The Hotel Margaret was a notable building in Brooklyn, New York. Designed by Frank Freeman

Frank Freeman

Frank Freeman was a Canadian-American architect based in Brooklyn, New York. A leading exponent of the Richardsonian Romanesque architectural style who later adopted Neoclassicism, Freeman has been called "Brooklyn's greatest architect"...

 and completed in 1889, the hotel was the locality's first skyscraper and for many years remained its tallest building. It was destroyed by fire during renovations in 1980.

History

The hotel was built for John Arbuckle, a Brooklyn coffee

Coffee

Coffee is a brewed beverage with a dark,init brooo acidic flavor prepared from the roasted seeds of the coffee plant, colloquially called coffee beans. The beans are found in coffee cherries, which grow on trees cultivated in over 70 countries, primarily in equatorial Latin America, Southeast Asia,...

 and sugar importer, and named after his sister Margaret. Prominent Brooklyn-based architect Frank Freeman was commissioned to design the building, which was completed in 1889.

For many years, the hotel remained the tallest building in the locality, becoming a "familiar and appreciated" sight to the locals. It was home to several prominent artists, including etcher Joseph Pennell

Joseph Pennell

Joseph Pennell was an American artist and author.-Biography:Born in Philadelphia, and first studied there, but like his compatriot and friend, James McNeill Whistler, he afterwards went to Europe and made his home in London...

, Nobel Prize

Nobel Prize in Literature

Since 1901, the Nobel Prize in Literature has been awarded annually to an author from any country who has, in the words from the will of Alfred Nobel, produced "in the field of literature the most outstanding work in an ideal direction"...

-winning novelist Sigrid Undset

Sigrid Undset

Sigrid Undset was a Norwegian novelist who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1928.-Biography:Undset was born in Kalundborg, Denmark, but her family moved to Norway when she was two years old. In 1924, she converted to Catholicism and became a lay Dominican...

, and Betty Smith

Betty Smith

Betty Smith, née Elisabeth Wehner , was an American author.-Biography:Born on December 15, 1896 in Brooklyn, New York to German immigrants, she grew up poor in Williamsburg, Brooklyn and attended Girl's High School. These experiences served as the framework to her first novel, A Tree Grows in...

, author of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.

The building was remodelled in 1958, and at this time given a coat of "neutral-toned" paint which caused it to lose some of its polychromatic appeal. In 1980, work began on converting the hotel into condominium

Condominium

A condominium, or condo, is the form of housing tenure and other real property where a specified part of a piece of real estate is individually owned while use of and access to common facilities in the piece such as hallways, heating system, elevators, exterior areas is executed under legal rights...

s, but the building caught fire during the renovation and burned down.

Description

Completed in architect Frank Freeman's signature Richardsonian Romanesque

Richardsonian Romanesque

Richardsonian Romanesque is a style of Romanesque Revival architecture named after architect Henry Hobson Richardson, whose masterpiece is Trinity Church, Boston , designated a National Historic Landmark...

 style, the building has been described as "a rangy, Victorian

Victorian era

The Victorian era of British history was the period of Queen Victoria's reign from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. It was a long period of peace, prosperity, refined sensibilities and national self-confidence...

 apartment house in brick, terra cotta

Terra cotta

Terracotta, Terra cotta or Terra-cotta is a clay-based unglazed ceramic, although the term can also be applied to glazed ceramics where the fired body is porous and red in color...

 and pressed metal with vivid and witty ornament" and as "the outstanding building of the Post Civil War

American Civil War

The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...

 period" in the locality. A contemporary source described the building as:

... a huge and imposing apartment house, designed by Frank Freeman in a free
adaptation of Romanesque. From its upper story there is a superb river view, from the street or the East River Bridge an impressive sky line. It is quaintly balconied and recessed, and the deep brown red of its brick harmonizes admirably with its iron work.

The building was topped by large, pyramidal-roofed rectangular towers, which offered excellent views of the cityscape. Primary building materials utilized in its appearance were stone, brick, terra cotta and copper

Copper

Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu and atomic number 29. It is a ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. Pure copper is soft and malleable; an exposed surface has a reddish-orange tarnish...

.