Apartments, Six to Celebrate. Accessed January 22nd 2022. https://6tocelebrate.org/site/renaissance-apartments/.

Sealey, Mr. "Nostrand Ave, 488. Advertisement." Brooklyn Daily Eagle (Brooklyn) September 26th 1925. Classifieds sec, 18-18.

StreetEasy. Building: Renaissance Apartments, StreetEasy, Brooklyn, Bedford-Stuyvesant. January 1st 2022. Accessed January 22nd 2022. https://streeteasy.com/building/renaissance-apartments.