Each day on my walk to work I pass the Litchfield Villa, admire it for its Italianate style architecture, glance at the dance class that is usually taking place on the front lawn and continue on my way. It was designed and built in 1854 by Alexander Jackson Davis, a prominent architect for Edwin Clark Litchfield, a railroad and real estate developer. He's the one who turned a small creek into Gowanus Canal. He's also the reason Third Street is so much wider as it was his literal driveway. According to the Prospect Park Handbook the park had to be built around the Litchfield Villa as Edwin refused to sell his property. The land and house were taken against the families wishes in 1869 but they were allowed to stay as tenants paying $2,500 a year. After Edwin's death New York City Parks Department acquired the property and it is now their headquarters.
Oh, and apparently, it's haunted!
According to L.V. Salazar, author of The Ghosts of Brooklyn, one bad seance has ruined the whole place. Salazar claims that Margaret Cahill, a friend of Edwin Clark Litchfield, was distraught over the death of her son in the Civil War and like many people of that time, turned to spiritualism as a means of comfort. A seance was conducted and it seems things went "wrong" and now people claim to see demonic faces in the widows of the Villa. I'll have to check on my next walk. Since the account claimed that people were scandalized, I checked the digitized newspapers because if it was a scandal it would be in there and sadly found nothing to corroborate Salazar's account. But there is plenty of fighting between the pro-spiritualists and the anti-spiritualists! Regardless the Villa is a beautiful historic Brooklyn mansion.
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This blog post reflects the opinions of the author and does not necessarily represent the views of Brooklyn Public Library.
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