Yesterday I posted about the cute row houses near the Pratt campus. They were built in 1907. Today I am going to dedicate the blog to a different set of row houses in Lefferts Garden. The row houses featured in today’s blog line Maple Street between Bedford and Rogers Avenues. I know this street well because I used to live on Lincoln Road just behind Maple Street. Until 1893 this was the farmland of the Lefferts family, but especially after the building of the Brooklyn Bridge, the area began its transformation into a residential area. Lefferts divided his farm up into lots, but he did not want apartment buildings so each lot has a covenant restricting it to two family homes. In 1909 a Swede, Alex Hedman built these stunning row houses on Maple Street. Built of limestone in the Neo-Renaissance style, the two family homes have Spanish tiled roofs. They have really large interiors and a luxury in new York City, back gardens. Gas lamps, which were once ubiquitous in Brooklyn, stand in front of each house. The elegant interiors have mahogany and cherry wood. There is a beautiful symetry to these row houses that attracts the eye. In the 1960s and 1970s whites fled the area and it became African American and Caribbean American. in the 70s, you could buy one of these houses really cheaply, but today they probably fetch three million. Thankfully, the area is landmarked.