By the end of the 19th Century, factories rather than farms became the dominant mode of production in the United States. As the industrializing city became more congested and polluted, the notion of the single-family house as haven from the pressures of city life, apart from offices and factories, and as a place for the family to gather became increasingly popular. For middle-class New Yorkers, the protected environment of the family home gained the status of a cultural ideal. This led to a demand for new living spaces, transforming areas such as Flatbush from fields and farming villages to suburban residential developments.
Illustration of the Ideal Victorian Family Home Life
(From Katherine C. Grier, Culture and Comfort: People, Parlors, and Upholstery, 1850-1930)
Idealized Parlor Scene
(Title page illustration from Catherine Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe, The American Woman’s Home: or Principles of Domestic Science)
House In Flabush, C. 1900
(Brooklyn Historical Society)
Late Victorian Home at 81 Fenimore St., Predating Lefferts Manor Development
The architectural structure of Lefferts Manor as a rowhouse neighborhood has survived virtually unchanged since the time of its development. By 1899 four houses were built and sold. 507 homes were constructed between 1905 and 1922. The final three houses were built on Maple Street in 1952.
“Axel Hedman is a name known to people who like to read guides to architecture and Landmark Designation Reports. Hedman’s buildings are dotted through several Brooklyn neighborhoods [--Park Slope, Clinton Hill, Bedford Stuyvesant, Prospect Park South, Red Hook, Crown Heights and Prospect Lefferts Gardens] …making a lasting and positive impact on the borough’s urban fabric. Born in Norrkoping, Sweden in 1861, Hedman immigrated to the U.S. in 1880. He was naturalized in 1901 and lived in Brooklyn until his death in 1943.”