The advertisement for 304 West 107th Street in the New York Herald on October 19, 1909 called the residence, "well planned and attractive" with "4 bathrooms, needle bath, billiard room, &c." It was one of a row of four upscale homes built by William J. Casey and designed by Neville & Bagge. Five stories tall and 18-feet-wide, its neo-Georgian design included a dignified Ionic portico centered within the limestone base. The upper floors were clad in red brick; the windows of each level being treated differently. The fifth floor sat between two stone cornices, and a brick parapet finished the design.
Casey's advertisement was not immediately successful. It would not be until a year later, on October 29, 1910, that the Real Estate Record & Guide reported that he sold 307 West 107th Street to Horace Ray Paige, whose wedding was just three weeks away.
Paige (who went by his first initial and middle name) had graduated from Yale University two years earlier. His marriage to Maud Emily Louisa Steinway took place in All Angels' Church on West End Avenue and 81st Street on November 22, 1910. Born on April 6, 1889, Maud was the daughter of William and Elizabeth Ranft Steinway and the granddaughter of Henry Steinway, founder of the piano making firm Steinway & Sons. Orphaned in 1896, she was reared by her half-sister, Paula Steinway von Bermuth.
Somewhat surprisingly, Maud joined her husband in a business venture. On July 2, 1912, they and a partner incorporated the Russian Tyre Sales Co., "to deal in rubber, tires, etc." according to The India Rubber World.
The Paiges' country home, Basket Neck Farms, was in Remsenburg, Long Island. The couple would have two children, Audrey Helen, born on December 24, 1913, and Shirley Maude, who arrived on June 23, 1917. But neither would see the inside of 304 West 107th Street.
On January 5, 1913, The New York Times reported that the Paiges had leased the furnished house to James Joyce (not to be confused with the Irish poet), and on October 11 that year they leased it to Foster Crampton and his wife, the former Lorraine March.
The couple was married in London on August 6, 1912. Born in 1877, like his landlord, Crampton was a graduate of Yale. In the first half of the 20th century, physicians attended to most well-to-do patients in their homes rather than hospitals. On November 27, 1914, The Yale Alumni Weekly reported, "A son, Foster, Jr., was born to Mr. and Mrs. Foster Crampton at 304 West One Hundred and Seventh Street, New York City."
On January 6, 1917, the Record & Guide reported that the Paiges had sold 304 West 107th Street for $45,000--equal to about $1.1 million in 2026. (Unfortunately, the Paiges' marriage would not last, and they were divorced in Paris in February 1926.)
The buyer was Dr. William Sargent Ladd and his wife, the former Mary Richardson Babbott. Born in Portland, Oregon on August 16, 1887, Ladd earned his medical degree at Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1915. When he purchased 304 West 107th Street, he had just been appointed a professor at Columbia. He and Mary were married in 1913. (An ardent mountain climber, Ladd took his bride to the Alps for their honeymoon.) The couple would have three sons and a daughter.
Mary was the daughter of Frank Lusk Babbott and the former Mary Richardson Ladd Pratt. Her maternal grandfather was the multi-millionaire Charles Pratt. Upon the death of her mother in 1919, Mary inherited $576,960--around $10.5 million today.
It was possibly the financial windfall that prompted the Babbotts to built a new house in the Bronx. In January 1920, they sold the 107th Street house and The American Architect reported that they had hired architect Frederick L. Ackerman to design a "3 story residence to be built on Independence Ave."
The Babbotts' leaving ended the residence as a single-family home. It was converted to "bachelor apartments" with the Department of Buildings noting, "not more than 10 rooms to be used for sleeping purposes" and "cooking in more than two of the apartments will render this building liable to immediate vacation." The conversion was completed within months and an advertisement in The Sun on April 4, 1920 offered, "High class apartments" of "1-2-3- rooms and bath." Rents ranged from $1,200 to $2,800 a year, or about $3,650 per month for the most expensive in today's terms.
Despite the renovation, the cornices were intact as late as 1941. via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.
The apartments attracted several artistic tenants. An early resident was Mikhail Press, also known as Michael Press. Born in Vilnius, Lithuania in August 1871, the violin prodigy first appeared in public at the age of 10 and at 13 years old he was concert master in the Vilna Opera House. After escaping execution during the Russian Revolution, he fled to Germany, then Sweden, and finally to the United States in 1922.
Mikhail Press (original source unknown).
In its January 1926 issue, The Musical Observer reported,
Michael Press, since his return from Europe late in the Fall, has been busy arranging his work for the season. In addition to his activities in Philadelphia and his chamber music work, he has been enlarging his New York studio, at 304 West 107th street, where he is giving musical receptions, pupils' recitals, and informal recitals of his own.
Stage and motion picture actress Cecilia des Roches lived here at the same time. On Christmas Eve 1928, her maid was unable to get into the apartment. The superintendent opened the door and they found the actress dead in the bathroom. The New York Times said she was "clad in a kimono and lying half under the bathtub. It is thought she became ill suddenly while preparing to take a bath." The article added, "Her position under the tub seemed to have been due to her kimono's catching on a faucet, tightening about her as she fell and causing her to roll partly under the tub."
Des Roches's mysterious death prompted an autopsy. It revealed that she was a victim of what the Brooklyn Eagle described as "Christmas rum." Prohibition had forced Americans to resort to bootleg alcohol in celebrating the holidays. Cecilia des Roches was among the six deaths attributed to bootleg alcohol on that day alone.
Artist Vera Bock occupied an apartment here as early as 1930. Born in Russia in 1905, she was known for book illustrations and her posters for the Works Progress Administration during the Great Depression.
Vera Bock illustrated A Ring and a Riddle in 1944.
Tim Nagai and Larry Tajai lived here in 1945. On the night of May 11 that year, Tajai discovered his 23-year-old friend dead. The New York Sun reported, "Gas was issuing from four burners of a small stove, according to Tajai, and the death was listed as an apparent suicide."
Today there are nine apartments in the building. At some point the fourth- and fifth-story cornices were removed, and while the several renovations have erased much of Neville & Bagge's interior details, some survive to hint at the mansion's former grandeur.
The former dining room retains its ceiling beams, high wainscoting and "Dutch stein shelving," now painted, and fireplace, all original to the 1907-08 design. image via zillow.com
photographs by the author
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