The 1950 Rockefeller Guest House - 242 East 52nd Street

photograph by Epicgenius

An advertisement in the New York Herald on February 18, 1866 offered the "modern high stoop house" at 242 East 52nd Street for sale.  A mirror-image, two-bay wide Italianate dwelling sat next door.  At the time, the once-rural Turtle Bay district was quickly being industrialized as factories, breweries and the like cropped up along the riverfront.  By the Depression years, 242 East 52nd Street had lost its stoop and converted to furnished rooms.  As early as 1940, it was abandoned.

242 and 244 East 52nd Street were an eyesore in 1940.  via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

John D. Rockefeller III married Blanchette Ferry Hooker in 1932.  They moved into 1 Beekman Place, part of a much-changed area of Turtle Bay, in the 1940s.  The couple were avid art collectors, but "modernist" art, according to Rockefeller, was his "wife's department."

In 1948, Blanchette proposed they erect "a town house designed largely to accommodate visiting members of the family," according to The New York Times.  More importantly, she wanted a venue to display her avant-garde artworks and to entertain.  The couple were well acquainted with Philip C. Johnson.  In 1930 he became director of the architecture department of the Museum of Modern Art, founded by John's mother, Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, in 1929.

The Rockefellers acquired 242-244 East 52nd Street and commissioned Johnson to design their guest house.  The vintage houses were gutted, leaving only two stories of brick side walls.  In his 1952 New York Architecture 1650-1952, Huson Jackson notes, "Although technically a remodelling [sic] job, virtually nothing of the original buildings remains except the party walls.  (By preserving them, the project was deemed "remodeling" and, therefore, circumvented the rigors of "new construction.")

On September 2, 1949, The New York Times reported, "An outstanding example of modern architecture and equipment in a town house designed largely to accommodate visiting members of the family is nearing completion in the Beekman Place section of Manhattan for John D. Rockefeller 3d and his wife."  The article stressed, "The owners, however, will continue to live in their apartment just around the corner."  (A Rockefeller spokesman said, "they preferred to call the new dwelling an adjunct to their apartment, rather than a family guest house.)

Johnson faced the symmetrical, nearly windowless base in Flemish bond, ruddy red brick.  The upper portion was mostly glass--six panels divided by steel bars.  Privacy would be accomplished by draperies.  The New York Times explained that the house was "divided into two sections."  The rear wall of the living room, said the article:

...will be of glass and will look out on a patio with a tree and small pool designed to give an 'outdoor' effect. Reached by stepping stones across this courtyard will be the separate one-story master suite of bedroom, bath and dressing room.  The bedroom also will have a plate-glass wall looking out on the courtyard, and with heavy draperies for privacy.

Above the living room were two smaller bedrooms and two baths.  The New York Times remarked, "It was reported that the furniture and furnishings would be made especially to fit in with the unusual character of the house."

Blanchette Rockefeller in the living room.  from the Library of Congress's Gottscho-Schleisner Collection

Construction was completed in 1950.  Referring to Philip Johnson's close relationship with Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, The New York Times architectural critic Paul Goldberger would later comment, "The exterior is Miesian, with glass, steel and brick creating an air of formality; within is a reflecting pool and an enormous space that is less Miesian than proto-SoHo loft."

from the Library of Congress's Gottscho-Schleisner Collection

(Interestingly, years later Philip C. Johnson said, "The top of the house doesn't exist for me.  I only added it because there is no point to doing a one-story house in New York.  It would look all wrong.")

The public had a chance to see the house in May 1951 when the City Garden Club of New York held its annual showing of gardens and penthouses.  The New York Times said, "Also open will be a New York guest house with modern pool at 242 East Fifty-second Street."  It was opened to the public again in 1954 when a benefit exhibition of young artists' works was held here.

The house was often used as additional space for the Museum of Modern Art.  In his 1973 Good Old Modern: An Intimate Portrait of the Museum of Modern Art, Russell Lynes writes:

It was presided over by a butler named Charles, who could and frequently did run up luncheons for a small number of trustees and donors to the Museum, for Important Persons and those being wooed.  There, too, were cocktail parties and small dinners and the ever present hazard of someone accidently backing into the shallow pool.

In 1955, Blanchette Rockefeller donated the building to the Museum.  It was used for events and functions until the MoMA's East Wing (also designed by Philip Johnson) was completed in 1964.

from the Library of Congress's Gottscho-Schleisner Collection

On February 7 that year, The New York Times reported, "The Museum of Modern Art has sold its Guest House."  The article noted, "The new owner is Mrs. Robert C. Leonhardt, the wife of a Manhattan business consultant, who also owns a Johnson house in Lloyd's Neck, L. I."  In reporting on the $100,000 sale (about $1 million in 2026), the article called the house, "one of Mr. Johnson's most striking designs."

Leonhardt and his wife, the former Lee Sherrod, had two children.  He told The New York Times, "the transaction was agreed upon in April, 1962."

