image via 267fifthave.com
The exclusive Calumet Club moved into the two brick-and-brownstone mansions at the northeast corner of Fifth Avenue and 29th Street in 1886. The relentless expansion of the commercial district had forced the club's members to migrate northward and necessitated the its relocation to 12 West 56th Street in 1914. The following year, on April 17, 1915, the Real Estate Record & Builders' Guide reported that the combined Fifth Avenue mansions had been sold. "The new owners will erect an eleven-story structure for their own occupancy," explained the article.
The owners were Frank V., John H. and Crawford Burton, and Howard F. Clark, partners in Burton Brothers & Co., "one of the largest cotton goods manufacturers in the country," as described by The New York Times. Two months later, the architectural firm of Starrett & Van Vleck filed plans for a "fire-proof warehouse" to cost $350,000 (about $11.6 million in 2026 terms).
Frank V. and John H. Burton were the heads of Burton Brothers & Co. and it is likely that they gave Starrett & Van Vleck significant input. On July 4, 1915, The New York Times remarked that they "have long been prominent in the realty world for their partiality to high-class Fifth Avenue property."
Despite the plan's initial description, the Burton Building was decidedly not a warehouse. Completed in 1915, the architects designed the it in a commercial take on Colonial architecture. (The New York Times would later comment, "The architecture is a careful adaptation of the American Colonial to the requirements of a building of that type.") Its three-story limestone base featured a double-height level arcade, the upper windows of which mimicked elegant fan lights. The mid- and upper sections were clad in gray brick and two-story arches at the 10th- and 11th-floors echoed the base. Most eye-catching was the brick crown of piers that supported a pergola. That roof garden was almost assuredly the idea of the Burtons. The New York Times described it on February 13, 1916:
One of its most attractive features is the main roof tiled throughout and inclosed [sic] on side and overhead with iron screens filled in with heavy wire mesh, affording all employes [sic] in the building a splendid recreation space for their noon hour.
from the collection of the New-York Historical Society
The Burtons did not forget themselves in planning the building. The article said:
In addition to the roof garden an attractive parlor or rest room for the members of the firm has been provided in lieu of the usual pent house, to which a sleeping room is connected with baths, for the convenience of those who may be forced to work overtime in the rush period and thereby miss the customary train to the suburban homestead and family dinner.
Because the Church of the Transfiguration (known as the Little Church Around the Corner) sat directly behind the Burton Building, Starrett & Van Vleck was able to place "generous window space on all sides," as reported by The New York Times, "making it as attractive on the rear as on the street sides."
As The Times had pointed out, John H. Burton was, indeed, highly active in the protection of the district. He was the chairman of the Save New York Committee in 1916, the goal of which was "to preserve the heart of the City, from 33rd to 59th Streets and from Third to Seventh Avenues, from destruction by factories and to rehabilitate the lower and deserts part of New York City." (Five years later, the Save New York Committee would move its headquarters into the Burton Building.)
Burton Brothers & Co. did not occupy the entire building, and quickly tenants moved in. Among them in the first years of the 1920s were the New York office of the Pennsylvania-based Eddystone Manufacturing, "finishers of fine fabric;" the Mohawk Glove Corporation, which occupied the entire top floor; the Waite Grass Carpet Company; and the Philadelphia-based Colonial Knitting Mills.
A Mohawk Glove Corporation ad included a depiction of the Burton Building. The Glovers' Review, December 1921 (copyright expired)
Frank Vincent Burton, a founder of Burton Brothers & Co., was a widower with five children. On November 20, 1919, at the age of 65, he married Claire Louise Hyllsted. Less than three years later, on March 12, 1922, he died leaving an estate equal to $24 million today. (Claire estimated it as being closer to $10 million, or $186 million today.) Burton excluded Claire from his will and a long-fought and ugly legal battle soon began as Claire sued her five step-children.
from the collection of the New York Public Library
In the spring of 1923, a branch of the Chemical National Bank opened in part of the ground floor. At the time, the offices of the Silk Publishing Company were on the third floor; and S. Craig Preston & Company, dealers in "gift and art wares;" and the New York Office of Thos. L. Leedom Co., makers of rugs, were also in the building.
Bromley Manufacturing Company leased the second floor, engulfing 5,000 square feet, in 1925. The Carpet and Upholstery Trade Review described the firm as "manufacturers of fringed lace curtains, fringed Lever and fringed silk curtains, novelty lace edge curtains, drapery nets, etc." Another curtain firm, the newly formed Cooper & De Luna Corporation moved in in 1926. The Decorative Furnisher explained that the firm distributed "ruffled and novelty curtains and damasks and light weight silks."
On September 4, 1930, The New York Times reported that architect C. B. French had been hired to make $7,000 in renovations. It was most likely at this time that the roof garden and pergola were demolished.
As early as 1940, the rooftop structure had been removed. via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.
A minor tenant here in 1931 was Abraham Holtz, a wholesale jeweler who occupied an office on the eighth floor. Holtz was alone in the office just before noon on August 22 that year when two young men barged in. The New York Times reported that, "using their fists as their only weapons," the thugs "gagged him, tied his coat over his head and then collected eight watches, a bracelet, a platinum wedding ring and three unset diamonds." The youths escaped with about $1,500 of jewelry.
Burton Brothers, Inc. faced charges by the Federal Trade Commission in 1943. The firm marketed its "Burton's Irish Poplin" to shirt manufacturers with a picture of a shamrock. The FTC charged that the material "is represented to be made in Ireland or of Irish goods" while, in fact, "it is an American product."
The Burton Building continued to house, mostly, dry goods related tenants through the 1940s. Among them were the Nassau Textile Company, the American Soil Sponge Selling Group, and the National Association of Bedding Manufacturers.
The second half of the century saw more corporate offices moving in. In the 1950s and '60s, the law firms Levin, Rosmarin & Schwartz and Rothenberg, Levin, Cohen and Schwartz operated here, as did the consulting firms of Arthur Deutz, Inc. and Francis Wadsworth James.
In September 1980, the Burton Building was sold "to a foreign investment group headed by Dr. B. Bastiyali of Dusseldorf, West Germany, for $2.35 million," according to The New York Times. A renovation completed in 1983 resulted in a "dry goods store" in the lower five floors and a "wholesale establishment" in the upper portion, including the new penthouse level, according to the Department of Buildings.
A recent photograph reveals the remodeled base and the glass-enclosed penthouse. image via 267fifthave.com
A subsequent two-year renovation initiated in 2017 included the remodeling of the ground floor. Starrett & Van Vleck's arched openings were enlarged and squared off.
many thanks to reader Doug Wheeler for prompting this post
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