The Ashbel R. Elliott House - 306 West 91st Street

In 1893, Martin V. B. Ferdon designed a row of five houses on the south side of West 91st Street between West End Avenue and Riverside Drive for developers Alexander Walker and Judson Lawson.  Like scores of his other designs on the Upper West Side, these would be Renaissance Revival in style.  

Completed in 1894, 306 West 91st Street, like its neighbors, was three stories tall above an English basement and faced in brownstone.  Above the single-doored entrance, a swan's neck pediment was filled with carved garlands of flowers.  A hefty bracket between the parlor windows upheld a two-story bowed oriel.
 
The house would see a turnover of owners before the turn of the century.  It and two others in the row were sold to August Jacob, who sold them to Andrew Wachter in May 1897.  A week later, Wachter transferred title to all three to Amelia Schwartzler, who sold them to Louis Stolber in April 1900.  The string of owners leased the houses to well-to-do tenants.

It would not be until the spring of 1903 that 306 West 91st Street saw its first owner-occupant.  On March 20, The New York Times reported that the 17-foot-wide residence had been sold.  The purchaser was Ashbel R. Elliott, the head of A. R. Elliott Advertising and the A. R. Elliott Publishing Co.  

Born in Niles, Michigan in 1850, Elliott had begun his career in Chicago.  Upon moving to New York City, he founded A. R. Elliott Advertising on College Place (now West Broadway).  It was one of the first advertising agencies in New York.  Later, he founded the A. R. Elliott Publishing Co., which published medical books.  Working with him in that firm were his sons, Daniel M. and John M. Elliott.  The Elliotts' summer home was in Montclair, New Jersey.

Ashbel was a member of the Sons of the American Revolution.  He also held memberships in the New York Chamber of Commerce, the Columbia Yacht Club and was a founder of the Illinois and Ohio Societies.

New Yorkers traditionally opened their homes to friends on New Year's Day.  But the Elliott's open house on January 1, 1906 was different--it was a men-only event.  On January 6, The Fourth Estate reported, "Ashbel R. Elliott invited some of his many friends to 'a stag at home' New Year's day at his residence, 306 West 91st street, New York.  Several friends assisted Mrs. Elliott in receiving but all the other guests were men."

Some of the most influential men in American journalism and publishing visited the Elliott's parlor that day.  Among them were Frank Crane, of Montgomery Ward & Co.'s advertising department; Eugene W. Spalding, the New York representative of the Ladies' Home Journal; and Melville E. Stone, general manager of the Associated Press.

The Elliotts sold 306 West 91st Street in April 1909 to William C. Strange.  He sold it within the month to Lorenzo Martinez Picabia and his wife, the former Marie J. Marrin.  The couple had been married just months before, on October 26, 1908.  On May 30, 1909, the New-York Tribune mentioned, "The purchaser will occupy the premises after it has been extensively altered."  Those alterations were interior updates and the exterior was not affected.

Lorenzo M. Picabia was a partner in the brokerage firm of Hartshorne & Picabia.  He also invested heavily in Manhattan real estate.  

Like their neighbors, the Picabias maintained a domestic staff.  Their Japanese butler in 1913 had the very un-Japanese surname of Pami Ohara.  On March 21, Picabia fired Ohara because, according to The New York Times, "he had overindulged in saki."  At 9:00 that night, as reported by The Sun, Ohara showed up at the house "with four warlike sakied compatriots and told the family quite politely, but firmly, that he was sorry, but they must all go and stand on the front stoop.  He and his friends, he said, had come to have a little party in the parlor."

The entire Picabia household was exiled to the stoop as the Japanese invaders made themselves at home.  The Sun reported that the Picabias and their servants, "set up a collective cry for the police."  Policeman Riordan ran from Riverside Drive and "pounded up the stoop, only to be informed that Mr. Picabia's Japanese butler, glorying in the name of Pami Ohara, was inside with four friends, a bottle of sake and great joy," said The Sun.

