The bulldozer comes for a Brooklyn mansion built in 1902 for a prosperous provisions dealer
At the end of a lovely brownstone row in Bedford-Stuyvesant is an empty space. Enclosed by a chain-link fence, the patchy ground here has been cleared of debris, save for some litter and a pile of wood remnants from a 2022 demolition.
When these remnants are finally carted off, it’ll mark the demise of the last traces of a magnificent mansion at 441 Willoughby Street built in the late Gilded Age. And a multigenerational Brooklyn family who made their mark within these walls as philanthropic citizens fades into history.
The story of the house that stood at this corner of Willoughby Street and Nostrand Avenue for 120 years begins with Jacob Dangler. Hailing from Alsace-Lorraine when this region was part of Germany, Dangler was born around 1851 and came to America by the 1870s, per census records.
He went into the grocery business first, then learned how to process meat. Now living in Williamsburg (which had a large German immigrant population), he opened his own meat and provisions company on Myrtle Avenue, according to a biography by BKgeni on Find a Grave.
Dangler married another German immigrant, had children, and enlarged his business through the 1880s and 1890s, moving to another store and relocating to a second Myrtle Avenue home close to the new shop.
His meat and provisions business made him rich. And like the beer barons who built mansions in Bushwick around the same time, Dangler commissioned a showcase of a house that would make an architectural statement—and perhaps announce that he’d found success in America.
In 1897, he purchased the corner lot at Nostrand Avenue and Willoughby Street from the Boerum family in the fashionable residential neighborhood soon known as Bedford-Stuyvesant. While single-family brownstones were going up in tidy unified rows, Dangler wanted something different.
He brought in architect Theobald Engelhardt, a prolific designer of many late 19th century Brooklyn homes and businesses. The house he completed in 1902 (second image) for Dangler has been described as French Gothic or Chateauesque.
Either way, it’s stunning: three stories with charming dormers and turrets, plus a front porch overlooking Willoughby Street. The mansion had 17 rooms, three bathrooms, and its own bowling alley, per an ad from the Brooklyn Eagle in 1940.
In this mansion lived Dangler and his wife, Louisa; their son George, who went into the meat and provisions business with his father; George’s wife Louise, and George and Louise’s two children, Ruth and Ralph. Two female servants also joined them, both described as Austrian and German in the 1910 U.S. census. (Another grandson, Donald, lived with the family per the 1930 census.)
What was life like in the Dangler mansion (above, in 1975) as the 20th century went on? It sounds rather typical. In addition to running his business, Jacob Dangler and his wife were involved in many community and philanthropic endeavors.
Dangler had been elected a trustee at Fulton Savings Bank in 1903, then was made vice president. He was active in his church, St. Peter’s Lutheran, on Bedford and DeKalb Avenues, and was instrumental in funding a new building at the now-defunct Williamsburg Hospital. His wife also raised money for the hospital by holding music events in their home.
Grandchildren Ruth (fourth image) and Ralph also generated headlines. Ruth attended Packer Collegiate and then Wellesley University, earning a reputation as an actress. In October 1925 she sailed to Europe to study at the Sorbonne. Ralph went with his sister, but this Brooklyn Eagle piece stated that Ralph planned to return in January to resume his studies at the University of Virginia.
In 1927, Ruth held her wedding at the Willoughby Street mansion. Ralph, meanwhile, made headlines in 1928 for wrecking his car on the Long Island Motor Parkway and injuring his female passenger, who worked in the fur shop at Bergdorf Goodman.
Life began to change for the Danglers in 1929. That year, Jacob’s wife Louisa died in the house at age 79. Ten years later, Jacob Dangler passed away in his home as well. In January 1940, an ad appeared in the Brooklyn Eagle (above) offering the house for sale—but not as a family home.
“Suitable for a clubhouse, for entertainments, weddings, parties, or a sanitarium or small private hospital,” the ad read. No sale price was given.
The days of the mansion serving as a family home were over. In the 1940s, 441 Willoughby transformed into Willow Temple. A Masonic organization composed of black women, the United Grand Chapter of the Order of the Eastern Star, later purchased the house. Local residents recalled Cub Scout and Girl Scout meetings, among other community events, held in the mansion, according to a 2022 New York Times article.
Time took its toll on the Dangler mansion, and the Masonic organization, now in debt, sold the house to a developer. Protests were staged and petitions circulated, but the planned demolition of the house proceeded.
“According to Mayor Eric Adams’s office, the developer received a permit to tear down the house through the Department of Buildings,” wrote the New York Times. “Because of a technological glitch, the Landmarks Preservation Commission was not flagged about the permit in time to consider designating the mansion as historic.”
In July 2022, Jacob Dangler’s castle met the wrecking ball, another lost piece of Brooklyn history and beauty. Exactly what will go up in its place, and when? Only time will tell.
[Second image: Brooklyn Life; third image: NYC Department of Records & Information Services; fourth image: Brooklyn Eagle; fifth image: MCNY 2013.3.2.1591; sixth image: Brooklyn Eagle; seventh image: LPC Report, 2022; eighth image: CBS News screen grab]