Philip C. Johnson became the next occupant of 242 East 52nd Street when Lee Leonhardt leased it to him following the death of Robert Leonhardt.  Johnson shared the house with his partner, exhibition designer and former art dealer, David C. Whitney.  The couple introduced artworks by the likes of Andy Warhol, Frank Stella, John Chamberlain and Roy Lichtenstein.  They also repainted the interiors white.

London antiques dealer Robin Symes purchased the property in 1979.  He filled the house with an astounding collection of Art Deco furniture.  The New York Times described, "Robin Symes's collection of Art Deco lacquered or leather-wrapped furniture--the largest private holding of designs by the innovators Pierre Legrain and Eileen Gray--includes many classics of the Paris style."  Symes's partner, Christo Michailidis recalled first seeing the house to Rita Reif of The New York Times, saying, "We needed a house in New York like a hole in the head."  But, he said, they fell in love with it "as an art work."

A decade, on April 2, 1989, The New York Times reported that the entire Symes collection was slated to be sold at auction by Sotheby's.  Included in the artwork was the Rockefeller Guest House.  In reporting that it would be among the items sold (the first real estate offering ever by Sotheby's), Rite Reif noted, "Although not a landmark, it was one of Mr. Johnson's earliest architectural projects and is cited in many books on architecture."  The winning bid for the house was $11.16 million, or about $29 million today.

photograph by Epicgenius

Designated an individual New York City Landmark in 2000, the Rockefeller Guest house has undergone several owners.  It was most recently sold in December 2023 for $20 million.

Emery Roth's 1931 Southgate - 400 East 52nd Street

 

In 1920, a stalwart group of wealthy Manhattanites embarked on a risky and somewhat shocking real estate endeavor--transforming a block of decrepit brownstones along the East River into a fashionable enclave.  Originally called Sutton Square, its high-tone tenor spread outward, creating Sutton Place and Beekman Place, two of the most enviable residential districts in the city.

Real estate developer Bing & Bing would continue the transformation.  The firm frequently worked with renowned architect Emery Roth, producing numerous Manhattan apartment buildings.  In 1928, Bing & Bing hired him for what would be their most ambitious project--five apartment buildings that would be called Southgate.  One would face East 51st Street and the others, separated by a verdant garden, lined east 52nd Street.

The massive enterprise would take three years to construct.  On April 12, 1931, The New York Times noted that the completed project would have "a total of nearly 500 housekeeping apartments ranging from one to six rooms."  The article explained that all five buildings, "similar in design," would be "identified with the name Southgate."

Each of the buildings was slightly different.  400 East 52nd Street is as the far right.  image by Wurts Bros. from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York.

No. 400 East 52nd Street opened in October 1931.  Faced in brown brick above a stone base, its entrance sat within a dramatic, three-story frame of Art Deco stylized fountains.  The relatively unadorned midsection rose to two sleek, tiled-faced balconies.  Above the 14th floor, Roth ignored the setbacks at the ends and center of the building with single-bay-wide sections that rose two more floors.  Another ocean liner-ready balcony clung to the 15th floor.  An advertisement offered, "Two to five rooms, some with river view," and boasted, "dropped living rooms, log burning fireplaces.  Dining galleries or alcoves, casement windows, tile bath with every chamber, full size kitchens."

Among the early, professional residents of 400 East 52nd Street were John Anderson, drama critic for The New York  Evening Journal and former assistant critic of the New York Evening Post; and Arthur Samuels, editor of Harper's Bazaar.  In 1932, the year he moved in, he became associate editor of Arts Weekly and an instructor of drama at New York University.

Perhaps an unexpected tenant was 26-year-old aspiring actress Elizabeth Bates Volck, who moved into a ninth-floor apartment on November 7, 1931.  Born in England, she was the granddaughter of Domício da Gama, the former Brazilian ambassador to the United States.  Her engagement to Prince Johannes of Liechtenstein was announced in 1926, but the marriage never came to pass.

Just before moving into 400 East 52nd Street, Elizabeth suffered another failed romance.  According to her best friend, Diana Durant, Elizabeth had been experiencing "emotional strain" since "the disruption of her love affair with Gerald D. Tiffany."  The day after moving in, Elizabeth telephoned Durant "and said she had been thinking of taking her life," according to the North Shore Daily Journal.

Several hours later, at about 15 minutes after midnight, Frank McLoughlin, who lived nearby, heard an explosion.  The New York Times reported, "Looking up, he beheld a flash of fire and smoke bursting through the shattered windows of the ninth-floor apartment."  Elizabeth's apartment had been devastated by the violent gas explosion.  The Times said it "shattered walls and furniture on three floors and aroused residents within several blocks."

Elizabeth Volck's body was found in the apartment.  She had left a note saying: "I leave all my furniture to Diana Durant to keep or sell according to what she sees fit."  She then opened the gas jets of the stove.  Presumably, she knew that the explosion set off by the pilot light would kill her in case her suicide attempt was unsuccessful.  (Diana Durant would not receive any of the apartment's furniture, all of which was wrecked by the blast.)

