FINDING $1.5M IN YOUR BROWNSTONE (1934)
******************************************************************************************************************************** Brownstone Detectives investigates the history of our clients’ homes. The story you are about to read was composed from research conducted in the course of one of those investigations. Do you know the history of YOUR house? ******************************************************************************************************************************** Does a small fortune lie secreted away within the walls of your brownstone? If you live in a certain Park Slope brownstone, you may want to start looking… THE FORTUNE AT NO. 292 12th STREET (The following story comes from the Friday, 2 November 1934 edition of the Home Talk section of The Brooklyn Eagle newspaper.) She died as she had lived—alone. Miss Louisa Herle, 74-year-old wealthy recluse, of No. 292 12th St., was the Hetty Green of South Brooklyn, and although she slept on a dilapidated leatherette lounge in her kitchen, she left a fortune of $1,500,000. The dead body of the aged spinster was found lying on the lounge Wednesday, where it had lain for three days. She had removed her shoes before she lay down, and her stockings had been placed over the arm of a rocking chair. In the squalid two rooms on the street floor of the old brownstone house, Miss Herle had lived since 1916, when her brother had died. Following his death she closed the upper floors of the-house, and the rooms, inches deep in dust, and piled high with broken furniture, had never been opened since. Three heavily barred doors led into the living room where an old fashioned safe stood. Miss Herle, […]
