Real estate developer John C. Umberfield purchased vacant land on the north side of West 105th Street between West End Avenue and Riverside Drive in 1900. Architect William E. Mowbray designed seven high-end residences for the site in the French Beaux Arts style, configuring his three designs in an A-B-C-B-C-B-A configuration.
The row was completed in 1902 and among the C models was 313 West 105th Street. Its American basement design placed the centered entrance, which sat atop a three-stepped porch, within a rusticated base. A delicate French-style railing at the second floor introduced a three-story projecting angled bay. Engaged Scamozzi columns upheld a dramatic, broken pediment over the central window of the second floor.
John C. Umberfield sold the 21-foot-wide residence in February 1902 to Kate A. Burbank. Her ownership would be short. On October 30, 1903, The Sun reported that Kate sold 313 West 105th Street "to a Mrs. Westinghouse."
"Mrs. Westinghouse" was Clara Louise Saltmarsh Westinghouse, the wife of Henry Herman Westinghouse. Born in 1854 and 1853 respectively, the couple was married in 1873. They had two daughters, Clara Catherine, who was 20 in 1903; and Marjorie Caldwell, who was eight. (Another daughter, Florence Erskine Westinghouse, died in 1890.)
Henry and his brother, George Westinghouse, were the sons of George Westinghouse, Sr., a patentee and manufacturer of farm equipment. Like George, Jr., according to The New York Times, Henry "inherited a talent for mechanical development." In 1883 he invented the single-acting steam engine and continued to design devices connected with air brakes and steam engines. (His brother invented the air brake.) In 1883, Henry co-founded the engineering firm of Westinghouse, Church, Kerr & Co. The New York Times would later remark, "This company marketed the single-acting engine in every country where steam power is used."
When he founded Westinghouse, Church, Kerr & Co., Henry had already been associated with the Westinghouse Air Brake Company for a decade. When he and Clara purchased 313 West 105th Street, he had been a vice-president of that firm for four years.
The family had another residence in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and their country estate, Grasmere, was on Cayuga Lake in the Finger Lakes district of central New York State.
Henry Herman Westinghouse (1853-1933) original source unknown
The drawing and dining rooms of the West 105th Street house were routinely the venue of entertaining. But the dinner party of "intimate friends and members of the family" on February 16, 1906, was special. The New-York Tribune noted that "there were twenty-covers" and said that during the dinner, Clara Catherine's engagement to Charles William Fletcher was announced.
Six months later, on August 26, the New-York Tribune reported that the invitations to the wedding had been issued. It would take place, said the article, "on the evening of Wednesday, September 12, at their summer home, Grasmere, Kidder's Ferry, on Cayuga Lake." It would be a prestigious event.
The Auburn, New York Democrat reported, "The affair was elaborate in detail and was witnessed by about 900 guests and relatives from New York, Pittsburg, Boston, Schenectady and Atchison, Kansas." The article mentioned that after their "automobile tour," the newlyweds "will be at home at 313 West One Hundred and Fifth street, New York, after November 15."
The following year, Henry and Clara sold the mansion to clothing manufacturer Hugh M. Mullen and his wife, Jessie C. The couple had a daughter, Genevieve Lillian, born in 1887.
The family had barely settled in when Genevieve's engagement to Guyon Locke Crocheron Earle was announced. On December 30, 1908, The Sun reported, "The marriage will be celebrated at the Mullen home on January 27.
While the society reporters normally focused on the prospective bride, this engagement was different. The son of the late General Ferdinand Pinney Earle, Guyon Earle grew up in "Earle Cliff," known today as the Morris-Jumel mansion, and in the family's Staten Island country home, Guyon Mansion, erected in 1673. New Yorkers were also well-acquainted with the family through General Earle's proprietorship of hotels, notably the New Netherlands and the Hotel Normandie.
The wedding took place in the 105th Street house on the night of January 27, 1909. As the Westinghouses had done, the Mullens soon sold the mansion. In May 1910, Hugh and Jessie moved to the fashionable Sugar Hill section of Harlem, purchasing a house at 20 St. Nicholas Place. They sold 313 West 105th Street to John Ewing and his wife, the former Grace MacKenzie.
John Ewing was born in Scotland on May 21, 1848. When he was three, his parents immigrated to New York City. He graduated from the College of Pharmacy and in 1877 partnered in the drug business of Doyle & Ewing. He later founded Ewing & Co. with his brother-in-law Alexander MacKenzie. Grace was the daughter of George R. MacKenzie, president of the Singer Manufacturing Company.
The couple was married on October 3, 1876. Their first child, Grace MacKenzie, died at the age of five in 1885. Their son, George Ross McKenzie, was 27 years old when they purchased 313 West 105th Street. The Ewings' country home, Bramble Brae, was in Glen Spey, New York.
The couple was at Bramble Brae on July 29, 1914, when John died at the age of 66. Grace remained at 313 West 105th Street until September 1920 when she sold it British Lt. Colonel Lloyd, sparking a rapid-fire turnover in ownership.
On December 10, 1924, The New York Times reported that Milton and Edward Schreyer had purchased the house for $55,000, saying they "intend to make extensive improvements and occupy." (The price would translate to just over $1 million in 2026.) They Schreyers lost the property in foreclosure and it was sold at auction to John B. Antonapolos for $40,950 on January 12, 1927.
Antonapolos leased the house the following year to the Master Institute of United Arts. In reporting the deal on July 27, 1928, The New York Times remarked, "The institute owns the plot at the north corner of 103d Street and Riverside Drive, where it is erecting a fifteen-story structure."
The porch and its hefty wing walls were intact when this tax photograph was taken. via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.
Russian-born Nicholas Roerich and his wife, Helena, had arrived in New York City eight years earlier. The mystic and artist described himself as a master in the theosophist belief in ancients who could transmit messages and knowledge to believers. (Reportedly, it was he who urged follower Henry Wallace, Secretary of Agriculture under Franklin Roosevelt, to persuade the Treasury Department to add the mystic pyramid of the Great Seal to the dollar bill—a change that was enacted in 1935.) In addition to the institute, the couple had founded the Roerich Museum in 1923.
At the time of the lease signing, Nicholas was out of the country, "the head of the Roerich American expedition to Tibet," as explained by The New York Times on July 15, 1928. His 5,000-word letter that Helena had received the previous day was the first anyone had heard from the expedition in 13 months. He explained that they had been captives for five months in Tibet, "during which five of his men died and ninety caravan animals perished."
The Master Institute of United Arts and the Roerich Museum operated from 313 West 105th Street, staging exhibitions and lectures. On January 27, 1929, The New York Times commented, "The Roerich Museum at 313 West 105th Street contains about 800 paintings by Mr. Roerich, including the panorama of his Asiatic travels. The facilities remained here until the completion of the Master Building at 310-312 Riverside Drive.
John Antonapolos signed a three-year lease for 313 West 105th Street to Pantelis Sioris on December 1, 1930 at $4,500 per year (about $7,000 per month today). Before being leased in February 1939, it had been converted to multiple units--two apartments through the fourth floor and six furnished rooms on the fifth.
A substantial renovation came in 1963, when the former mansion was converted to apartments, three per floor. The porch was removed, the main entrance and the service entrance remodeled as windows, and a new doorway installed where a window had been.
Then, in 1999, a penthouse level, unseen from the street was added. It, combined with the fifth floor, created a duplex apartment. There are 15 units in the building today.
photographs by the author
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