A similar tragedy occurred the following year.  Edward R. Seen was a successful architect.  Born in Basel, Switzerland, he had been associated with Delano & Aldrich for more than two decades.  He and his second wife were married in November 1932.

Less than a month later, on December 11, Seen left the office, saying he would have lunch at home.  He telephoned later saying he had been detained by business.  Instead, he drove to Patchogue, Long Island.  At 11:00 p.m., he registered at Roe's Hotel there.  The next morning a maid found his body "with a bullet hole in his right temple," as reported by The New York Times.

More uplifting press coverage was routinely found in the society columns.  On September 1, 1932, for instance, The New York Times reported, "Mrs. James E. Hollingsworth of 400 East Fifty-second Street left yesterday for a visit with Mrs. Herbert Hoover at the White House.  Mrs. Hollingsworth will go later to California, where she will be joined by her husband."

Other initial residents were Henry R. Duflon, John P. Hogan, and John Perry Mitchell, Jr. and his wife, the former Lucy G. Clark.  Born in 1890, Duflon was superintendent of agencies for the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company in Illinois and Indiana.  He had an office here and in Chicago.  John P. Hogan was vice chairman of the Construction Code Authority and general chairman of the Construction League of the United States, which sponsored the codes for the construction industry.

John Perry Mitchell, Jr. was born in Sterling, Massachusetts on March 30, 1899.  He received his B.A. degree at Dartmouth and his Masters from Harvard.  He remained at Harvard as a instructor of economics until 1924.  He and Lucy Clark were married in 1930.  On July 1, 1934, Mitchell became assistant director of education at the Rockefeller Foundation.  In September 1935, he and Lucy adopted an infant boy whom they named Jonathan.  Tragically, five months later, on February 24, 1936, John Mitchell, Jr. died at Roosevelt Hospital at the age of 36.

Living here that year were singer Paul Davin and his wife, Winifred.  Davin had appeared on Broadway in Sweethearts and Knights of Song.  Winifred was described by The New York Times as "a former countess."  

On May 8, 1936, Winifred hired a maid, 22-year-old Jennie Stanley.  Ten days later, Jennie disappeared along with $685 in cash (equal to about $15,500 in 2025), jewelry and a gold cigarette case.  

The savvy Winifred "suggested to the police that the servant probably would buy expensive clothes and display them among friends in Harlem," reported The Times.  And so, Winifred and two detectives staked out Seventh Avenue and 139th Street.  Sure enough, just after midnight, Jennie Stanley passed by "stylishly gowned."  The article said, "In her apartment, the police said, they recovered all the jewelry, except a gold cigarette case, and the money."

A charming garden separates the 51st and 52nd Street buildings.

Federal employee Ed Weltman occupied a ninth-floor apartment here as early as 1939.  On the afternoon of September 21 that year, his sister and her daughters, Jessie and Alice Wells, visited him.  The sisters, described by The Billboard in 1926 as "exceptionally pretty blondes," comprised the song-and-dance team of the Wells Sisters.  Starting out as teenagers in vaudeville theaters, the duo now sang on radio and had just returned from a road tour the previous week.

Jessie Wells said she did not feel well and asked her uncle if she could go into a bedroom to rest.  Later, her mother checked on her and found her missing.  "The bathroom window was flung up," reported The New York Times.  The 25-year-old had jumped to her death.

Two fascinating residents were Sara J. Woodward and her daughter, Mary Woodward Reinhardt.  Born in 1863 in Portadown, Ireland, Sara was the eleventh of the seventeen children of Alexander Johnson.  In 1880 she arrived in Chicago at the age of 17, eventually becoming a fashion expert for the department store Carson, Pirie, Scott & Co.  According to The New York Times later, she was the first to bring Paris creations to the Middle West and "staged what was said to have been Chicago's first fashion show."

Sara married Frank E. Woodward, the president of the Bank of Watertown, Wisconsin, in 1897.  The couple had two daughters, Alice and Mary.  Sara founded the Public Library of Watertown and during World War I was chairman of the city's American Red Cross unit.  She also organized a movement to establish two parks there.

In the meantime, Mary Woodward graduated from Milwaukee Downer Seminary, attended the University of Wisconsin and received her Bachelors degree from Radcliffe College in 1923.  After doing graduate work at Oxford University in England, she married Paul Reinhardt, owner of the Reinhardt Galleries in New York City in 1924.  Mary became associated with the gallery.  

Frank Woodward died in 1933 and the following year Mary and Paul Reinhardt divorced.  Sara Woodward relocated to New York and she and Mary moved into an apartment here.  

It may have been the urban Manhattan environment that prompted Sarah to become an early activist against second-hand smoke, campaigning for the reduction or elimination of "the smoke nuisance."  Related to that cause, she joined the board of directors of the Outdoor Cleanliness Association.

Now single, Mary Woodard Reinhardt reinvented herself.  She founded the Hollywood Patterns, a subsidiary of Condé Nast.  She was, as well, secretary of the Birth Control Federation of America.

