The Lost Jennings-McCullough Mansions -- 86-88 Park Ave

photograph Palatial Homes in the City of New York and the Dwellers Therein, 1910 (copyright expired)

Laura Hall Park and her sister, Eliza Hall Park, enjoyed a privileged upbringing in Bennington, Vermont.  Their grandfather, Hiland Hall, had been state governor and their father, Trenor W. Park, had made a fortune in railroads and banking.  The girls’ close relationship would eventually be manifested in the form of a magnificent mansion miles away in New York City.

In 1871 Eliza married John Griffith McCullough.  Born near Newark, Delaware, he had been orphaned at the age of eight; but managed to obtain a “common school” education, graduated from Delaware College at the head of his class and studied law in Philadelphia.  By the time McCullough met Eliza, he had served as California’s Attorney General and State Senator.  Like Trenor Park, he gave up law to go into the banking and railroad businesses.

John Beach McCullough -- The Interstate Journal & Adviser, May 1900 (copyright expired)

Nine years later, on July 27, 1880, Vermont-born Frederic Beach Jennings was back home to marry Laura.  The wedding took place in the Park mansion.  The New York Times mentioned that the impressive guest list included the U. S. Secretary of State, William M. Evarts, and “a number of New-York families who are Summering among the Green Mountains.”  Following the ceremony, a special train was waiting to take the newlyweds on their honeymoon in Canada.

By now McCullough was spending more and more time in New York City, where Jennings’s law practice was based.  Neither Laura nor Eliza would have have to give up Vermont totally.  They both maintained magnificent summer estates there.  But throughout the fall and winter seasons, the sisters would take on the roles of Manhattan socialites. 

In 1890 the McCulloughs and the Jennings spawned a plan to make their wives' daily interactions simpler.  A few years earlier William Vanderbilt had constructed three mansions—one for himself and his wife Louisa, and one each for his daughters Margaret and Emily—which successfully pretended to be one massive home.  John Jacob Astor would do the same, erecting a huge chateau on upper Fifth Avenue which was in realty two mansions—one for himself and one for his mother, Caroline Schermerhorn Astor.  But before Astor’s plans would take shape, ground would be broken for the Jennings-McCullough residences.

Land was purchased on the northwest corner of Park Avenue and 39^th Street.  Architect J. Lawrence Aspinwall was commissioned to design an imposing double residence for the two families; one that would suggest a single palatial dwelling.  He designed an immense chateau in a toned-down version of the French Renaissance style.  The angles, oriels and bays required that Jennings submit a request to the Department of Parks in 1891 “to erect projections on his proposed house at the north-west corner of Park avenue and Thirty-ninth street.  Apparently the request was approved, for the 39^th Street entrance crept beyond the property line.

The Engineering Record published a sketch of the mansions in November 1893 (copyright expired)

Laura and Frederic would take the southern half, at No. 86 Park Avenue (although the entrance was clearly on 39^th Street) and the McCulloughs would move in to No. 88, with its sweeping entrance staircase.  What the Jennings lost in a Park Avenue entrance, they gained in additional light into the rooms.

The mansions were completed just in time for Elizabeth McCullough’s coming-out and the paint was barely dry before the sisters began entertaining.  On January 4, 1893 Eliza hosted a tea for Elizabeth from 4:00 to 7:00 in No. 88; and on January 20, 1893 Laura gave a debutante dinner for her in No. 86.  Socially important young men and women with names like Rockefeller, Lambert, and Brewster chatted in the dining room that evening.

On April 26 that year Laura gave what The New York Times called “a large dinner party.”  The word “large” by society columnists in describing dinners in 1893 was not tossed about lightly.  The newspaper added “The table was handsomely decorated by Thorley with Elric [sic] Brunner roses.”

The immense size of the mansions was evidenced on March 30, 1895 when Eliza McCullough hosted a charity “international tea” to benefit the Daisy Fields Hospital and Home for Crippled Children in Englewood, New Jersey.  Booths were set up representing America, France, Africa, Holland, Spain, Ireland and Germany, from which “pretty girls in costumes sold articles peculiar to each country,” reported The Times the following day.

“In the café chantant there was a continuous performance during the afternoon and evening.  In the booth were waitresses dressed as French shepherdesses, ready to serve the hungry and little cripples from the Daisy Fields Home sold flowers.”

Eliza seems to have been more interested in entertaining than her sister; repeatedly appearing in society columns as the hostess of receptions, dinners and teas.  On February 21, 1897 The Times noted “Besides her tea on Thursday, Mrs. J. G. McCullough of 88 Park Avenue gave dinners on Wednesday and Friday of last week to parties of twenty each.  Her last reception will be held on next Thursday.”

Perhaps the reason that Eliza’s “last reception” was so early in the season that year was because of John’s increasing political aspirations.  Within the year he would be elected to the Vermont State Senate and by 1900 was eying the Governor’s mansion.  But despite John’s increasing focus on Vermont, on March 29, 1901, when Hall Park McCullough’s engagement was announced, the Yale graduate’s address was still listed as No. 88 Park Avenue.  The young man whose father had started out as a penniless orphan was a member of the University, Union League and Metropolitan Clubs.

