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%20BEST).bmp "1904")
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| Red Rectangle = 729 Westminster (1906 Map) |
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| 1901 Backus Cast Iron Log in a 1905 House |
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| 1905Trolley tracks moved to center of Coney Island Ave at Glenwood Rd |
In August of 1905 two families entered into an agreement to purchase 729 Westminster Road from Ackerson for $9,500. The Brush family would occupy the first floor and the Burnetts the top two, although that would change over the 38 years that followed. The third floor was much smaller but could be accessed from the lower floors via separate staircases. At the time of the purchase, the families lived within a four minute walk of each other in Williamsburg apartments. The Brushes were Presbyterians who could trace their ancestry to pre-Revolutionary Suffolk County while the widow who headed the Burnett clan was a mid-19th century northern Irish immigrant, a widow whose successful Episcopal father had died in her Division Street home six years earlier.
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| 1940 NYC Tax Photo Colorized |
Charlotte Ruth Wright, who claimed to be a distant relative of Woodrow Wilson, was born in Armagh during the Irish Potato Famine and emigrated to New York with her family as a child. Her father, Thomas Henry Wright, founded Wright & Richmond, a large manufacturing firm in Manhattan. In 1873 she married a Williamsburg carpenter named William T. Burnett. Born in the Catskills, Burnett enlisted in the Union Army as a 19 year old in 1862. He served three full years with New York’s 127th Volunteer Regiment and saw combat in South Carolina. He died in 1888, leaving behind three children and a widow’s pension of $8 a month thanks to his service-related injuries. His two sons (Chauncey and Percy) worked as proofreaders for newspapers while Mabel gave music lessons and sometimes played organ at church services. Despite her meager pension ($287 in today’s coinage), Charlotte donated an enormous amount of money to victims of the San Francisco earthquake in April 1906, indicating she likely inherited a sizeable estate when her father passed away in 1899.
Soon after the Burnetts moved to their new Flatbush home, Chauncey took a bride and the 1910 US Census listed his spouse Annie and their two young children as members of Charlotte’s household. When they moved to their own apartment near the Brooklyn Museum in 1912, Charlotte conveyed her ownership to Percy and she died in April 1915 at 729 Westminster Road after a long bout with myocarditis. The wake and the funeral both occurred in her home. Sometime during the 1930s Mabel was admitted to the “Hospital for the Insane” in Smithtown, Long Island and in October 1943, at the age 67, Percy died of a heart attack working as the night foreman of proofreaders at the World-Telegram. His service was held in a Flatbush Avenue funeral home.
The ownership family on the first floor consisted of Hanford A. Brush and his 30 year old son. Separated from his wife, Hanford was the same age as Charlotte and owned a necktie factory in Brooklyn. Brush traced his lineage back to pre-Revolutionary War days in Suffolk County, where his family continued to own land in Northport. William Elwood Brush was the Treasurer of the America Law Book Company located near Wall Street. In April1907 William married Harriet Hubbs of Jefferson Avenue who also had Suffolk County roots and their only child, Allen, was born six years later.
The 1915 NY State census found Hanford retired in Northport and, with only Percy and Mabel living above them, it appears that the third floor was then occupied by the Brushes’ Norwegian maid. By the 1920 Census the maid became Scottish (the Brushes’ many ads for servants specified “white only,” while the Burnetts’ ads for day workers never did). That year one out of every three Ackerson homes had a servant living on the third floor, but by the 1930 onset of the Depression, only two could be found for the entire block and in 1940 there were none. 1920 also saw William gain entry to the New York Sons of the American Revolution and pen a letter to the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, scolding them for mocking Prohibition in their cartoons. By the way, William won multiple cash contests run by newspapers while residing with newspaper employees. Just sayin’.
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| 1913-2010 Allen Brush |
In April 1927 Harriet Brush died of lobar pneumonia at 729 Westminster at the age of 52. Like Charlotte, her funeral service occurred in the home and she is buried in Green-Wood. Thereafter her sister Carrie moved to 729 Westminster to help William raise Allen. Meanwhile Hanford died in Commack later that same year at the age of 78 and left a large estate to his grandson who graduated from Poly Prep, thence from Dartmouth in 1935 as valedictorian and “best scholar.” He immediately joined the executive ranks at General Motors in Manhattan, eventually rising to VP of Finance in 1960. He would die in November 2010 at the age of 97 in New London, Connecticut. Finally, Allen’s father William remarried in 1933 and relocated to Crown Heights with his new bride. He passed away in Garden City in 1968 at the age of 89.
When the Brushes moved out, Percy rented the first floor to a succession of tenants and after his death, his brother Chauncey sold the home. The price of the sale is unknown but in 1930 William Brush estimated the house was worth $20,000 (double its 1905 cost) while in 1940, a decade deep into the Depression, Percy estimated to the Census taker that the value had dropped to $14,500 (other owners’ estimates on the block averaged about $11,000). The buyers were Rubin Diamond and his wife of five years, Lillian Kerbel.
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| 1983 NYC Tax Photo |
Ira Eisenstein owned the property for only four years, and by most accounts was an odd fellow (he cut a hole in the side of the house when moving furniture and buried unwanted items in the back yard). He relocated to New Jersey after marrying Lisa Kessler in 1980, leaving his aunt and uncle to manage the building from their first floor quarters.
In 1981 they rented the second floor to David Kiefer and Andrea Freshman, who had been living on Argyle Road in Beverley Square West since 1974. Their first daughter, Justine, was born there but they wanted a bigger apartment.
Andrea grew up in Rome, New York, the daughter of an attorney, and after college moved to Brooklyn where she met David Kiefer, the son of a lithographer, while they worked together at Wingate High School. Raised in Ozone Park, David graduated Pratt as a chemical engineer. He joined the new Peace Corps which led to teaching and overseeing AP Science at Midwood High. After Wingate, Andrea obtained an MSW degree from NYU, worked as a school social worker at Murrow High and developed a private psychotherapy practice.
When Eisenstein put the house up for sale in December 1983, the Kiefers bought it for $86,000. Claire arrived the next year and as their family expanded, 729 Westminster eventually became a one family house. Both daughters are married, balancing work with parenting. A Magill University (Montreal) graduate, Claire is now a nurse practitioner residing in Kensington with her husband David Squires, a computer coder, and their two children, Sloane and Zach.
Justine, after obtaining an MA in Organizational Psychology at Columbia, landed an executive post at American Express and through mutual friends, met Eric Ost, a Watchung, New Jersey lad new to the Big Apple eager to explore the sights. Touring led to dating led to marriage and the arrival of Sid, Elise and William. Eric has held many jobs in education over the years, including a lengthy stint at Hunter Science High School. He also serves as a volunteer member of two executive boards: PS 217’s Parents Association and Community Board 14, where he oversees the Education Committee.
There
are 215 houses with stories to tell in West Midwood. This has been one of
them.
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1905 (March) Two Crowded Coney
Island Ave Trolleys Cross LIRR tracks south of Avenue H (from a Brooklyn Daily
Eagle story on the decision by the Brooklyn Grade Crossing Commission to begin
eliminating dangerous crossings like these over the next five years). |
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| 1905 Apr 22: 741 Westminster under construction - Brooklyn Daily Eagle |
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| 1905 T B Ackerson Ad in Realm of Light & Air pamphlet |
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An unusual feature of the house: access to, and use of, half of the rear garages on either side.