Brutal enlarging and remodeling the upper floors has destroyed the original charm
Eufrasia Aguilar Leland Wesson and Allen Tucker were married on February 12, 1895. The 25-year-old bride was reared in privilege, the daughter of the late Charles Howland Wesson and Martha Leland. The groom, who was four years older than Eufrasia, earned his architectural degree from Columbia University in 1887 and worked as a draftsman at his father's firm, McIlvaine & Tucker.
In 1906, Eufrasia's mother and aunt, Emma Wesson and Eufrasia A. Leland, purchased two vintage houses at 123 and 125 East 79th Street as the site of their double-wide mansion. Simultaneously, Eufrasia and Allen Tucker purchased the house next door and hired the firm of Robins & Oakman to make "extensive alterations," as worded by the Real Estate Record & Builders' Guide. Their redesigning of the high-stooped brownstone would transform it into a modern residence.
On May 30, 1906, the New-York Tribune explained the changes. "A rear extension is to be added, new plumbing installed and a new Colonial facade, with a mansard roof built." The renovations would cost the Tuckers $10,000, or about $360,000 in 2026 terms.
Robins & Oakman removed the stoop and brownstone and created a neo-Georgian-style facade. In many cases, when the stoops was removed from English basement homes, the front was pulled forward to the property line. For the Tuckers, however, the areaway was preserved, giving them a small front yard.
The architects' tripartite design was faced in Flemish bond red brick and trimmed in limestone at the base and midsection. The fourth floor took the form of a mansard with two dormers. The mansion's focal point was the pair of French doors under fanlights at the second floor, or piano nobile.
The Tucker mansion harkened to Colonial times. from the collection of the New York Public Library
The "rear extension" mentioned by the New-York Tribune filled the rear yard. It would hold Allen Tucker's skylight-lit studio. By now, he had moved from architecture to fine art. An impressionist, he was part of the group of painters known as the "Independents," whom, according to the Smithsonian Institution, "wanted to shake up the conservative ideas of the National Academy of Design." In 1911, four years after moving into 121 East 79th Street, Tucker co-founded the Association of American Painters and Sculptors, and in 1913 helped organize the famous Amory Show.
When America entered World War I, Tucker served with the American Ambulance Service in France. It appears that Eufrasia moved temporarily next door with her mother and aunt. On December 9, 1917, The New York Times reported that she had leased 121 East 79th Street furnished at Arthur A. Fowler.
Starting in 1921, after returning to New York after the war, Allen Tucker taught at the Art Students League. Often deemed "the American Van Gogh," his paintings would hang in prestigious institutions like the Brooklyn Museum, Whitney Museum of American Art, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Frye Art Museum.
Allen Tucker painted Landscape in his East 79th Street studio in 1919. from the collection of the Whitney Museum of Art.
Allen and Eufrasia Tucker sold 121 East 79th Street to the Atram Realty Corporation in May 1930. The firm purchased the property "as a light protector for the apartment building at 120 East Eightieth Street," explained The New York Times. The new owners hired Cross & Cross to enlarge the mansion with another floor. The architects deftly increased the height of the mansard without greatly upsetting the proportions nor the Colonial motif.
Cross & Cross's additional level was not displeasing. via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.
On July 7, 1933, The New York Times reported that the Atram Realty Corporation had leased the mansion to Leighton Hammond Coleman, "of the law firm of Davis, Polk, Wardwell, Gardiner & Reed."
Born in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, Coleman had served as a "pursuit pilot" in World War I. He earned his law degree at Harvard Law School in 1922. Coleman and his wife, the former Jane Fraser, had five children, Leighton Jr., Jane, Helen, Sally, and Prudence. The family's country home, East Farm, was at Stony Brook, Long Island.
After having leased the house for a decade, in 1943 Leighton H. Coleman purchased it. His daughters were approaching their debutante years and before long the house would be a flurry of activity.
Debutante entertainments traditionally were held in the winter social season. Twin sisters Jane and Helen, however, got an early start. On June 28, 1946, The New York Sun reported that the Colemans "will honor their debutante daughters, the Misses Jane and Helen Coleman, at a dinner-dance tomorrow evening at East Farm." The article noted that Jane had graduated that year from the Brearley School and that Helen was "an alumna of the Chapin School."
Helen Rulison Coleman went on to study at Bryn Mawr College and Barnard College. (Her mother was was a trustee of the latter institution.) She was the first to marry. Her wedding to William Maxwell Evarts Jr. was held in St. James Protestant Episcopal Church in St. James, Long Island on August 28, 1948. It was a family affair, with Jane being the maid of honor and Sally and Prudence bridesmaids. Leighton Jr. was among the ten ushers.
The following year, on June 25, 1949, Jane was married in the same church to William Draper Blair Jr. Expectedly, Helen was her matron of honor and her younger sisters were bridesmaids. The New York Times remarked that Jane "wore a gown of white satin with a rosepoint lace veil that had been worn by her mother and grandmother and last August by her sister."
No. 121 East 79th Street was sold in 1954. The New York Times reported on April 9 that plans had been filed "for altering the five-story dwelling...into four apartments and a professional office." The renovations resulted in a doctor's office on the first floor, a duplex apartment in the second and third, and one apartment each in the upper levels. Apparently to augment the livable square-footage of the top two floors, the mansard was converted to a vertical wall with no cornice.
Then, in 1997, restauranteur Simon Oren purchased the property for $2 million (about $3.9 million today). He initiated a renovation that returned the upper floors to a single family home, while keeping the ground floor doctor's office (accessed by a separate entrance). He listed it for sale in 2016 for $19 million.
photographs by the author
.png)
No comments:
Post a Comment