It was not just Laura and Eliza who had a close relationship.  Frederic and John worked closely together as well.  Such was the case in 1901 when they returned to the firm of Renwick, Aspinwall & Owan to design their 12-story hotel at Nos. 12-14 West 44^th Street.  (Frederic Jennings would commission the firm once again in 1904; this time to design a new country house in North Bennington, Vermont.)

By now John McCullough had served his two years as Governor of Vermont and returned to New York.  He held the positions of either president or director in the First National Bank of North Bennington, the Bank of New York, the Fidelity & Casualty Co., no fewer than three railroads and the Lackawanna Steel Company.

In 1906 it was the Jennings’s daughter, also named Elizabeth, who was feted with debutante entertainments; followed by her cousin, Esther Morgan McCullough, two years later.

The Interstate Journal & Adviser, May 1900 (copyright expired)

A near-tragedy came in 1913 when Frederic B. Jennings, Jr. was traveling on the Boston Express near Stamford, Connecticut.  At 5:03 on the afternoon of June 12 the train smashed into another that was stopped waiting to be coupled to an electric locomotive.  Five passengers were killed instantly and dozens were severely injured.  Among them was young Frederic.  A Stanford reporter listed his injuries as “probably fatal.”  Much to the relief of both families, Frederic survived.

On May 29, 1915 John G. McCullough died.  His children received generous if unequal inheritances; $100,000 went to Ella, Esther inherited $150,000, Hall Park McCullough received the North Bennington home and $75,000, and his sister, Mrs. Thornton F. Turner, received “a similar amount.”  Eliza received the bulk of the immense estate, including the Park Avenue mansion.

Eliza stayed in the house next door to her sister.  By now the Jennings boys were growing up and entering the world.  Frederic Jr. had graduated from Yale in 1914 and on August 16, 1919 his engagement to Elizabeth Holt was announced.

A few months later Frederic’s father fell ill.  After just a brief illness Frederic Beach Jennings died in the Park Avenue mansion on May 26, 1920.  Similarly to his brother-in-law, in addition to his legal practice he had been director of many corporations, and was vice-president of the First National Bank of North Bennington and a trustee of Williams and Barnard colleges, the Provident Loan Society and the New York Trust Company.

Somewhat surprisingly, just four months after her husband’s death and during what should have been her deepest period of mourning; Laura announced the engagement of son Edward to Margaret Huntington Trumbull. 

With their children gone, the widowed sisters decided to abandon their hulking mansions.  On April 2, 1921 The New York Times reported that the Princeton Club was in negotiations with the two women for the structures.  Within two weeks a deal had been struck.

On April 23 it was announced that the club had purchased both mansions, as well as the brownstone house directly behind on39th Street, also owned by the sisters.  “It was proposed that the two houses on the corner be utilized as the main clubhouse, with as few alterations as possible, and the brownstone dwelling in the rear be torn down and a fireproof building erected, connecting with the main clubhouse” reported The Times.

It was projected that the new annex would contain “billiard rooms, dressing rooms, shower baths, four squash courts, a gymnasium and four or five floors of additional bedrooms, so that the club would have available about seventy bedrooms.”

By August renovations were well under way and the club had purchased, in addition, the Cleveland H. Dodge house next door at No. 90 Park Avenue.  Architect Aymar Embury II was commissioned to remodel Nos. 86 and 88.  “There will be little change in the exterior, for the houses are well built, of attractive architecture and command attention among the best homes in that section,” reported The Times on August 21.

Plans were announced for the 10-story annex at No. 39 East 39^th Street in May 1922, which would cost the club $150,000.  The alterations to the Jennings and McCullough mansions were expected to cost $40,000—in the neighborhood of $525,000 today.  Once completed, the two houses would be joined internally and include a café and library in the basement; dining room, card room and another library on the first floor; and bedrooms on the upper floors.

Only three years later, on May 26, 1925, The New York Times noted the drastic changes taking place in the once residential neighborhood.  “Park Avenue north of Fortieth Street is occupied almost entirely by office and loft buildings and other commercial structures, many of which exceed fifteen stories in height.”  But despite the demolition of the elegant mansions that lined Park Avenue throughout the ensuing decades, the Princeton Club hung on for nearly 40 more years.

The end of J. Lawrence Aspinwall’s magnificent double mansion finally came in 1963 when it was demolished to make way for the 41-story building known as 90 Park Avenue.

photograph by the author

The 1908 Provident Loan Society Building -- Park Avenue So. at 25th Street

Following the Civil War the nation saw an enormous increase in manufacturing.   It was an time of increased industrial output, growth of the railroad industry and independence from European imports.  Conditions could not have looked better.

But then, in 1892, construction slowed, coal production dropped off and stock prices and business incorporations began falling off.   The resulting recession hit the poorer classes hardest.  With no money coming in and no collateral for loans, indigent New Yorkers took their possessions to unscrupulous pawn brokers to obtain cash for food and rent.  It was a situation that did not go unnoticed by some of those more fortunate.

