Pretty Darn Nice Stable

This unusually ornate building, No. 413 Degraw Street, opposite the Church of St. Agnes in Carroll Gardens, caught my eye and provoked my curiosity. I guessed it was a former stables or carriage house. But why so rococo?

I researched it and, indeed, it was built as a stable in 1892 for one James Lumas. It cost $3,000. Why Lumas went in for all the delicate detail and arched windows, I do not know. Maybe he was just an artistic soul.

Or maybe some of the more fanciful touches came about when it was redone in 2003 to suit a single family. And done very well, too, It think.

Either way, both parties are an improvement over the folks who lived in the building that was there before this one. These including Daniel Gill, who was so drunk in 1889 when his wife Catharine had him arrested that he couldn't even bring himself to make a plead one way or another.