In 1939, Sara Johnson Woodward's health began to fail.  She died in her apartment at the age of 77 on January 9, 1940.  Just five months later, on June 21, Mary Woodward Reinhardt married Albert D. Lasker, former chairman of the United States Shipping Board.

John Anderson and his wife, the former Margaret Breuning  (an art critic), were still living here at the time.  Now the drama critic of the New York Journal American, he was also an author and playwright, and president of the New York Drama Critics Circle.  Among his books were the 1929 Box Office, Book of the White Mountains, released in 1930, and the 1938 The American Theatre.   His plays included The Inspector General and The Fatal Alibi.

On February 9, 1942, The New York Times reported that Efrem Zimbalist Jr. had leased an apartment here.  The son of the famous violinist and symphony conductor and the operatic star Alma Gluck, he was born on November 30, 1918.  While his parents were major figures in classical music, Zimbalist Jr. was drawn to the theater.  He took a job as a page for NBC radio in 1936 where he got small roles on air.  Zimbalist would go on to a highly successful career in television and film.

Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. (publicity photo for the U.S. Steel Hour, 1956)

Italian-born John Perona, who owned the El Morocco nightclub, had lived here as early as 1935.  That year, the 38-year-old bachelor had a live-in servant, 20-year-old Grey Clements, a Filipino immigrant.  Clements lived with and worked for him for at least five years.  By 1946, Perona had acquired a country home at Newton, New Jersey and now had two male servants in the East 52nd Street apartment.

John Perona (original source unknown)

Perona fired both servants in the fall of 1946.  Shortly afterward, on the evening of October 9, he returned to the city from Newton to find that "seven sets of cuff links and fifteen or sixteen cigarette lighters, gifts and valued by him at $20,000 were missing from his penthouse apartment at 400 East Fifty-second Street.," as reported by The New York Times.  The figure Perona gave to the police would translate to about $321,000 today.  It is unclear if he ever recovered his items.  Perona would remain here at least through the 1950s.

Among Perona's neighbors in the building was theater producer and director Cheryl Crawford.  Born in Akron, Ohio in 1902, she studied drama at Smith College and came to New York City in 1925.  In 1931 she, Harold Clurman, and Lee Strausberg formed The Group Theatre, a 12-week-long training and rehearsal course at Brookfield Center, Connecticut.  Among the fledgling actors whose careers were highly influenced by Crawford were Bojangles Robinson, Mary Martin, Helen Hayes, Ingrid Bergman, Ethel Barrymore, Tallulah Bankhead and Paul Robeson.  

Cheryl Crawford from the Class of 1925 Smith College yearbook.

She co-founded the Actors Studio in 1947.  There major stars like Marlon Brando, James Dean, Steve McQueen, Jack Nicholson and a nearly endless list of others began their careers.

Attorney Ethelbert Warfield and his wife, the former Alice Blum had moved in in 1936.  Born in 1898, he graduated from the Dickinson Law School and was now a member of Satterlee, Warfield & Stephens.  He and Alice maintained a summer home in Oyster Bay, Long Island.  In 1955, the couple had two domestic servants here, a live-in maid and a "housemaid," Sigrid Tovia, who had worked every Thursday since 1948.  (Sigrid Tovia was the Anglicized version of her birth name, Sirri Toivanen.)

Sigrid was described by her co-worker as always wearing "inexpensive, old clothes and welcomed gifts of leftover bread and meats, which she carefully put away into her paper shopping bag."  The Warfields were out of town on March 22, 1955.  That evening Sigrid left the apartment and headed home.  At 6:00, while crossing East 60th Street near Second Avenue, the 80-year-old was struck and run over by a crosstown bus.  She died under the bus.  The New York Times reported, "The police at the scene paid scant notice at first to the brown bag in the victim's hands."  In it was $21,617 in cash (more than a quarter of a million dollars today).  She had also been carrying a straw-handled purse in which were two deposit books showing $14,575 in savings.

After owning 400 East 52nd Street for half a century, on June 30, 1985, The New York Times reported that Bing & Bing had sold 29 apartment buildings, including this one.  The newspaper commented, "The Bing & Bing buildings are regarded as among the city's finest prewar properties."  Two years later, the building was converted to a cooperative.

Other than the loss of the casement windows, Emery Roth's Depression Era structure and its architectural siblings are, happily, little changed.  

many thanks to Rene Tatnall for suggesting this post and for showing me around the building.

photographs by the author

The Lost Harley Thomas Procter Mansion - 11 East 52nd Street

 

photograph by Wurts Bros. from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

In 1879, Harley Thomas Procter was inspired by a passage from Psalms 45:8, "All their garments smell of myrrh, and aloes, and cassia, out of the ivory palaces whereby they have made thee glad."  He personally redesigned the paper wrapper of his firm's P&G White Soap, and marketed it as "Ivory Soap."  A decade earlier, Procter had revamped Procter & Gamble's marketing scheme by running full-page, colored advertisements for its floating bars of soap, rather than current "calling card" advertising.  By the turn of the century, he had amassed a significant personal fortune.

