Frederick P. James was the head of the banking and brokerage firm of F. P. James & Co. In 1854, he erected three upscale homes on the south side of West 12th Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. Abutting them to the east were six rowhouses built by Alphonse Loubat a decade earlier. Somewhat surprisingly, in 1860 James demolished the 16-year-old Loubat houses and replaced them with elegant, brownstone-faced residences.
Identical to his original three, the 21-foot-wide homes were four stories tall above a rusticated English basement. Their fully-arched entrances were crowned by striking arched pediments supported on foliate brackets. The floor-to-ceiling parlor windows were likely fronted by cast iron balconies. Molded architrave window frames added to the homes' elegance.
Sarah Semon briefly operated 36 West 12th Street as a boarding house until Jonas N. Phillips and his second wife, Henrietta, purchased it in 1863. (Phillips's first wife, Esther Peixotto, was deceased.)
Jonas Phillips traced his American origins to Jonas Phillips who emigrated from Germany through England in 1756. Born in 1816, Phillips began his career as a ship chandler and, by now, was a surveyor for the city. In 1856 he was president of the Common Council and in 1857 he served as acting mayor of New York. As early as 1863, he was president of the Board of Trustees of the Volunteer Fire Department. Living with him and Henrietta were six children, Walter, Rachel Rosalie, Herman Samuel, Joseph Edgar, Isaac Franklin (known as Frank), and Sydney Aaron.
The Phillips family was prominent within the Sephardic Jewish community and held unusually high social status. In 1863, Rachel Rosalie visited her uncle in Washington D.C., Adolphus Solomons. Her diary entry of January 9, 1864 told of her visit to the White House and being "introduced to the president, and Mrs. Lincoln." She mentioned that Mary Todd Lincoln "was handsomely attired in a Black Velvet dress gored with white satin." Rachel met Mary Lincoln again three days later at a reception.
Jonas N. Phillips died at the age of 57 on July 19, 1874. His funeral was held in the house the following morning.
In 1880, the five Phillips brothers still remained in the West 12th Street house with their mother. Their professions were varied, including an importer, broker, clerk, and canvasser (a manufacturer of canvas fabric).
Grover Cleveland was elected in November 1884 and was inaugurated on March 4, 1885. He was the first Democratic President since the Civil War and the Phillips household was ecstatic. The following day, The New York Times reported, "The 'Phillips Democratic Jollification Club' held a social gathering last evening at No. 36 West Twelfth-street to celebrate the inauguration of a Democratic President." The article said, "Fifty guests sat down to the tables, and the following toasts were responded to, 'The President,' 'Ex-President Arthur;' 'An Honest Reform of the Civil Service.'"
The Phillips estate sold the house in June 1890 to Nicholas Latrobe Roosevelt and his wife, Eleanor. Roosevelt was a distant relative of future President Theodore Roosevelt and a fifth cousin of future President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The couple's residency would be short. Roosevelt died in the house at the age of 46 on December 14, 1892.
The house was purchased within weeks by Benjamin Silliman Church and his wife, the former Mary Van Rensselaer Van Wyck. The couple had one child, Angelica Schuyler, born in 1877. Born in 1836, Church's impressive American lineage included Mayflower pilgrim John Robinson, John and Priscilla Alden, Governor Jonathan Trumbull, and General Gold Silliman. Mary Van Wyck Church's pedigree was equally impressive. Among her ancestors were Pieterse Schuyler, Robert Livingston, Abraham de Peyster, Pierre Van Cortlandt, and Wilhelmus Beekman.
Church was a civil engineer and surveyor and played important parts in the construction of Central Park, the Croton Aqueduct and the Central Park Reservoir.
Benjamin Silliman Church, from the collection of the New York Public Library
Mary's entertainments appeared regularly in the society columns. On April 25, 1897, for instance, The New York Times reported on her reception for the Martha Washington Colonial Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution. "The house was elaborately decorated with cut flowers, roses, and lilies being used in profusion," said the article.
The winter social season of 1899-1900 saw Angelica's coming-out. Among the last events was held in the house on February 1, 1900. The New York Times reported that Mary "gives a dinner of twelve covers for her daughter, Miss Angelica Schuyler Church. The guests at this dinner will afterward attend the Charity Ball."
Once introduced, Angelica got into the social whirl. On March 22, 1901, the New-York Tribune reported, "Miss Angelica Schuyler Church gave a luncheon yesterday at her home, No. 36 West Twelfth-st. to honor Miss Marjorie V. Lea." The guest list reflected the Churches' high social standing, with surnames including Schieffelin, De Peyster, Hamilton, Van Cortlandt, and Prime.
