The Lost 1910 53 East 61st Street

 

Architecture magazine, February 1910 (copyright expired)

Effingham Maynard, Jr. was a member of the publishing firm of Maynard, Merrill & Co.  He purchased the four-story, high-stooped brownstone house at 53 East 61st Street on November 10, 1905.  Three years later, the affluent, 28-year-old bachelor hired the architectural firm of Walker & Gillette to give it a comprehensive remodeling.  The plans called for enlarging the house to the rear, reconfiguring the interior, removing the stoop and replacing the Victorian facade with a modern front.  The extensive renovations cost Maynard $20,000--about $683,000 in 2024 terms.

Construction was completed in 1910.  Walker & Gillette had created an anomaly among Manhattan residences.  Above the rusticated, red brick base, they faced the building in concrete.  Architectural critic Montgomery Schuyler, writing in The Architectural Record said,

The material is a novelty in a city house front, common as it is in suburban work.  Possibly gray brick might have been as effective as the actual cement, in contrast with the red of the brickwork, but it could not have been more so.

from the collection of the New York Public Library.

The architects' potpourri of styles--a Palladian grouping at the second floor, romantic Italian faux balconies at the second, and colorful Arts and Crafts tilework around the arched second floor window and below the cornice--prompted Schuyler to say, "This front is of no style.  It is merely the putting together of the materials in the most straightforward manner.  He opined, "nothing could be prettier or more seemly and domestic," and that the house, "though of no style, very distinctly has style and is clearly one of the best of the recent things."

Maynard never moved into his renovated house, choosing instead to lease it.  His first tenants were the widowed Mrs. William M. Postlethwaite and her son, John Ellis Postlethwaite, a 1901 Harvard graduate.  Rev. William M. Postlethwaite had been chaplain and professor of Ethics, History and Geography at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.  He died on January 10, 1896.

The first and second floor plans.  Architecture, 1911 (copyright expired)

In 1914, Effingham Maynard, Jr. rethought his investment.  He hired architect Simeon B. Eisendrath to convert the mansion into bachelor apartments.  (The term meant the apartment had no kitchens.)  An advertisement in The New York Times in August 1915 described the apartments as "one room and bath," or what we would today call studio apartments.  They were available furnished or unfurnished with, "Meals, telephone, and valet service optional."  Rents started at $480 a year, or about $1,250 per month today.

Effingham Maynard died on August 12, 1918 at the age of 42.  Still unmarried, his death sparked a contentious legal battle among family members over his property, including 51 East 61st Street, that lasted well into the following year.

In the meantime, despite their small size, the apartments filled with affluent tenants.  Among those living here in 1918 were Chester B. Coubleday, Harry Burnham Disston and Gerald Hull Gray.  With World War I ongoing, Coubleday was promoted to first lieutenant in the Aviation Section of the Officers' Reserve Corps. that year.  Disston was a second lieutenant in the Infantry Section of the U.S. Army.

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

Henrietta Upson, the daughter of Dr. and Mrs. George Dwight Upson, was married to Henry Pitt Warren, Jr. in a socially notable ceremony in Cleveland, Ohio on October 8, 1921.  Warren had graduated from Yale in 1913 and his bride from the Spence School.  The Yale Alumni Weekly announced, "They will be at home, after November 1, at 53 East 61st Street, New York City."

Dr. Jacob Schmeicher lived and practiced here in 1925.  On April 4, the New York Evening Post said, "He is said to have maintained a seven-room office on the street floor at 53 East Sixty-first street."  Things were going well for the doctor until he applied for an x-ray license early in 1925, listing his degree from the Albany Medical College.  It led to an investigation that revealed no such student had attended the school.  The New York Evening Post reported, "Isabel E. Pries, a detective, had him arrested last night, after he treated her for stomach trouble."

Stock broker Herbert McKenzie and his wife, Louise, lived here in 1928.  A dealer in unlisted securities, McKenzie maintained offices on the 14th floor of 50 Broad Street.  On the afternoon of October 25, his 18-year-old secretary, Virginia Green, overheard him talking to his wife on the phone.  She later said she heard him, "threatening to 'end it all,' but finally promising to see Mrs. McKenzie at the office or call her on the telephone again."

Later Virginia noticed McKenzie's office was empty and the window was open.  Fearing the worst and without checking

further, she telephoned police.  The Brooklyn Standard Union reported, "A few minutes later reserves were called out to control a crowd that had gathered."  The 53-year-old had jumped to his death.  Louise was brought to the scene, where she said she was "not surprised," and that her husband had been "melancholy" over recent financial reversals.

The Architectural Review, March 1910 (copyright expired)

Walker & Gillette's unique townhouse survived until 1963, when it and its neighbors were razed for a modern apartment building.

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