Born in Cincinnati on December 1, 1847, Procter was the son of William Procter, co-founder of Procter & Gamble.  In 1870, he married Mary Elizabeth Sanford and the couple would have four children, Harley Sanford (who died in childhood), William, Lilian Sanford, and Rodney.

Harley Thomas Procter, from Advertising Hall of Fame

Procter retired "from active connections with the affairs," as described by The New York Times, of Procter & Gamble in 1895.  Five years later, he laid plans to move his family to Manhattan.  On the north side of East 52nd Street, between Fifth and Madison Avenues, were several private carriage houses.  On September 23, 1900, The New York Times reported he had purchased two of them, 13 and 15 East 52nd, for "the erection of a new house by Mr. Procter."  Designed by Don Barber, the sumptuous Beaux Arts mansion was completed in 1903.

As construction of that residence neared completion, on January 17, 1903 the Record & Guide reported that Procter had purchased the 25-foot-wide, two-story stable next door at 11 East 52nd Street from Elizabeth C. Oakman.  He paid $80,000 for the property, nearly $3 million in 2025 terms.  By erecting a first-class residence on the site, he could choose his next door neighbor.

The architectural firm of Trowbridge & Livingston designed a French Renaissance Revival mansion on the site.  The style had been increasingly popular after C. P. H. Gilbert created French Renaissance chateaux like the Fletcher mansion at 2 East 79th Street and the Edward Converse residence at 3 East 78th Street.  Six stories tall, its lower three floors were understated.  The decoration of the sedate, planar limestone facade relied on delicate carving around the arched entrance and above the grouped windows of the second floor.  The mood changed at the top three levels.  Introduced by an open-work, full-width stone balcony, the openings at this level wore elaborate crocketed pediments.  They were flanked by engaged colonettes that sat upon carved faces.  The top two floors took the form of a steep, slate-shingled mansard.

The Procter's only daughter, Lilian, had married Fritz Wilhelm Hoeninghaus in 1901.  By the time William married Emily Pearson Bodstein on February 3, 1910 in Grace Church, the family was living in 11 East 52nd Street.  Getting the timeline slightly wrong, on May 23, 1912, the New York Herald explained, "Mr. Proctor seemed to lose interest in the house [i.e., 15 East 52nd], placed it on the market for sale and built a smaller residence at No. 11 East Fifty-second street."

Rodney Procter was married to Beatrice M. Sterling in Grace Church on January 17, 1912.  Harley and Mary Procter, now empty-nesters, rarely appeared in the society columns.  They spent their summers at Shadowbrook, their "famous garden estate," as described by American Gardening, in Lenox.

For decades, Procter had suffered with diabetes.  On May 16, 1920, The New York Times reported, "Harley T. Procter, who for many years carried on the business of Procter & Gamble, manufacturers of Ivory Soap, died early yesterday morning of diabetes at his home, 11 East Fifty-second Street."  He was 73 years old.  Procter left an estate of $3.6 million, according to The American Perfumer.  The figure would translate to about $42.5 million today.

Mary remained in the mansion for two years.  Then, on November 18, 1922, the New-York Tribune reported that the Procter estate sold the property for $225,000 (about $4.2 million today).  By then, the neighborhood, once home to millionaires like the Vanderbilts and Goulds, was commercial.

Before the end of the year, the mansion was renovated for business purposes.  Architects George and Edward Blum converted the first through fifth floors to showrooms, and the attic (now called the penthouse) to an apartment.

Arnold Seligmann and Emile Rey installed their art and antiques gallery, Arnold Seligmann, Rey & Co., in the lower floors.  Emile Rey was born in Mulhouse, France and established himself as an expert in Gothic ivory carvings and Italian Renaissance period bronzes.  Among his clients upon his arriving in America were J. Pierpont Morgan and Thomas Fortune Ryan.  Arnold Seligmann first opened an art gallery in Paris in 1879 with his brother, Jacques.

The Art News, October 31, 1924 (copyright expired)

The gallery remained here at least until the 1940s.  By 1952, American Listings, Inc., a real estate office that handled upscale homes and country estates, operated from an upper floor.  The Austrian State Tourist Department occupied offices here on January 3, 1958 when the Buffalo Courier Express advised that the "detailed program of the Salzburg Festival" was available here.

Blum & Blum's renovations little affected the exterior appearance.  from the Dept of Records & Information Services.

In 1965, the Government of Austria purchased the property and converted it to the Austrian Cultural Center and the residence of the Austrian Consulate General.  Three decades later, on February 21, 1993, Christopher Gray announced in The New York Times, "The Austrian Cultural Center is proceeding with permit applications for its new headquarters, a futuristic 20-story building at 11 East 52nd Street designed by Raimund Abraham, an Austrian architect."

Although Gray asserted that the former Procter mansion, "is attractive, but not really a candidate for landmark designation," he lamented, "its demolition signals a change more important than the loss of any individual building: one by one, the last vestiges of Midtown East's character as a neighborhood of mansions and town houses is being lost."

photograph by Madnessofarts

The new building was completed in 2002.

