Andrew Norwood House (New York City, New York)

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4-story (plus raised basement) Greek-revival/Italianate townhouse completed in 1847 as part of a row of three houses. No. 251 was built for merchant Andrew Norwood, and the house was transferred to his son, Andrew G. Norwood in 1858. The property remained in the Norwood family until the turn of the century, serving as a boarding house after 1871. In 1889 the Methodist Church converted the house to The New York Deaconesse’s Home. The New York Deaconesse’s Home moved on and in its place the Shelter For Respectable Girls was formed. The organization, founded in 1871 and incorporated in 1880, provided a residence for young women seeking employment. In 1903 the house was a boarding house again, and the Norwood estate’s real estate holdings were auctioned off in 1904. Throughout the early decades of the 20th Century the building remained a boarding house. During mid-century, No. 241 was used as a funeral home, and was purchased by Raf Borello in 1976. He used it as a private residence until his death in 2005. The house was purchased for $8.7 million to be converted into “Norwood Club” – a private members club run by the management of a similar club in London called “Blacks.” The club closed in 2022, and the house was divided into a 3-family home.

The facade is clad in red brick above a brownstone basement with a stoop on the left. The parlor-floor entrance has a set of round-arched wood-and-glass double-doors in an elegant Doric entablature, carried on Doric pilasters, which is ornamented with triglyphs above guttae. The central triglyph acts as a bracket for the cornice above. To the right are two full-height French doors with Greek-Revival eared enframements. These doors open onto the original, Italianate style, cast-iron balcony, and below are two basement windows.

The three windows at the upper floors have distinctive Italianate style enframements and sills, each of which is supported by two corbels. The window size diminishes in height at each ascending level, a characteristic of the Greek Revival style. The white wooden roof cornice of Greek-Revival type is composed of a fascia board below a series of closely-spaced modillions.