Crown Jewel of Park Slope (Montauk Club)
The Montauk Club (a private club at 25 Eighth Avenue on the corner of Lincoln Place) was founded in 1889 and is considered Brooklyn’s “crown jewel of Park Slope.” The Venetian Gothic style building is located within the New York City Landmark Preservation Commission’s Park Slope Historic District.
“Called the Crown Jewel of Park Slope, it is in a Venetian Gothic style and is famous for its terra-cotta friezes” was cited in Newsday in 1999.
Wikipedia: Montauk Club
The Montauk Club, a private social club located at 25 Eighth Avenue on the corner of Lincoln Place in the Park Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York City, was founded in 1889 by prominent Brooklyn residents excited about Brooklyn’s economic boom following the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge. Founding members included Charles Pratt, Richard Schermerhorn, and Edwin C. Litchfield.
The landmark clubhouse was built in 1889-91 and was designed by Francis H. Kimball in the Venetian Gothic style. Built of brownstone and brick, it features verdegris copper and terra cotta produced by the New York Architectural Terra Cotta Works. It is ornamented with representations of the Montauk tribe of Native Americans the club is named after, which can be found on the building’s capitals, over the main entrance, and on a continuous frieze between the third and fourth floors. Other panels depict a meeting in 1659 between the Montauks and Europeans, and the laying of the cornerstone of the building.
20 June 1999, Newsday (Long Island, NY), “THE BRIDAL PLANNER SUMMER ‘99 / Romantic Historic Settings / A Sampling of parks, mansions and gardens” by Nancy A. Ruhling, Bridal Planner, pg. H29:
Montauk Club, Park Slope, Brooklyn. (...) Called the Crown Jewel of Park Slope, it is in a Venetian Gothic style and is famous for its terra-cotta friezes.
Google Books
Agenda New York
Volume 13
2001
Pg. 84:
The Montauk Club, housed in a Victorian home originally built in 1889, is an exclusive social dining club frequently referred to as the “crown jewel of Park Slope.”
flickr
Wally Gobetz wallyg
Taken on July 2, 2006
Brooklyn - Park Slope: Montauk Club
The 1891 brown, orange, and red brick and terra-cotta mansion, the Montauk Club is considered the crown jewel of Park Slope. Designer Francis Kimball fashioned the mansion in a Venetian Gothic manner, after the Ca D’Oro, with balustraded balconies and traceried openings.
The third-floor frieze depcits the story of Long Island’s Montauk Indians, for whom the building is named; and on the second floor another frieze depicts the founders of the club decked in top hats and laying the cornerstone of the building in 1889.
The Brooklyn Paper (Brooklyn, NY)
April 21, 2007 / Brooklyn news / Park Slope
New blood tries to save Slope’s Montauk Club
By Christie Rizk
(...)
In the 1880s and ’90s, large Victorian mansions were being built all along Prospect Park West, and Park Slope was the richest neighborhood in the United States. The Montauk Club was a monument to the area’s success.
In those days, men didn’t go out to restaurants together, so the club was a vital part of a successful man’s routine, providing him with a place to network, play cards, crack off-color jokes or smoke without raising any womanly eyebrows.
“It was, and is, the crown jewel of Park Slope,” said Hermann.