The Stories Your House Could Tell: 667 Argyle Road

 In 1897 Christian Baur, then 48, teamed up with a much younger John R. Corbin to build homes in the first Brooklyn “suburban development,” Vanderveer Park, now East Flatbush. Five years later Corbin, apparently tired of dealing with customers, disappeared into a factory he built at Flatbush Avenue and Avenue I, alongside the LIRR railroad tracks, to pioneer the mass production of pre-cut standalone houses, eventually populating most of West Midwood and Midwood Park with his handywork. Baur was no slouch either: together with his architect son George, he erected a dozen homes in landmarked Midwood Park and Fiske Terrace. 

1897 Brooklyn Eagle Ad

By 1905 Christian Baur had already created the home he would soon retire to, at 2320 Foster Avenue (worth a walk just to ogle his playfully designed garage). But there was one last major project to finish before handing the reins to his son: erecting most of the homes on Argyle Road between Foster Avenue & Glenwood Road. While his former protégé Corbin was doing much the same at a break-neck pace on multiple blocks all around him, Baur proceeded methodically. Aside from the speed of construction, the major difference was that Corbin’s houses were not centered on the lot, and had less of a footprint, while Baur’s were centered, squatter, with roofs less peaked. Over time Corbin’s layout became a best practice for maximizing light, air and privacy. But the Baurs’ craftsmanship was every bit as magnificent.

667 Argyle Road was one of the last homes to be built on the block. Students of architectural history would note that its wrap-around porch, projecting bay, and intersecting hip and gable are all characteristic of the Colonial Revival style popular then. But would they notice the highly decorated balusters of the front porch: hand-carved because their asymmetrical shape could not have been fashioned on a fancy-schmancy Corbin lathe? Of much greater interest, however, is the human parade that has lounged on that porch over the last eleven decades…

Baur sold the house in March 1906 to Ida Gerry Dunnell, a 54 year old single woman whose wealth derived from her dearly departed dad, John Henry Dunnell, who shuffled off this mortal coil in January 1904 at the family's Clinton Hill abode. But John Henry was not a steel-driving man. Gold was more his style. 

And so in 1849 when he heard about the strike at Sutter's Mill in California, he rushed to a steamer in New York harbor, trekked across the Isthmus of Panama on foot and by horse (60 years before the Canal), and boarded another ship on the Pacific side that took him to San Francisco. Once ensconced amidst all the other gold-diggers, Dunnell took pencil to paper and began to sketch what he saw – drawings that are still exhibited and sold today. 

Ida Dunnell abandoned 667 Argyle Road in late 1907, relocating to another Baur creation in Midwood Park (690 E 19th St). Why? Perhaps Baur took a liking to Ida – they were contemporaries after all, or perhaps Ida was being hounded by her next-door neighbor, an art dealer, for an original Dunnell drawing. We may never know. 

But we do know that on November 3, 1908, the next occupant, Joseph M. Busnop, a 59 year old retiree, was arrested on bogus election fraud charges for using a “non-existent address” when he cast his ballot that morning.

The NYPD claimed their City maps still read 667 East 13th Street, despite the fact that Argyle Road had been in common usage for the past three years. The Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported many such arrests that day as a likely voter-suppression tactic by the Tammany machine in order to discourage voting in a heavily Republican district. (For more on this, see this if you can possibly stand more of my snarky asides.)

Perhaps fearing the looming Congressional elections, Busnop was soon gone as the house was sold to a Dutch-German silk salesman with a seldom-encountered surname, Willy The Losen. 

                     1910 Census: Argyle Road South of Foster

Willy, his German wife, and a Norwegian maid had all immigrated to New York in the 1890s. In fact, according to the 1910 US Census all the other families on the block were either first or second generation immigrants (German, Irish and Russian) with occupations of pawnbroker (661 Argyle), lawyer (663), art dealer (671), City Hall messenger (677), human hair importer (681) and physician (685).   

In 1919 The Losen sold the house to Daisy Hood, a 38 year old widow employed as a secretary in a sugar refinery. Daisy was a native New Yorker with a teenage son but her four in-laws who shared the house were all from what the newspapers termed “an old Southern family” in Covington, Kentucky. Within two years, half of them would pass away and be waked in the home. 

In 1921 Daisy sold the property to George & Juanita Baxter who would remain for the next 55 years, thank God, or this thing would never end. 

They reared their five children there, amidst an ever-changing assortment of maids and cooks, and provided shelter to their off-springs’ families during the worst of the Depression. 

George Baxter, a textile executive, was “one of the best-known Catholics in the NY area,” according to his obituaries, who attended daily mass until the morning he left St. Rose of Lima and had a heart attack in his car. (Members of the Baxter clan returned to visit their ancestral homestead 10 years ago and provided some marvelous photos.)

After the Baxters departed, a succession of owners coped with the red-lining of Flatbush and the City’s economic crisis. At 667 Argyle Road this decline was marked by what some old timers in the neighborhood remember as raucous “rent parties.” One morning in 1983, the mailman was approaching the house when a car roared out of the driveway as heavy smoke started billowing from the upper floor windows. In law enforcement they call that an arson-for-profit clue. 

            1983: Boarded Windows After Arson

In 1985 Peter Apers, a Dutch cabinet maker, bought the badly-damaged property, gut rehabbed it, and – exhausted from seven years of back-breaking labor – sold it to the stars of this episode, Lance Tukell and Robert Seidel, who were then renting in Cobble Hill. 

After two years of rejecting dozens of coop apartments in Brownstone Brooklyn and Queens because of awkward layouts, lack of eat-in kitchens, and no garden space, their realtor, having now exhausted all of her apartment stock and clearly exasperated, concluded, “You guys really want a big house.” The first home she showed them was 667 Argyle Road, so it was obviously meant to be. Inspired by all the named cottages they had visited on their travels over the years, they dubbed their new home The Loralei and placed a handsome nameplate by their front door.

Lance, a retired Human Resources executive at AIG, developed widely adopted techniques for managing employees during times of profound corporate restructuring. He writes about those experiences as The Clever Corporate Navigator™, an online resource for career advice. He’s currently working on his memoir about joining and leaving orthodoxy – a condensed version appeared this summer in Tablet Magazine. Meanwhile Rob directed training programs for the Regional Alliance, a public/private partnership dealing with economic development issues for small, minority and women-owned businesses that was located in the World Trade Center until 9/11.  

Prodded for memories of their early days here, Lance recalled an elderly neighbor who had an ancient rusted tire-less automobile in the front of his driveway. When Rob asked if he was ever going to junk it, the old-timer replied, “It’s stayin’ put – it can still drive!” As he spoke, Lance marveled at an ailanthus tree over the man’s shoulder, two stories tall, which was growing out of a basement window. When Rob’s parents arrived to see their son’s new house, Lance remembers steering them away from vantage points where they could see the wreck and the tree.

In October, Rob and Lance will celebrate 27 years as helpful, wonderful neighbors. Rob has served as a member of the West Midwood Community Association Board for the majority of his years here, many as VP and President. And Lance has shared so many detailed helpful tips and recommendations to the neighborhood with his email postings, he gives Consumer Reports a run for their money. They are exemplars of the community spirit that makes this a great place to live.

Asked if they were feeling the pandemic-inspired-departure-blues, their response was immediate and heartfelt. As Rob expressed it, “We are so grateful to have this house that has nurtured and sustained us for decades,” to which Lance added, “and we plan on enjoying The Loralei for decades to come.”