The 1929 444 East 52nd Street

The 1929 agents' brochure for 444 East 52nd Street explained "the desire of the present day New Yorker for the comfort and convenience of the apartment house, coupled with his desire to avoid the vexatious traffic congestion of the metropolis, has led to the studio apartment house development along the banks of the East River, to afford far-sighted men and women the opportunity to walk to their offices and the shopping district, and thereby enjoy the convenience of going to and fro without delay and discomfort."  Indeed, the Beekman Terrace district just south of Sutton Place was rapidly filling with "splendid buildings of stone and steel," as described by the brochure.

Designed by De Pace & Juster for Babor-Comeau & Co., Inc., 444 East 52nd Street was a Jazz Age blend of Gothic and Tudor inspired styles.  The base of undressed, variegated blocks featured square-headed drip moldings over the doorways.  The stone continued up the ten stories as quoins, embracing a facade clad in rough-faced brick that simulated age.  Large stone pseudo-balconies, brick diapering and intricately-decorated piers added to the romantic charm.

For decades "studio apartment" buildings had been popular.  The term, which had little in common with the use of the term today, referred to artists' spacious apartments that included vast studio windows which provide the best light.  The northern section of No. 444 East 52nd Street held duplex and simplex studio apartments of four and six rooms.  "All studios have log-burning fire-places," noted the brochure.

The large studio windows are conspicuous in this architects' rendering.  444 East Fifty-second Street brochure.

There were also "maisonette apartments" which had private entrances onto 52nd Street.  The southern half of the building, without the northern light so important to artists, had no vast studio windows.  The only duplexes on this side were the two in the 10th floor and penthouse levels.

444 East Fifty-second Street brochure.

Among the initial residents were newlyweds William Gaston and Rosamond Pinchot, who were married in January 1928.  Born into high society Rosamond was the daughter of prominent attorney Amos Pinchot and the former Gertrude Minturn.  In 1923, at the age of 19, she and her mother were on an ocean liner when she was noticed by the producer and film director Max Reinhardt.  Most likely much to her mother's horror, he cast Rosamond in the Broadway production of The Miracle.  She played a nun who escapes from her convent.

By the time the socialite-turned-actress moved into No. 444 she had become a sort of sensation.  The newspapers called her "the loveliest woman in America."  But shortly after taking her apartment here she created an uproar among tight-laced society when it was reported she had said "uncosmeticed women [i.e., those not wearing makeup] were immodest."  Newspapers printed the outraged reactions of both men and women.  Rosamond insisted she never said it, but had merely been repeating something a friend said.

Nevertheless, she did not back down from the fact that decent women might use makeup.  "They must make up in the city.  Everything is so vivid and startling in the city that a pale, tired face is depressing."

Although the couple would have two children, William Alexander and James Pinchot, their domestic life was more than rocky.  In 1933 they separated.  Tragically, on January 24, 1938 the Beaver County Times reported "Clad in an evening gown and an expensive fur coat, Rosamond Pinchot, 32, famous actress...was found dead today in her automobile in the garage of an estate which she rented [in Old Brookville, New York]."  She had connected a garden hose to the exhaust pipe and taken her own life.

On June 12, 1930 the New York Evening Post reported that "Mrs. Boothe Brokaw has leased a large penthouse apartment at 444 East Fifty-second Street."  She had divorced her husband of seven years, millionaire George Tuttle Brokaw, a few months earlier.

Born Ann Clare Boothe, like Rosamond Pinchot she had had a theatrical career.  But now she was more focused on working for Women's Rights and suffrage.  She maintained a staff of four servants and paid $555 per month rent on the penthouse (about $8,500 in today's money).  In 1934 she poetically described the view from her terrace, published in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on August 10, saying:

There are many penthouse views: the East River, sombre as a black velvet ribbon at your feet, shot with phosphorescent slivers that flake away in the wake of river craft.  The Queensborough Bridge and Hell Gate, flung like necklaces across the river's dark body...the lance of the Chrysler Building looming near, the flaming tower of the Radio Building, the golden glow of the New York Central building, the red torch of the Empire State Building, hung high above them all.

On November 23, 1935 Ann married the publisher of Time, Fortune and Life magazines, Henry Luce.  She dropped her first name, becoming Clare Boothe Luce, and would become one of the most recognized figures in American politics (she became Ambassador to Brazil in 1959), and literature (she wrote numerous journalistic pieces, war reporting, and fiction and became best known for her his play The Women in 1936).

Clare Boothe Luce and Henry Luce arrive at Idlewild Airport in 1954.  from the collection of the Library of Congress

Equally well-known was Dorothy Parker, who moved into the building in January 1934.  She may have been influenced on the location (which she reportedly said was "far enough east to plant tea") by the fact that her close friend and Algonquin Round Table member, Alexander Woollcott, lived in The Beekman Campanile next door at No. 450 East 52nd Street.  

Later that year Robert Benchley introduced Dorothy to screen writer Alan Campbell.  He was 28-years old and she was 39.  Campbell would become her second husband.