The New York Times reported that Picabia told Riordan, "My butler and four other [Japanese] have taken possession of the house and threatened to shoot us."  The policeman found Ohara, "smoking a cigar and seated uncertainly but comfortably in one of the best Picabia parlor chairs," reported The Sun.  "As Riordan panted in, Ohara let loose the warcry of the Ohara clan, which brought from upstairs, where they had been singing together, the other four fighting men."  Officer Riordan, who assumed that arresting the intruders would be routine, soon found out otherwise.  The New York Times explained that Ohara, "knows quite a deal about his countryman's art of wrestling jiu jitsu."  With every attempt to arrest Ohara, the policeman found himself slammed to the floor.

"Riordan bumped around until his whistle fell out of his pocket," said The Times.  "He threw it to the banker, who blew for all he was worth."  Two backup policemen, officers Ferguson and Flynn, arrived.  (In the meantime, Ohara's friends had escaped.)  When they entered the parlor, Ohara had Riordan in a "most scientific hold" and was repeatedly banging his head on the floor.  Ferguson had been an amateur wrestler, but his efforts only prompted Ohara "to show the three what a real jiu-jitsu man can do if riled," said The Sun, which continued:

He sent Riordan chandelierward with some amazing and unwritten hold.  In some other way he so tied Ferguson up as to his feet that the latter found himself under the piano, while Flynn held on for dear life and became more and more in favor of immediate war with Japan.

Eventually, Ohara tired and the three officers wrangled him to the West 100th Street station.  By then, however, Ohara had his second wind.  The New York Times reported that he, "wriggled his arms and legs and one, two, three, Ferguson, Riordan and Quinn [sic] were on the sidewalk."  A troupe of reserves rushed out of the station house and finally subdued the unruly butler, who was "locked up charged with alcoholism."

In August 1915, The Piabias hired the architectural firm of Peabody, Wilson & Brown to enlarge the house with a one-story addition in the rear.  They remained here for just over three more years, selling the house in January 1919 to Christine Blessing Mertens.

Christine Mertens was better known to theater audiences as Christine Blessing.  Among her Broadway roles were Cymbeline in the 1893 production of Le Belle Hélene; Mrs. Elias Rigby in the 1903 The Country Chairman; and Keziah Pipkin in the 1900 production of Broadway to Tokio.  Christine's summer home was in Connecticut.

In 1925, Christine Blessing Mertens forewent her summer routine.  On May 22, the New York Star reported, "In the spotless house at 306 West 91st St., which bespeaks perfect housewifery, Christine Blessing said: 'Au revoir' to her friends over the tea table."  She had leased her Connecticut farm for the season and instead, "will pay a series of visits this summer.  The first is to a friend in Atlantic Highlands."  (That visit was to actress Lillian Marshall.)

The guests that afternoon were all from the theater.  "Oliver May, Katherine Gray, tanned from working in the garden at her home at Staten Island, and Gila Blow were among the actresses who surrounded the toast and jam and tea center," said the article.

A cabinet card depicted Christine Blessing in costume.  from the collection of the New York Public Library

Not long after that summer season, Christine began sharing her house with two friends, actress Grace Fisher and singer Lila B. Ross.  

Christine Blessing Mertens fell ill in the summer of 1929 and was taken to Roosevelt Hospital, where she died on August 11 at the age of 62.  Six days later, The New York Times reported the details of her will, which left $48,000 to friends and $5,000 to The Actors' Fund of America.  (The combined bequests would equal about $806,000 in 2025.)  Readers' eyebrows may have been raised when the article noted that Christine's physician, Dr. Monford Cole, received the bulk of her estate.

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

It appears that 306 West 91st Street was operated as a rooming house soon after Christine Mertens's death.  In 1933, Anne Gilmore lived here.  A former housekeeper, she was  now working as a hairdresser.

A renovation completed in 2000 resulted in eight apartments.  From the exterior, 306 West 91st Street is nearly unchanged after more than 130 years.

photograph by the author