brownstone

[ broun-stohn ]

/ ˈbraʊnˌstoʊn /

a reddish-brown sandstone, used extensively as a building material.

Also called brownstone front. a building, especially a row house, fronted with this stone.

Archaic. belonging or pertaining to the well-to-do class.

Origin of brownstone

First recorded in 1830–40; brown + stone

Martin Amis asks as he greets me in the invitingly elegant hallway of his Brooklyn brownstone.

Martin Amis Talks About Nazis, Novels, and Cute Babies |Ronald K. Fried |October 9, 2014 |DAILY BEAST
My Parents bought their first home in 1968, a Brownstone in Fort Greene, where my Father still lives.

Spike Lee Blasts The New York Times’ Story on Brooklyn Gentrification in Fiery Op-Ed |Marlow Stern |March 31, 2014 |DAILY BEAST
We went to another house, a brownstone not too far from where I lived.

Maya Angelou: How I Write |Noah Charney |April 10, 2013 |DAILY BEAST
She then told another story about the same boyfriend—a guy living in a brownstone in Park Slope, Brooklyn.

Lena Dunham’s Improv Night at the Upright Citizens Brigade |Marlow Stern |March 4, 2013 |DAILY BEAST

Five months ago, Mercado was visiting a friend and left her chair outside a brownstone apartment.

Wheelchair-bound Blogger Warms Fashion Week Hearts |Corbin Chamberlin |February 7, 2013 |DAILY BEAST
There was nothing mysterious or forbidding about the plain, brownstone house before which they had stopped.

Peter Ruff and the Double Four |E. Phillips Oppenheim
At Lulu's rooming-house they lingered again, talking in subdued tones on the brownstone stoop.

Just Around the Corner |Fannie Hurst
In places the brownstone front was cracked and great chips had flaked off.

The Secret Wireless |Lewis E. Theiss
Built of brownstone, without a window, and with no other ornament than a frieze in relief below the eave, it suggested a tomb.

The High Heart |Basil King
But they could have been human and mortal; the brownstone could have yielded to a flat-faced office building.

The Trial of Callista Blake |Edgar Pangborn

brownstone

/ (ˈbraʊnˌstəʊn) /

a reddish-brown iron-rich sandstone used for building

a house built of or faced with this stone