House at 1000 Ocean Avenue

The house at 1000 Ocean Avenue in Flatbush is part of the Ditmas Park Historic District, a neighborhood of grand, single-family homes with the nickname "Victorian Flatbush." The house was designed by George Palliser and built for George and Adelaide Van Ness in 1899. The Colonial Revival style mansion features a projecting bay, a columned portico with replacement square columns, and a pediment with Palladian windows. When the mansion was listed for sale in 2021, it was described as "grand but crumbling." The five to seven-bedroom house plus its carriage house are looking for new owners for this fixer upper.

As early as the 1860s, the land south of the newly created Prospect Park was predicted to become a popular residential area. Historically, the land was the eastern part of a large farm that had been owned by the Van Ditmarsen family since the late seventeenth century; the surname was shortened to Ditmars or Ditmas. The Ditmas Park suburban development was the brainchild of realtor Lewis Pounds, a lawyer by training who moved from Kansas to New York in the 1890s. The subdivision was developed near the turn of the twentieth century; a few houses, like 1000 Ocean Avenue, had recently been built by the time Pounds bought the remaining land and divided it into lots. He added sewer lines, sidewalks, and street trees; Pounds instituted restrictions that houses needed to be single-family and of a certain quality and size, set back behind lawns.

The Ditmas Park Historic District is a New York City landmark and is listed in the National Register; it occupies roughly four blocks west of Ocean Ave./ south of Dorchester Ave./ north of Newkirk Ave. The neighborhood of single-family homes was built in mainly bungalow, Colonial Revival, and Neo-Tudor styles; it also contains a neo-Georgian style church building, the Flatbush-Tompkins Congregational Church. Ocean Avenue was touted as the most beautiful street in Flatbush in a 1903 newspaper ad by Pounds' Manor Realty Company for the Ditmas Park subdivision; the George Van Ness house was mentioned as one of the "attractive residences" along the avenue. Ditmas Park dwellings were offered for $10,000 to $20,000 (including lot) in 1903.

George Palliser designed the house at 1000 Ocean Avenue and its neighbor on the corner at 1010 Ocean Avenue in similar but not identical styles in 1899. The house at 1000 Ocean Avenue, designed for George Van Ness, is larger than its neighbor at 1010 Ocean, designed for Thomas H. Brush. Brush was a Brooklyn builder and father-in-law of Van Ness and built his own home next door at 1010 Ocean. George Van Ness was born in New York in 1870 and worked as a stockbroker; he married Adelaide C. Brush in 1899. In June of 1900, neither man had moved into their new homes yet; both lived with their spouses in the home of Brush's father (Van Ness' grandfather-in-law), William A. Brush, on Vernon Ave. in Brooklyn. George and Adelaide lived in their house at 1000 Ocean by 1910. They shared the home with a 21-year-old servant named Huld Mattson, a Swedish native. By 1920, George was head of a household in a house he rented on St. Paul's Court in Brooklyn; he shared the house with his wife and with Thomas H. Brush and his wife, Adelaide F. George Van Ness died in 1946.

A man named Walter W. De Bevoise lived at 1000 Ocean Avenue in 1921 when he advertised for a chambermaid and waitress. De Bevoise, a Brooklyn candy manufacturer, lived in the house until his death in October 1930. The bulk of his estate was left to his two brothers; his wife, harpist and vocalist Bertha Downs, had died in 1923. By 1947, Augustus N. De Bevoise and his wife, Gertrude B., were living in the house.

The house at 1010 Ocean Avenue is two stories tall plus an attic space. The house is brick with stone lintels and an arched doorway opening. A projecting center bay has curved sides and a balustrade railing above. The building's cornice is decorated with modillion blocks and dentil molding. The hipped roof is pierced by pedimented dormers. In recent years, the larger, neighboring house (1010 Ocean) was purchased by a doctor and renovated to hold medical offices. The house at 1000 Ocean had the same owners from the 1970s to the early 2020s. At some point, the original fluted Corinthian columns of the front portico were replaced with square columns. The exterior showed signs of deterioration by the early twenty-first century, with unpainted wood and decaying metal elements, but the roof was replaced. The house has been offered for sale several times in recent years but has had no takers.

Anonymous. "Mrs. De Bevoise Buried." Brooklyn Daily Eagle (Brooklyn) May 4th 1923. 25-25.

Anonymous. "W. W. De Bevoise Estate Receives $371,249 Value." Brooklyn Daily Eagle (Brooklyn) August 31st 1931. 2-2.

Anonymous. "De Bevoise - Gertrude B.." Brooklyn Daily Eagle (Brooklyn) April 8th 1947. Deaths sec, 7-7.

Brownstoner. Christopher Gray Not Optimistic About 1000 Ocean Avenue, Brownstoner. September 24th 2007. Accessed February 28th 2022. https://www.brownstoner.com/real-estate-market/christopher-gra-1/.

De Bevoise, Walter W. "Chambermaid and Waitress. Advertisement." Brooklyn Citizen (Brooklyn) September 12th 1921. Classifieds sec, 11-11.

De Vries, Susan. Grand But Crumbling Ditmas Park Mansion Hits the Market Again for $1.5 Million, Brownstoner. February 8th 2021. Accessed February 28th 2022. https://www.brownstoner.com/real-estate-market/ditmas-park-historic-district-brooklyn-homes-for-sale-1000-ocean-avenue-garage-parking-mansion/.

Dolkart, Andrew S. NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission. Designation Report, Ditmas Park Historic District. New York, NY. City of New York, 1981.

Gray, Christopher. "Kissing Cousins at 100: Only One Shows Its Age." New York Times (New York) September 23rd 2007. Real Estate sec.

Kurshan, Virginia. NRHP Nomination of Ditmas Park Historic District, Brooklyn, N.Y. National Register. Washington, DC. National Park Service, 1983.

NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission. Designation Report, Ditmas Park Historic District, LP-1236. New York, NY. NYC Government, 1981.

Pounds, L. H. "Ditmas Park. Advertisement." Brooklyn Daily Eagle (Brooklyn) April 2nd 1903. Real estate sec, 45-45.

U.S. Census. Household of William A. Brush in Ward 29, Brooklyn, N.Y., dwelling 214, family 309. Washington, DC. U.S. Government, 1900.

U.S. Census. Household of George Van Ness at 1000 Ocean Ave., District 1014, Brooklyn, N.Y., dwelling 169, family 201. Washington, DC. U.S. Government, 1910.

U.S. Census. Household of George Van Ness in District 1341, Brooklyn, N.Y., dwelling 86, family 259. Washington, DC. U.S. Government, 1920.