84 Bedford Street: Review and Ratings

Review of 84 Bedford Street by Carter Horsley

This attractive, red-brick, four-story building at 84 Bedford Street in the West Village has 9 condominium apartments. 

It was combined with the adjacent four-story, red-brick building at 82 Bedford Street on the northeast corner at Barrow Street in 2006.  Both are “vernacular versions of the late Greek Revival style” from the first half of the Nineteenth Century. 

Malcolm Kaye was the architect for the development, a project that was completed in 2012 by Newcastle Realty Services.

Bottom Line

A charming red-brick building on tree-lined streets in the heart of the West Village with a roof deck.

Description

Both these buildings are very simple, with brick façades, partly in Flemish bond, and have contrasting stone lintels, flush with the brickwork, and stone windowsills. Brick parapets with stone copings were added at a later date to both buildings. 

No. 84 has a five-step-up entrance and No. 82 has a two-step-up entrance. One bank of fire-escapes straddles both buildings, which have nice cornices and sidewalk landscaping, on Bedford Street. 

In the mid-Nineteenth Century, No. 82 had a ground floor store; today it is a multi-family dwelling.  

The building permits protruding window air-conditioners.

Amenities

The building has a roof terrace and basement wine storage but no concierge, no doorman, and no garage.

Pets are allowed.

Apartments

Apartments have fireplaces and double-paned windows. 

Apartment N on the third and fourth floors are one-bedroom units with 16-foot-long great rooms and 8-foot-long study rooms off the bedrooms. 

Apartment 1N is a two-bedroom duplex unit.

History

The two buildings were built 30 years apart, according to the designation report for the area of the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission: 

"No. 82, the corner house, was built in 1846 for Benjamin B. Demarest, a carman, as a two- or three-story house, and raised to its present four-story height before 1879.  No. 84, originally built for Peter N. Demarest, also a carman, represents an alteration in the Eighteen-Seventies of a much earlier, narrower frame building with a brick front, which may predate 1826.  This is corroborated by a change from Flemish to running bond above the first story.  

"In 1872, this two-and-one-half story house was raised to three stories, and the open passageway, indicated by the arched doorway at the right side of the building, was bridged over.  This passageway led to a rear building in ‘Pamela Court,’ known as 58 Barrow Street, built in 1827 for Albert Romaine.  By the end of the century, No. 84 had acquired a fourth story.  

"The Demarests were originally a French Huguenot family.  Together with the Romaines (Romines) and the Blauvelts, to whom they were related by marriage, they were not only active in the development of the Village, but as far north ad Mount Vernon and White Plains, in Westchester County, as well."