William O. Kent House | commercial building

 historical layer / disappeared object, commercial building

3-story (plus raised basement) Italianate commercial building completed around 1850 as a townhouse for William O. Kent, who died here in 1856. In 1887 real estate dealers S. F. Jayne & Co. purchased No. 254 and commissioned the architectural firm of Napoleon Le Brun & Son to renovate it. The modifications included an iron staircase which replaced the stone stoop, and a cast iron storefront for the office in the basement level and the store in the former parlor. Around 1911 the upper floors became home to the Phelps School of Design, run by Ernest L. Phelps. When the property was sold in 1917, the Phelps School of Design was gone and the upper floors were converted to apartments. In the mid 1950's the shop level was home to the Regina Gallery, and by the 1960's it was taken over by Wingate Florists. A renovation of the lower levels in 1987 resulted in a restaurant space, occupied first by Eze, and replaced in 1992 by East of Eight restaurant, which closed in 2017.

The facade is clad in red brick above the parlor-floor storefront and basement. The metal steps on the right lead up to a doorway with multi-paned wood-and-glass double-doors and a short transom set between fluted pilasters. To the left the storefront has three panes of show-window (with upper transoms), and there is another fluted pilaster at the east end. A simple black metal awning covers this floor.

The upper floors have three bays of single-windows with stone sills and lintels. The facade is crowned by a black metal roof cornice with three sets of ornamented panels flanked by acanthus-leaf brackets, with rosettes between the three.