15 years before moving into No. 444 East 52nd Street, Dorothy posed with members of the Algonquin Round Table.  To the right is Alexander Woollcott, who lived next door at No. 450 East 52nd.  Also seen are Art Samuels, Charlie MacArthur and Harpo Marx.  original source unknown

In 1938 resident Lela E. Rogers was mortified when she read in the newspapers that she was engaged to marry FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover.  Lela's daughter was motion picture star Ginger Rogers, but suddenly it was she and not the actress who was drawing press attention.  She called reporters to her apartment to try to dispel the rumor.

On June 9 the New York Post reported "With tears of embarrassment, Mrs. Lela E. Rogers...denied a published report today that she may marry J. Edgar Hoover, chief of the G-Men."  Lela wrung her hands and lamented, "Oh, dear, dear, dear, what will Edgar think?  It's just too silly for words...And what will Edgar think of me if he reads in the papers that I was supposed to have said anything of the kind."

Lillian Gish was living here in 1938 while appearing on Broadway in The Store Wagon.

While Lela Rogers was dealing with erroneous reports of her romantic life, another resident, Lillian Gish was appearing on stage in The Star Wagon.  Earlier that year she had appeared before the Senate Subcommittee on Education and Labor to lobby for proposed bill to provide a permanent Bureau of Fine Arts.  She pointed out that with the onslaught of the Depression "the theater was very hard hit...Thousands of actors were deprived of a livelihood, with the consequent loss to our country of that many precious skills."  She concluded her testimony by telling the senators, "Let me end by saying that yours is the opportunity to make a great contribution to the welfare of the country."

Before long Elliot and Elizabeth Hall Janeway moved in.  Married in 1938, the couple would have two sons, Michael and William.  Elliot was a noted economist and writer for The Nation.  His articles caught the eye of neighbor Henry R. Luce who hired him to write part-time for Fortune and Time.

In the meantime, Elizabeth was honing her writing skills as well.  She worked on her first novel, The Walsh Girls, while living here.  Her 1945 novel Daisy Kenyon was adapted to film starring Joan Crawford.

444 East 52nd Street continued to be home to well-heeled, notable residents throughout the coming decades.  In the 1960's, for instance, author and journalist for The New York Times Albert Hodges Morehead, Jr., and James A. Henderson, president of Wells Fargo and Company, lived here.

Significant facade repair is taking place in 2020.

De Pace & Juster's handsome design melds into the row of similar apartment buildings along the southern side of the block.  They constitute a time capsule of the upscale Manhattan life in the late 1920's and early '30's.

photographs by the author

The 1927 Beekman Campanile - 450 East 52nd Street

Prior to 1920 the blocks east of First Avenue above 50th Street were home the Peter Doelger Brewery, decaying rowhouses and tenement buildings.  Fashionable society lived toward the center of Manhattan--around the Madison, Park and Fifth Avenue sections.  But that year wealthy literary agent Elisabeth Marbury commissioned architect Mott Schmidt to transform an old rowhouse at No. 13 Sutton Place into a neo-Georgian residence.   By the mid-1920's Sutton Place had become an exclusive enclave, home to residents like Anne Morgan and Anne Vanderbilt.

In 1926 real estate operator Joseph G. Thomas commissioned Van Wart & Wein to design an upscale apartment building at the end of East 52nd Street overlooking the East River, slightly to the south of Sutton Place.   The 14-floor building was completed the following year--a Jazz Age take on Venetian Gothic.

The two-story base of rough-faced stone reflected traditional elements of Gothic design.  The entrance was recessed within a pointed arched opening, and trefoils and tracery embellished the second floor.  The upper floors were faced in rough-faced brick which gave the impression of age.

There were just sixteen apartments within The Beekman Campanile.  The architects took advantage of the riverside location by including a yacht landing and private club, the Montauk Yacht Club.

The building quickly attracted upper class residents.  Among the first was Ralph Pulitzer, Jr., grandson of publisher Joseph Pulitzer.  His sprawling apartment had an additional occupant following his wedding to Bessie Catherine Aspinwall on June 27, 1929.

Living here at the same time was Leonard Outhwaite and his wife.  The couple maintained a 90-foot schooner, the Kinkajou.  On June 30, 1929, according to The New York Times, the "Outhwaite yacht set sail from the Montauk Yacht Club landing at Fifty-second Street and East River."  The cruise would entail 13,000 miles and last eight months.  It did not go entirely smoothly.  Outhwaite had to take over the handling of the vessel himself after Captain Olaf Berg was tragically drowned near England.

On November 27, 1931 the New York Evening Post reported quietly "Mrs. William K. Dick rented an apartment at 450 East Fifty-second Street."  She was Madeleine Talmadge Force Astor Dick, the widow of John Jacob Astor, who died in the sinking of the R.M.S. Titanic, and current wife of millionaire William Karl Dick.   It was no doubt the couple's domestic problems which prompted her taking an apartment alone.  Within two years Madeleine divorced William Dick and quickly married Enzo Fiermonte.

