March 2, 2010

A Mansion Grows in Brooklyn



One of my newest blog discoveries is Scouting. It consists of pictures of unusual things found  by a very intrepid and curious NYC film location scout.  Last week, he posted about a beautiful historic mansion in a most unlikely place...Brooklyn's East River waterfront.  The Scouting blogger rightly describes it "like someone picked up an estate from Long Island’s Gold Coast and plunked it down in Vinegar Hill."  


The mansion is the former Commandant's House for what used to be the Brooklyn Naval Station, adjacent to the Brooklyn Navy Yard.  Built in 1805, the house, which looks to have some spectacular views of the East River and lower Manhattan, has been privately owned since the early 1960's and the current owner is Charles Gilbert, a neurobiologist with the Rockefeller Foundation.   There's a more 3-D view of the manse he found on Bing which I've reposted below.


Anyway, it's a fascinating little bit of way old New York tucked into an unlikely corner. Amazing what you will find in this city if you just look...