One of Brooklyn's oldest homes — believed to be a stop along the Underground Railroad —asks $5.95M: ‘It is a museum'

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9 hours ago

A home in Brooklyn Heights not only offers a glimpse of old New York — but also the chance to live in a strong piece of local history.
Built in 1829, making this one of the oldest residences in the borough, the clapboard Federal-style home at 69 Orange St. has just hit the market for $5.95 million, The Post has learned. It offers not only four to five bedrooms and a private garden, but also what locals say is a living link to the Underground Railroad.
Indeed, this property is believed to have been part of the network that led escaped slaves to their freedom.
To walk through the house, which includes a mansard roof and Victorian-era gingerbread trim, is to step back into a version of Brooklyn that predates the Civil War.
The home, landmarked as part of the Brooklyn Heights Historic District, still retains original handrails, moldings, hardware, six fireplaces and even milk-paste paint.
But the real stories are below the surface.
'My late husband who died last year, Henry, discovered the crawl space,' current owner Rasa McKean, 73, told The Post of a tell-tale feature inside the dwelling.
'In the cellar, the walls are made of large stones, not bricks. He noticed one was slightly out of place and suspected something was behind it. After wiggling it loose, it was clear there was an opening. We believe it was part of the Underground Railroad.'
That hunch is supported by the home's immediate neighbor, Plymouth Church, a cornerstone of the 19th-century abolitionist movement.
Its first preacher, Henry Ward Beecher, famously auctioned enslaved people to freedom from the pulpit, which drew the likes of Abraham Lincoln and Mark Twain to worship.
McKean said she and her late husband found additional clues while doing outdoor chores.
'We dug up the garden to replace the soil, and that's when we discovered a tunnel underneath, leading along the back fence,' she recalled. 'It looked like it went all the way to the church.'
McKean and her husband, Henry McKean, a mathematics professor, bought the home in the early 1990s for $345,000 after spotting its photo in a Montague Street real estate office.
Over the next three decades, the couple made it their mission to preserve it — eschewing modern renovations in favor of historical fidelity.
'The other parishioners' houses around the church all participated in the Underground Railroad, but they're gone now,' McKean said. 'Ours is one of the few that remains — and we changed all the electrical systems, water pipes and heating in a way that preserved the history.'
Their preservation efforts extended to its decorations.
'They tried all these years to keep the same paint, which was a milk paste paint,' said listing representative Monica Luque of Douglas Elliman. 'They only did what was absolutely necessary in terms of heating and cooling and plumbing, but everything else is there. All the original bones are there.'
Luque is now marketing the home alongside co-agent Gabriel Suarez, and said the late McKean's wish was that the city step in to preserve the house after his death.
'It would be amazing if the city or the state bought it instead and kept it,' she said. 'It is a museum.'
Though the home is already protected from demolition under its landmark designation, Luque noted that many historic interiors in the neighborhood have not fared as well.
'Everyone else — if they didn't tear them down, because they must be preserved as landmarks, thank God, then they destroy them on the inside and make them completely modern,' she said. 'This family tried so hard to preserve it.'
And while the home has landmark status, Luque said the owners had begun the process of seeking official certification recognizing the property as part of the Underground Railroad. She noted that while such designations can take years, the documentation they've gathered — from physical tunnel evidence to oral histories — will eventually help secure the home's formal place in the national historic record.
To that end, the listing includes a preservation clause to ensure future buyers maintain the home's integrity, Luque added.
McKean, who now lives in a co-op in Manhattan, said the decision to sell was both emotional and necessary. 'I'm in my 70s and it's too much for me to take care of, and my husband is gone,' she said. 'Our mission was we wanted to leave a legacy. We wanted to maintain the history. Because … it's part of you.'
Every room in the 2.5-bath home tells a story. There's a parlor with views of the leafy 55-by-25-foot backyard, which borders Greenacre Park and a library filled with built-ins that recalls a quieter century. Two additional rooms function well as offices or nurseries. It's a residential time capsule — but one grounded in some of the most pivotal movements in American history.
The home's original owners, members of the Gracie and Middagh families, were part of Brooklyn's early elite. Middagh Street and the 'fruit streets' of Pineapple, Orange and Cranberry owe their names to the same lineage — legend says Lady Middagh renamed them to poke fun at the neighborhood's pretension.
The house later passed to Henry L. Pratt, a deacon of Plymouth Church and ally of Rev. Beecher. A manufacturer and devout abolitionist, Pratt reportedly hosted religious leaders and Underground Railroad operatives in the home. McKean notes the uncanny coincidence that her husband, also named Henry Pratt McKean, was born in Massachusetts — just like Pratt.
'That always felt like more than a coincidence,' she said.
McKean still visits the house frequently. 'Every time I leave the house, I cry,' she said. 'It really makes a big difference when you work on your home. It feels more like yourself. When you make all the decisions about the details and how you want things, it becomes part of you.'
The home is awaiting a buyer who not only values old Brooklyn charm, but also recognizes the weight of its legacy.
'The city has to make a decision,' Luque said. 'Not only to purchase it, but to preserve it.'