One colorful resident in particular, The New Yorker critic Alexandex Woollcott, may have changed the personality of The Beekman Campanile.  In his 1956 book More in Sorrow, Wolcott Gibbs wrote that after the break-up of the Algonquin Round Table its members visited Woollcott here.

While they no longer knew one another intimately, however, almost all of them kept in pretty close touch with Mr. Woollcott.  His apartment at 450 East Fifty-second Street, which Dorothy Parker in a spasm of rascality had named Wit's End, was a comfortable, untidy garret looking down on the East River, and long after the Round Table and the Thanatopsis Club were dead it was still a hangout for whatever members of the old mob happened to be in town.  Sunday breakfast there lasted practically all day, with Mr. Woollcott in rumpled pajamas and an ancient, rather horrible dressing gown, receiving his guests from a throne in one corner with an air that would have done credit to Queen Victoria.

In the meantime the Mayfair Yacht Club with its stunning river views was a favorite among society.  On October 14, 1932, for instance, The New York Sun reported that "Mrs. James H. Snowden gave a luncheon yesterday at the Mayfield Yacht Club, 450 East Fifty-second street."  Its Marine Room featured an orchestra and dancing.  And alcohol.

On February 1, 1933 The New York Sun reported that the "classy speakeasy" had been raided.  Prohibition agents had been tipped off two weeks earlier by a disgusted patron who objected to paying $1 for a bottle of beer in the tough Depression years.  The article said he felt it "was plain highway robbery and he thought something should be done about it."  Something, indeed, was done.  The manager, a beer delivery man, and fifteen waiters and bartenders were arrested.

The Great Depression had little effect on the residents like the Pulitzers, still here in the 1940's, and wealthy tenants like John Hertz and his family, the Thomas L. Chadbournes (whose chef had previously worked for King Edward VIII), the family of John Louis Zauggs, and Henry Wise Miller and his writer and activist wife, Alice Duer Miller.

Seen as it appeared in May 1930, the pine-paneled library of Henry and Alice Duer Miller was decorated with antique furnishings and paintings.  photo by Samuel H. Gottscho from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

Alice Duer Miller's bedroom was more like a Parisian salon.  photo by Samuel H. Gottscho from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

Perhaps the Beekman Campanile's first truly theatrical resident was Noël Coward, who took the former apartment of Alexander Woollcott.  In 1942 film executive Gustoaf Miesegaes, president of Transfilm, Inc., took a nine-room apartment; and in May 6 the following year actress Ethel Barrymore moved into the former duplex apartment of the recently deceased Alice Duer Miller.

Stage and screen star Ethel Barrymore was theatrical royalty.  from the collection of the Library of Congress.

In 1953 film star Greta Garbo took a fifth floor apartment.  The now-retired actress decorated her home in her personal style, including having an antique Swedish skåp (a painted armoire) dismantled and installed as wall panels in a bedroom.  She personally designed several of the colorful rugs.

The pine paneling in this section of the Garbo apartment matched that of the Miller apartment's library.  photo via 6sqft.com

Already living in the building were some of Garbo's friends, like George Schlee and his fashion designer wife Valentina, and Sir William Stephenson.  Other residents at the time included Clare Boothe and Henry Luce (founder of TIME magazine), H. J. Heinz and his wife (whose apartment had twenty-one rooms), Drue, Rex Harrison, publisher Walter Thayer, and actress Mary Martin.

Garbo installed panels from an antique Swedish armoire on the walls of a guest room.  photo via 6sqft.com

Valentina Schlee designed Garbor's wardrobe and by the mid-1940's George Schlee was her financial adviser.  The trio would sometimes attend social events together; but little-by-little Greta's and George's relationship deepened.  According to Richard Alleman in his New York: The Movie Lover's Guide, Schlee was "her escort, her confidant, and often her traveling companion."  It came to a head when, while Garbo and Schlee had adjoining suites in the Crillon Hotel in Paris, Schlee suffered a fatal heart attack.

Alleman writes "When Garbo discovered that Schlee was dead, she reportedly ran from the hotel and left Valentina to deal with the messy details...Garbo's irresponsible behavior is said to have so angered Valentina that she made it clear that she didn't want the actress to attend her husband's funeral.  The two remained neighbors at 450 East 52nd Street for years thereafter but reportedly never again exchanged a word."

This unusual portrait of Garbo was taken in 1925 by German-American photographer Arnold Genthe from the collection of the Library of Congress

Garbo died on April 15, 1990 leaving an estate estimated at around $200 million.  Her sole heir was her niece, Gray Gustafson Reisfield.  She and her husband, Dr. Donald Reisfield, used the Beekman Campanile apartment as a pied-à-terre until moving in permanently in 2012.  Following Gray Reisfield's death in 2017 the three-bedroom apartment was put on the market for $5.95 million.  Multiple offers came in and it sold later that year for $8.5 million.

The Beekman Campanile--home over the decades to millionaires, celebrities and a speakeasy--has changed little since the glittering Gatsby Era along the East River when it was first opened.

non-credited photographs by the author
many thanks to film historian John Chalupa for suggesting this post