Historic work space

So often business offices all look the same. They are windowless workplaces with cookie-cutter cubicles, fluorescent lights and plain walls.

But occasionally it is possible to find some offices with the history, personality and charm to give them a sense of place.

Houlihan Lawrence Inc., a residential reall estate brokerage firm in Westchester, Putnam and Dutchess counties, can boast of two such offices: one in Bronxville and the other in Pelham.

The Bronxville location, which is also headquarters of the privately held firm, is housed in a building that had originally been a barn and dates back to 1845. It had been part of the estate of William Van Duzer Lawrence, a leading figure in the development of the once bucolic village who made his fortune in the pharmaceutical industry.

The second office is in Pelham's Metro-North Railroad station, which dates back to 1893 and is fisted on both the state and national registers of historic places.

The Houlihan Lawrence offices in Bronxville and Pelham are more than two of the company's 34 offices for some 1,000 sales agents in the lower Hudson Valley.

Stephen Meyers. company president, said the firm had sales of $4.1 billion in 2005.

The Bronxville office is housed in a white brick building with dark-green doors and shutters and a gabled roof and gabled dormers. It is a village landmark at the intersection of Pondfield and Valley roads in the business district.

Events leading to its transformation from a barn on the early Prescott Farm to a gatehouse on the estate of Lawrence, a New York City...