A special committee of the Charity Organization Society recommended on May 9, 1892 that an institution be formed “to lend money at reasonable rates to the poor upon pledge of personal property.”  The committee was, in fact, suggesting a government-approved pawn shop for the poor.

Nothing came of the idea for a year, when the Financial Panic of 1893 swept the nation.  It would last nearly a decade and would be the worst depression the nation would endure until the Great Depression of 1929.  Attention to the idea was renewed by the increased suffering of New York’s poor.  Seth Low, who was Chairman of the Mayor’s Relief Committee, encouraged the passage by the legislature that incorporated the Provident Loan Society of New York on May 21, 1894.

New York’s wealthiest citizens donated a total of $100,000 to kick-start the institution.  Among them were J. Pierpont Morgan, William E. Dodge, August Belmont and Cornelius Vanderbilt.   The Society’s 1919 25^th Anniversary pamphlet stressed that “The original contributors did not expect that interest would be paid upon their contributions, certainly not at the start.”

A “practical pawnbroker” was hired as the first manager.  That seemed only sensible.   Starting out in a rented room, the Loan Society made 14,234 loans the first year—the average being $16.  Borrowers brought in whatever they owned that might serve as collateral and were charged one percent interest.  Of the $299,155.50 in loans that first year, $84,174.50 was repaid.   It was a shaky start.

The severity of the depression brought not just the poor to the Society’s door.   On December 4, 1895 the first auction of unredeemed collateral was held.   Among more expected household items were a Tiffany watch, A Jules Jurgensen watch said to have cost $300 originally (it sold for $120), “a handsome pair of opera glasses,” a set of silver-plated tableware, a pair of diamond earrings that sold for $132 and a diamond bar pin.

As the decade progressed and the depression finally ended, The Provident Loan Society firmly gained its footing.  President James Spreyer told The Churchman magazine “During 1898 we have granted loans to about 40,090 persons, making a total since organization of about 135,000 persons…The results achieved by our society since its organization justify the statement that it has now passed the experimental period and that its usefulness ought to be expanded wisely and conservatively.”

And expanded it was.

By 1907 the Society was leasing several buildings throughout the city.   The board felt the money spent on rents should be funneled, instead, into society-owned structures.   On August 27, 1907 The American Architect and Building News hinted at things to come.  “It is reported that Architects Renwick, Aspinwall & Tucker, 320 Fifth Avenue, are preparing plans for the new office building which the Provident Loan Society contemplates erecting at the corner of Fourth Avenue and Twenty-fifth Street.”

J. Lawrence Aspinwall took over the project, according to the 1915 convention of the American Institute of Architects.  His design would be the first of several the firm would produce for the Society.   Construction began in 1908 with occupancy projected for March 1, 1909.   Replacing the two existing buildings would be what Pearson’s Magazine would deem “a marble palace for their business.”

On April 19, 1908 The New York Times described the planned headquarters.  “In style this structure will be a dignified example of the Italian Renaissance, adapted to modern requirements…will be four stories in height, although from the exterior it will show but three stories, as the fourth will be concealed behind a high balustrade.  The exterior will be of white marble, with a high base of pink Milford granite.  The facades will show dignified entrances, with ornamental trims and pediments.  At the level of the second story there will be an ornamented belt course.  The entrance doors will be of bronze, with richly designed grills.”

The Times had it right.  The building, which Bridgemen’s Magazine reported cost $100,000 to build, was a marble-clad Renaissance palazzo.   Inside, the main floor was divided into departments for men and women.  The second floor held the society’s offices and the remaining two floors were leased out, “until the growth of the society requires their use,” according to Charities and the Commons.

The year that the society moved into the new building, it loaned $10.6 million.

Frank Marshall White, writing in Munsey’s Magazine in April 1910, called The Provident Loan Society the “biggest private pawnbroking institution in the world.”  The society now had five other buildings throughout the city and were fighting to “relieve pawnbroking of the stigma that unscrupulous followers of that vocation have brought upon it.”



The building in 1919 -- Provident Loan Society of New York Annual Report 1919

Vice-President Frank Tucker told White “It has been customary to picture, as the mainstay of the pawnbroking business, the forlorn woman carrying household necessities to the sign of the three balls to obtain money for the baby’s milk, while her inebriate husband takes advantage of her absence to steal the baby’s clothes, which he pledges at the same institution for the wherewithal to purchase a more potent beverage for himself.”

Tucker explained that one of the objects of the Society was “to create conditions whereby self-respecting men and women in time of need, may take advantage of the opportunities offered by the society’s offices.”

Eventually The Provident Loan Society gave up most of its branch buildings.  But the 1908 marble headquarters at Park Avenue South (it is no longer Fourth Avenue) and 25^th Street is still home to what the AIA Guide to New York City calls “an English club dispensing credit.”

Aspinwall’s beautiful, dignified structure is astonishingly intact and as handsome today as it was a century ago.

non-credited photographs taken by the author