The Henry J. Scudder House - 116 East 17th Street

 

In 1850, Henry Joel Scudder purchased the 25-foot-wide plot at 69 East 17th Street (renumbered 116 in 1867) from Courtlandt Palmer.  Half a block to the west was Union Square where brick and brownstone mansions had begun appearing five years earlier; and two blocks to the east was the equally exclusive Stuyvesant Square.  

Three years later Scudder married Louisa Henrietta Davies and the following year, in 1854, the couple began construction of their new home on the site.  Their four-story-and-basement Italianate-style residence, completed within that year, was faced in brownstone.  

The highly-ornamented arched entrance, inspired by Renaissance designs, would set the house apart.  Its paneled columns were carved with a chain motif, the spandrels were filled with intricate foliate designs, and the keystone was carved with a stylized lyre.  A full relief shell sat within the triangular, bracketed pediment.  The chain motif was echoed in a frieze running below the fourth-floor windows.

The windows sat within molded architrave frames.  A cast iron balcony most likely fronted the floor-to-ceiling parlor windows.

Born in 1825, Henry Joel Scudder had deep American roots, descending from Thomas Scudder who arrived in Salem, Massachusetts in 1630.  Henry Scudder graduated from Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut in 1846 and opened his law office in New York City in 1848.  He co-founded the law firm of Scudder & Carter in 1854.

When the couple moved into their new home, they had a newborn baby, Henry Townsend Scudder.  Also living with them were Henry's brothers, Hewlett and Townsend, a merchant and lawyer, respectively.  (Townsend was a partner with his brother in Scudder & Carter.)  

Henry and Louisa would have four more children--Charles Davies, Edward Mansfield, Mary English, and Elizabeth.   The family's country home was along the upper Hudson River.

On April 12, 1861, the year Elizabeth was born, the Civil War broke out.  Henry Scudder, a member of the Thirty-Seventh Regiment, left his family to fight in 1862.  In his absence, Louisa died on December 28, 1864 at the age of 30.  Shortly after Scudder's return to his East 17th Street home, Elizabeth died at the age of four.

Formerly the responsibility of Louisa, Henry Scudder was now tasked with staffing the houses.  He placed an ad in The Sun on May 3, 1865:

Wanted--A Cook and Chambermaid in a gentleman's family, 60 miles up the North River.  The cook to assist in washing and ironing; the chambermaid to be seamstress also; good references required.  Call at 69 East 17th st, between the hours of 8 and 3 to-day.

At the time of the ad, Hewlett still lived with the family.  Townsend had moved to East 30th Street by then.

In 1866, Henry Scudder married Emma Willard.  The population of the East 17th Street house would continue to grow as the couple had five children--Willard, Louisa H, Heyward, Emma Willard, and Hewlett.

Henry Joel Scudder, from the collection of the New York Public Library

In 1872, Scudder was elected to the Forty-third Congress and held the office through March 3, 1875.  Afterward, he returned to his law practice and became the principal counsel for the Standard Oil Company.

Scudder moved his family to East 22nd Street in 1882 where he died on February 10, 1886.  In reporting his death, The New York Times said he, "for nearly a third of a century occupied a leading position at the Bar of this city."  In the meantime, the East 17th Street house was being rented, its tenant operating it as a boarding house.

Boarding here by 1887 was George R. Phillips, who apparently consisted of the one-person faculty of The New York School of Oratory.  Phillips taught his students from his rooms.  His advertisement in the New York Herald on December 18, 1887 read: "The New York School of Oratory and Voice Culture for the care of stammering and vocal impediments, 116 East 17th st, George R. Phillips, Principal."  He would remain here at least through 1879.

Another tenant gave instructions from his rooms.  In the same issue of the New York Herald an advertisement read, "$5 for six lessons--day or evening; drawing, flowers &c.; painting, photo color, photo crayon. 116 East 17th."  (The cost of each lesson would translate to $27.50 in 2025.)

The upscale tenor of the boarding house was reflected in one resident's ad looking for new accommodations on December 2, 1888.  "A lady with maid would like sitting room and bedroom in quiet, comfortable house; private family preferred, where there are no other boarders.  Address, giving particulars, K. E. 116 East 17th st."

The Scudder family advertised the house for sale on January  22, 1895, noting, "rented to May 1, 1896."  Just four days later, The New York Times reported "the Scudder estate [sold] to W. S. Patten the four-story and basement brownstone dwelling 116 East Seventeenth Street."  

William S. and Mary E. Patten inherited at least two boarders, Major Charles Mann and Rev. John R. Davies.  Rev. Davies was the pastor of the Fourth Avenue Presbyterian Church.

Charles Mann was born in 1833 and educated in Germany.  At the outbreak of the Civil War, he joined the First Missouri Light Artillery.  He was Assistant Chief of Artillery at the Battle of Vicksburg.  The New York Press noted, "After the war he interested himself in oil wells."  Charles Mann was still involved in that business when he died here at the age of 62 on June 21, 1895.  His funeral was held in the parlor three days later.

The Pattens continued to take in male boarders.  An advertisement  in the New York Journal and Advertiser on April 4, 1899 read, "17th St., 116 East, near Irving place--Large and single rooms; first class table; moderate price; gentlemen."

In December 1909, the Pattens sold the house to Ekko and Elise Sollmann.  They resold it in 1917 to George Borgfeldt & Co., which leased furnished rooms in the house.

The chain-carved frieze, molded window frames and denticulated cornices of the parlor windows survived in 1941.  via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

Living here in the spring of 1928 was 22-year-old Winifred Mullarky, who came to New York from Youngstown, Ohio to become an artist's model.  The impressionable young woman read James Branch Cabell's Beyond Life while living here.  

On March 13, a tenant smelled gas and traced it to Mullarky's door.  The Evening Telegram reported, "Failing to gain entrance, the tenant called Policeman Frolich of the East Twenty-second street station, who forced the door."  Inside he found Winifred Mullarky unconscious in a chair.  She had placed a rubber tube leading from an open gas jet into her mouth.  Inhaling illuminating gas was so common that a device was available from some utility companies.  In addition to calling an ambulance from Bellevue Hospital, Frolich summoned "a lung motor from the Consolidated Gas Company."  The Evening Telegram reported, "it was said Miss Mullarky would recover."

The model had left a suicide note for her mother in Ohio, that said in part,

I am disappointed in life, in love, and in happiness.  Much that I have wanted to try to do has not been done.  I recently read the book by James Branch Cabell, "Beyond Life," and I found it very interesting.

She told her mother that the book shed light on the "life beyond the horizon."

Rooms continued to be leased in the house throughout the following decades.  It was purchased in 2012 for $23.5 million, initiating a still-ongoing renovation that will result in a two-family residence.

photographs by the author