Litchfield Villa, or "Grace Hill", is an

Italianate The Italianate style was a distinct 19th-century phase in the history of Classical architecture. Like Palladianism and Neoclassicism, the Italianate style drew its inspiration from the models and architectural vocabulary of 16th-century Italian R ...

mansion built in 1854–1857 on a large private estate now located in Prospect Park,

Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. It is located on Prospect Park West at 5th Street. The villa was designed by

Alexander Jackson Davis Alexander Jackson Davis, or A. J. Davis (July 24, 1803 – January 14, 1892), was an American architect, known particularly for his association with the Gothic Revival style. Education Davis was born in New York City and studied at t ...

, America's leading architect of the fashionable

Italianate style The Italianate style was a distinct 19th-century phase in the history of Classical architecture. Like Palladianism and Neoclassicism, the Italianate style drew its inspiration from the models and architectural vocabulary of 16th-century Italian R ...

, for railroad and real estate developer Edwin Clark Litchfield.

Description

The structure is considered to be Davis' greatest Italianate villa, and is currently the Brooklyn borough headquarters of the

New York City Department of Parks and Recreation The New York City Department of Parks and Recreation, also called the Parks Department or NYC Parks, is the department of the government of New York City responsible for maintaining the city's parks system, preserving and maintaining the ecolog ...

. Davis also designed a coach house, greenhouse, and chicken house for the property, none of which is extant. Davis created blueprints in several different styles, including the

Gothic Revival Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic, neo-Gothic, or Gothick) is an architectural movement that began in the late 1740s in England. The movement gained momentum and expanded in the first half of the 19th century, as increasingly ...

and Italianate styles, before eventually selecting the Italianate blueprint. The villa is located on raised ground behind a short stone

retaining wall Retaining walls are relatively rigid walls used for supporting soil laterally so that it can be retained at different levels on the two sides. Retaining walls are structures designed to restrain soil to a slope that it would not naturally keep to ...

. The facade is made of brick that is painted to mimic stone. The front of the villa, facing west, contains a square four-story-high tower attached to an octagonal three-story pavilion. The first and third floors of the octagon contain curved

bay window A bay window is a window space projecting outward from the main walls of a building and forming a bay in a room. Types Bay window is a generic term for all protruding window constructions, regardless of whether they are curved or angular, or r ...

s with balconies. On the first floor, there are porches on the north and south sides of the villa, covered by canopies that are supported by columns of the

classical order An order in architecture is a certain assemblage of parts subject to uniform established proportions, regulated by the office that each part has to perform. Coming down to the present from Ancient Greek and Ancient Roman civilization, the arch ...

. A pair of cylindrical

turret Turret may refer to: * Turret (architecture), a small tower that projects above the wall of a building * Gun turret, a mechanism of a projectile-firing weapon * Objective turret, an indexable holder of multiple lenses in an optical microscope * Mi ...

s adorn the north side of the building. On the first floor inside the octagon, there is a rotunda that is lit by a skylight. A double staircase branches off the south end of the rotunda, rising to the second-floor, and an elaborately decorated drawing room on the first floor is located past the staircase. Past the rotunda and the drawing room. there is a reception room that is also shaped like an octagon, and behind that is a dining room. The first floor also contains a circular library, a map room inside the western turret, and chambers for Edwin Clark Litchfield's wife Grace Hill Hubbard, who was reportedly partially disabled. The second floor has balconies around the rotunda. A chamber above the first floor dining room contains a skylight and a ticket room. There are also servants' quarters on the villa's north end. On the third floor, there are a chapel and a billiard room, and on the fourth floor, there is a roof terrace. There was a kitchen and storage rooms in the basement.

History

Litchfield purchased the land in 1852, and the structure was built in 1854–1857 at a cost of $150,000. It predates the construction of Prospect Park, which opened in 1867. The original plans for the park called for it to be built around Litchfield Villa, since Litchfield was loath to sell his property. The New York City Parks Commission ultimately acquired the Litchfield plot in 1868 for $1.7 million, representing 42% of the overall land expenditure for the park, even though the plot constituted just over five percent of the park's acreage. The Litchfields leased the property from the city until 1882, and the following year, the Brooklyn Park Commission started using the house as its headquarters. Subsequently, Frank J. Helmle designed an annex at the back in 1911–1913. The villa was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

in 1977. (includes one map) ''See also:'' and After years of neglect, an extensive renovation was funded by an anonymous descendant of the Litchfield family. The renovation, under the direction of architect Ralph Carmosino, was completed in 2008. The original stucco was removed from the house, and many of the interior details, including the elaborately painted ceiling murals, were lost.

References

External links

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Villa
{{Authority control Alexander Jackson Davis buildings Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Brooklyn New York City Designated Landmarks in Brooklyn Prospect Park (Brooklyn) Italianate architecture in New York City