Angelica would become an accomplished sculptor. On April 21, 1912, The New York Times remarked, "Miss Church's statuettes of mounted policemen exhibited [at the Tiffany studios] last year created much favorable comment."
Angelica Schuyler Church's 1910 The Rescue / An Episode of Central Park was exhibited at Tiffany Studios. private collection
By the time of Angelica's exhibition, the Churches had been gone from 36 West 12th Street for five years. They sold the house to Arthur Farragut Townsend and his wife, the former Marcia Moffat Alley, in August 1906.
Born in 1865, Townsend co-founded the Manhattan Rubber Manufacturing Company in 1893. Marcia Townsend was highly involved in women's issues and was treasurer of the Woman's Political Union. In 1910, four years after moving into 36 West 12th Street, their only child, Arthur, was born.
Having an infant in her care did not slow down Marcia Townsend's passionate suffrage work. On February 23, 1910, for instance, she hosted a meeting of the Equal Franchise Society during which Ida Husted Harper spoke on "The Character of the Opposition." The following year, on April 1, The Evening Post reported, "The Rev. Henry Frank will speak on 'Women's Political Prospects' at a meeting of the Cooperative Service League for Woman Suffrage on Monday evening, at No. 36 West Twelfth Street."
On July 19, 1913, Marcia underwent emergency appendicitis surgery at New York Hospital. The New-York Tribune reported that a hospital spokesman said, "Mrs. Townsend, who is called the 'best dressed suffragist,' rallied well after the operation and that all danger was now passed." The following year, however, on April 19, 1914, Marcia Moffat Townsend died at the age of 49.
In 1918, Arthur Townsend commissioned major alterations to the house. At the time, vintage homes in Greenwich Village were being converted to artists' studios with vast northern-facing studio windows. The stoop was removed and the entrance lowered to below grade. (The former doorway was converted to a window, the architect deftly mimicking the others.) At the third and fourth floors, large studio windows were installed in the center and French doors and metal balconies replaced the outer windows.
image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services
An advertisement for one of the upper apartments in the New-York Tribune on June 2, 1918 offered, "Attractively furnished studio apartment, 4 rooms and bath, 2 balconies; and roof, for summer months."
Among the early tenants were sculptor Enid Vandell, and attorney Shelton Hale. Hale was the former Assistant Secretary of the United States War Trade. In 1924, Margaret Leech took an apartment here. Leech graduated from Vassar College in 1915 and when she moved in was working for Condé Nast.
Margaret Leech (original source unknown)
Remembered partly today as a member of the Algonquin Round Table, she would win the Pulitzer Prize for History in 1942 and in 1960. She wrote her novel The Feathered Nest, published in 1928, here. That year Leech moved from her apartment to a mansion after marrying Ralph Pulitzer, eldest son of publisher Joseph Pulitzer.
In 1943, fledgling cook James A. Beard moved into a second floor apartment at 36 West 12th Street, facing the rear. John Birdsall, in his The Man Who Ate Too Much--The Life of James Beard, writes: "The kitchen was a converted closet, separated from the bathroom by a partition. There was no kitchen sink. He washed dishes in the bathtub."
Fifteen years after moving in, James Beard was being recognized. Writing in The New York Times on August 29, 1957, Jane Nickerson reported on a course "in international cuisine that will be given at the Lexington Hotel." Teaching it were Albert Stockli, chef director of Restaurant Associates, and James A. Beard, "the dining and cooking authority whose influence is felt in many areas connected with food."
James A. Beard, from the collection of the UCLA Library
Beard was gay, but feared being discovered as such. In mid-century Manhattan, homosexuals could still be fired and, in his case, ruined professionally. He met Gino Cofacci, who would be his "life companion" for thirty years, according to Jon Shadel in his 2017 America's Most Influential Chef was Gay as Hell. And yet, they did not live together. John Birdsall explains, "James rented the empty apartment on the first floor of his building at 36 West Twelfth. Gino could have the bedroom in the new unit, while James would use the rest as his office, keeping his bedroom--officially--in the existing unit upstairs."
James A. Beard left West 12th Street around 1957. He is remembered today for influencing American cuisine by championing home cooking and fresh ingredients, and establishing American cuisine as an art form.
In 1985, a dramatic renovation/restoration to return 36 West 12th Street to a single family home began. The remarkable transformation back to its 1860 appearance was completed in 1992. The stoop and its ironwork were refabricated, the entrance enframement restored, and the studio windows of the top two floors removed and replaced with meticulous reproductions. The passerby today could not possibly suspect that the Phillips house has undergone a tremendous makeover.
photographs by the author
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