Even among the oddball buildings of the West Village, 45 Grove Street defies all typology: it is an 1871 apartment building created from an 1830 mansion.

A new owner is now uncovering the multilayered history of this remarkable structure, just off Bleecker Street, which has ties to both John Wilkes Booth and Hart Crane.

The house was built by Samuel Whittemore, a wellto- do manufacturer, and the census of 1830 records nine members of the Whittemore family, as well as two “free colored persons,” living there.

Though it now has four floors, it began life as a two-story structure. The surviving Federal-style lintels on the second floor windows and the rich, molded door surround are of that period. It is not clear whether the house was originally free-standing, but it is now sandwiched in between other structures.

Whittemore sold the house in 1851, and seven years later The New York Times carried an advertisement calling it “Whittemore House” and extolling it as a “first-class boarding house.”

Samuel K. Chester, an actor, lived there around the beginning of 1865. According to testimony from Chester published in The Times in May 1865, John Wilkes Booth had gone there to try to persuade Chester to join a “conspiracy to take over the government” and kidnap President Abraham Lincoln, but Chester declined. Booth assassinated the president in April.

Through the twists and turns of history, 45 Grove became the “Lincoln Home” for destitute soldiers and sailors later that year.

In 1871, Elisha Bloomer, a hatter, retained the architect Benjamin G. Wells for a most unusual alteration, adding two stories and converting the old Whittemore residence into an apartment house.

Instead of completely Victorianizing the structure, Wells duplicated the Federal-style lintels on the upper two floors, and carefully retained most of the interior details, at least on the first floor.

He also enlarged the windows on the first floor, perhaps for store or office use. The tenants in 1890 included a metals dealer and a barber, but in the 1910s the Village underwent a bohemian transformation.

In 1923, the writer Hart Crane lived on the second floor, struggling to eke out a living, and the 1930 census showed the building filled with artistic types, like the Russian-born Zelda Dorfman, a 24-year-old theatrical manager.

In 1937, as the Department of Buildings required the upgrading of old apartment houses, the owners of 45 Grove requested permission to retain the hardwood doors to the apartments on the first floor, “as these doors are highly ornamental.” They described the house as “one of the landmarks in the Greenwich Village section.” The department denied the request, asserting that metal doors were required. But the old wooden doors are still in place.

Somehow, 45 Grove has escaped both demolition and restoration; it has long had the slightly ruined quality that has almost vanished from the rest of the Village: loose wires hanging down from the fire escapes, and tin coverings over the main-floor windows’ wood trim dented and askew.

Inside, crusted paint swamps the old moldings, but the spectacular plasterwork may still leave a visitor gaping: long intact runs of intricately worked bead, reel, rosette and banded-reed decoration on the ceiling, and lovely three-part Federal over-door treatments, with swags in the center.

Just inside the front door is a sculpture niche from the Whittemore period, framed by deeply veined marble.

But there is Victoriana, too: a Minton-type tile floor in the vestibule and heavy molded doors on the outside.

An unusually delicate door assembly at the top of the stairs at the rear is peculiar for its out-of-theway placement. It has an intricate fanlight at the top, fluted columns on the sides, and a carved or molded decorative meander, rosette and similar details. It appears to have been moved; if it was the original front door, Bloomer was either thrifty about using salvage or appreciative of the piece’s architectural value.

One tenant, Beverly Maher, a guitar dealer, has an apartment that is little changed, with the same detailing as in the lobby. In addition, she has two remarkable black marble fireplaces, one with Ionic columns, the other with an iron frieze of the Last Supper — perhaps these are from the 1871 renovation.

Grove Equities, a partnership, bought 45 Grove Street, which has 15 residential units and two commercial units, earlier this year, and Daniel Lavian, one of the partners, said that they didn’t quite realize what they had acquired.

They have uncovered the ground floor front window woodwork of 1871 — tinned up for at least several decades — and uncovered a crazy quilt of decayed columns, brackets and cornices.

“Our first plan was to just do the doorways,” he said, sounding like any renovator swamped by circumstance, “but then we saw all the intricate detail work, and we’re starting to see our numbers going up.”

By Kelly Hushin