The Henry Clews, Jr. House - 145 East 19th Street

 

In 1849, Edwin Forrest was the reigning American tragedian, the position held in England by Irish-born William Macready.  A fierce rivalry existed between the two actors and local loyalty to Forrest was intense.  On May 10, Macbeth opened at the Astor Place Opera House with Macready in the title role.  Thousands crowded into the streets of the fashionable neighborhood to voice their dissatisfaction.  The protests turned to violent rioting.  On May 13, the Sunday Dispatch listed the names of the 25 killed and 120 injured during the melee.  The "long and melancholy list" included among the fatalities, "Kelly, 104 East Nineteenth street."

Kelly's brick-faced house was one of a row erected in 1843.  Three stories tall, its Greek Revival design was typical of hundreds of homes, with a high stoop that led to the entrance within a sturdy brownstone enframement, and simple sills and lintels.

By 1851, Edward Chester, an educator, and his family lived at 104 East 19th Street (renumbered 145 in 1867).  The Chesters maintained a small domestic staff.  Like many families, when they left for the country in the summer they let unnecessary staff go.  On June 27, 1855, an advertisement in New York Daily Herald read:

Plain Cook and Washer--A gentleman leaving the city, wishes to procure a situation as above for a person now in his family, and whom he can highly recommend.

When the family returned five months later, they began restaffing.  An ad on November 30 read, "A seamstress and a plain cook wanted--who thoroughly understand their business, in a small family.  Apply personally at No. 104 East 19th-st., after 12 o'clock.  None but Protestants need apply."

The Chesters remained through 1857, after which the house was operated as a boarding house.  Among those living here in 1858 were Professor Candido Berti and artist Nestor Corradi.

In 1881, Maud Parish and her husband moved here from the boarding house at 208 East 14th Street.  Parish was a frescoer with the firm Pottier & Stymus.  The New York Evening Post said he, "earned a good salary, and had provided well for her support."  The couple had been forced to move following scandal.  Four other boarders in the 14th Street house had discovered missing clothing and jewelry.  A search uncovered the stolen items in Maud Parish's rooms.  The items--worth $500, or about $15,400 in 2024--were returned and Parish convinced the victims not to press charges.

Now at 145 East 19th Street, Maud made friends with Josephine G. Gabadau and her invalid mother.  In May 1882, Josephine "missed some jewelry and $30 in gold from her trunk," which was stored in a room on the third floor, according to The New York Evening Post.  The Sun reported, "Shortly after, she saw one of the ornaments on the person of Mrs. Maud L. Parish, a fellow boarder."  Maud told Josephine she had bought it, and since it was not an unusual piece, the subject was dropped.

Then, on June 14 a fire was discovered in the storeroom.  When it was extinguished, the contents of Josephine Gabadau's trunks were missing.  She went to Police Inspector Byrnes and told him of her suspicions.  After an investigation, Maud confessed, admitting to setting the fire to hide the theft.  She was arrested on July 24.  Tragically, according to The New York Evening Post, "Mrs. Gabadau was made so ill by fright that she died."

In 1908, George and Antoinette Finck and his wife purchased 145 East 19th Street.  They leased it to Henry R. Jaeckel for three years.  When his lease expired in 1911, they rented the house to recently divorced millionaire Henry Clews, Jr.

Clews hired architect Frederick Junius Sterner to remodel the outdated residence.  Sterner had been transforming the block since 1906 when he purchased his own home at 139 East 19th Street.  He removed the stoop, gave the new entrance at the basement level a brick surround and a colorful tile plaque above the doorway, covered the brick facade in stucco and decorated it with three cast-stone plaques.  A sloping tile roof completed the slightly Mediterranean feel.

145 East 19th Street was originally a match to the house to the left.  image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

Born in 1876, Clews had struggled to find his identity.  His family was among the wealthiest and most prominent in New York and in Newport.  Before he was 21 years old, he had been expelled from Amherst College, dropped out of Columbia University, and was ousted from Leibniz University Hannover.  His father brought him into the family banking firm, but his passion was art.  Clews studied sculpture under Auguste Rodin and by the time he moved into 145 East 19th Street had had two exhibitions in New York.  

On December 19, 1914, Clews returned from Europe, but he did not go directly home.  Instead, he went to 8 Washington Square where he married Elsie Whelen Goelet, the former wife of Robert Goelet.  The New York Times said, "The marriage took place quietly at the home of the bride...a few hours after the license had been obtained, in the presence of the immediate families."

A year later, on October 30, 1915, The New York Times reported, "Following the wedding, the couple lived at Mr. Clews's studio at 145 East Nineteenth Street, and later sailed for Europe, where they have since resided in Paris."  The couple would not return to East 19th Street.

Leasing the combined houses next door at 147-149 East 19th Street (another Sterner transformation) since 1911 was artist Robert Winthrop Chanler.  They, too, were owned by George and Antoinette Finck.  In 1919, Chanler purchased his studio from the Fincks, as well as 145 East 19th Street.  The Record & Guide reported he paid $35,000 for the former Clews residence and studio.  The price would translate to $616,000 today.  On July 9, The Sun remarked, "The Clews and Chanler houses are among the most unique in the city, and their occupants have spent large sums of money in fitting them up."

William Astor Chanler, Prominent and Progressive Americans, 1904 (copyright expired)

Chanler's brother, William Astor Chanler, and his wife, the former Beatrice "Minnie" Ashley, moved into 145 East 19th Street.  Born in Newport in 1867, Chanler had served in the New York Assembly and the United States Congress.  After his Congressional term ended in 1901, he turned to traveling, writing and exploring.

Beatrice "Minnie" Ashley Chanler.  Arts & Decoration, March 1921 (copyright expired)

Minnie Chanler had been a stage actress, artist and author.  She made the house the scene of lavish entertaining.  On December 1, 1925, for instance, The New York Times reported that the French Ambassador to the United States, Emile Daeschner, had arrived from Washington "to attend the Lafayette fête tonight at the Astor."  The article noted, "Mr. Daeschner will be a guest at a dinner which Mrs. Chanler will give just before the fête at her home, 145 East Nineteenth Street."

It would be among the last entertainments for the Chanlers here.  The couple moved to Europe where William died in 1934.

In the meantime, 145 East 19th Street was the studio and residence of artist Albert Sterner in the mid-1930s.  Coincidentally or not, he was the brother of Frederick J. Sterner, who had remodeled the house two decades earlier.  Born in London in 1863, after moving to New York from Chicago in 1918 he taught at the Art Students League.

Alfred Sterner, from the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration

In 1947, the house was converted to apartments with a doctor's office in the lower level.  There were now a duplex on the former parlor and second floors, and one apartment on the third.  In the remodeling, Sterner's tile panel over the doorway was chopped out and the brick removed.

Nearly half a century later, in 1992, owner Lee Ann Jaffee began reconverting the house to a single-family home.  She hired architect Richard Ayotte to design what The New York Times journalist Christopher Gray described as "a nominally Greek Revival doorway," which, he said, "does not reverse the earlier dilution of the house's character."  Under Ayotte's renovation, said Gray, the house "is also to get back the window lintels it lost long ago, as well as deep parlor windows."

At some point, the doorway was remodeled again, this time in a valiant and overall successful attempt to reproduce the original Sterner appearance.

photographs by the author