The Joseph H. Choate Jr. House - 158 East 71st Street

 

Born in Germany in 1823, Henry Elias earned his fortune in beer.  The founder and president of the Henry Elias Brewing Company, in 1873 he added to his resume with a membership to the Produce Exchange.  By the early 1880s, he and his family lived at 158 East 71st Street, one of seven identical houses built in 1871 by Andrew Barry and Ira G. Lane.  

Designed by Irish-born William O'Gorman, the 20-foot-wide house was three stories tall above a high English basement.  Faced in brownstone, its Italianate design included an arched entrance under a peaked pediment supported by scrolled, foliate brackets.  The parlor windows wore triangular pediments, while the upper floor openings sat within architraves with molded sills and cornices.

Henry Elias arrived in America in 1850 and started his first brewery in 1855.  Katharina Elias was Henry's second wife.  His previous marriage to Ernestine Schmidt ended in divorce.  Moving into the house with Henry and Katharina were their children, William, Elsa, and Katie; and Henry's son, Henry Jr., from his previous marriage.

In 1885, daughter Elsa was sent to Cassel, Germany (today's Kassel) for schooling.  The Evening World described the 16-year-old as "not over-bright but rather pretty."  Henry and Katharina visited her in the winter of 1887 and Henry died there on February 27, 1888.

His will directed that his stock in the Henry Elias Brewery Company (valued at $300,000, or about $10.5 million in 2026) be held in trust for his children.  Obviously embittered even in death, Elias mentioned his former wife, Ernestine, in the will.  It directed that his heirs "must never give her anything and that they shall receive nothing from him if they do."

What no one knew at the time of Henry's death was that Elsa had become the lover of Oscar Moeller, a "bald-headed, middle-aged man," as described by The Evening World, who ran a store in Cassel.  Following the settlement of her father's will, the two ran off.  In a sensational chain of events, the couple was captured and Moeller was arrested for abduction.  He escaped and, using a fraudulent passport, fled to England with Elsa, and then to Queensland, Australia.  They were recaptured there.  On August 7, 1888, The Evening World reported that Moeller "whines that he is not an abductor, but was being abducted by the giddy heiress."  The New-York Tribune said the scandal "has created quite a sensation in German society circles in this city."

In 1891, Katharina Elias leased 158 East 71st Street to Solomon and Doris Landsberger.  (Frustratingly, their name was often spelled as Landsberg.)  Landsberger was described by The New York Times as "a wealthy jeweler."  The couple had five children: Sadie, Jacob, Monte, Estelle and Madeleine.  

Solomon Landsberger died in the house on April 1, 1897.  His funeral was held in the house three days later.  

The following year, on December 18, 1898, Doris announced Sadie's engagement to Samuel G. Isaacs.  The wedding took place on March 12, 1899 and the reception was held in Carnegie Hall.  The New York Times noted, "Over 200 invitations have been issued."

The event was, perhaps, somewhat tarnished by Doris's arrest two months earlier.  For some time, Anna Coulter, a store detective in a Grand Street establishment, had been suspicious of Doris, going so far as to following her home to ascertain her address.  On January 13, 1899, Doris entered the store and Coulter "decided to watch her."  According to her, "I disguised myself as an old woman and followed her from counter to counter."  When Doris attempted to leave the store, Coulter detained her.  She was arrested for shoplifting and at the station house gave name as Mrs. S. Solomon.  Coulter, however, had done her homework and gave the detectives her true identity.

Doris's lawyer, Hyman Rosenheim, told The New York Times that his client was "a wealthy widow," saying she "possesses a fortune of over $175,000."  He surmised that she was suffering from kleptomania.  Happily for Doris, her case was dismissed after she appeared before the Grand Jury "and made a satisfactory explanation."

In May 1903, Katharina Elias sold 158 East 71st Street to Joseph Hodges Choate Jr.  It would become the home of him and his bride, Cora Lyman Oliver.  The couple were married the following month, on June 7 in Albany.  The New-York Tribune called the ceremony, "an assemblage representative of the society of New-York, Albany and other centres."

Choate was the son of Joseph H. Choate, Ambassador to Great Britain, and Cora was the daughter of General Robert Shaw Oliver.  On May 30, 1903, Automobile Topics reported, "A ten-day automobile trip will be a feature of the wedding journey and will be supplemented by a trip to England...Upon their return to America, in September, they will reside at 158 east 71st street, New York."

Joseph Choate as he appeared in 1897 and in 1922.  Harvard College Class of 1897, 1922 (copyright expired)

Born in 1876, Choate worked as a private secretary in the London Embassy until 1900 when he returned to law school.  When he and Cora married, he was a member of the law firm Evarts, Choate & Sherman.  

While the couple was on their honeymoon, architect George B. de Gersdorff made interior updates to the house.  (The renovations cost the Choates the equivalent of $113,000 today.)

The population of 158 East 71st Street gradually increased.  Marion was born on February 1, 1905, and Helen arrived on November 21, 1906.  Two years later, on December 22, 1908, Priscilla would be born, and Joseph 3d on February 22, 1912.

Cora survived a terrifying incident on November 7, 1906.  She and Mrs. Samuel A. Tucker and her children went on a ride in Central Park.  Suddenly the horse bolted and the driver lost all control.  A mounted officer saw the runaway and galloped after it.  "At Ninety-sixth Street the policeman overtook the runaway and, leaning over from his saddle, caught the bridle of the frightened horse," reported The New York Times.  Officer Daly was "dragged to Ninety-seventh Street before he brought the runaway to a standstill."  The article said the women and children were "frightened, but were not injured."

The Choates brought back George B. de Gersdorff in 1908.  On July 23, The Evening Post reported that plans had been filed to enlarge the Choate house by adding a mansard level.  The article said it would "be used for sleeping quarters for servants, and will have two guests' chambers with baths and toilets."  

158 East 71st Street was now one-story taller than its neighbors.  via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

The addition would not be the last time that George B. de Gersdorff and the Choates would work together.  In 1918, the couple purchased 10 and 12 East 94th Street and hired Gersdorff to convert the vintage brownstones to a single mansion.  As construction of 10 East 94th Street was nearing completion, on January 12, 1919 the New-York Tribune reported that the Choates had sold 158 East 71st Street.  The article said, "It will be occupied by the purchaser after slight alterations have been made."

The buyers were Lansing Parmalee Reed and his wife, the former Ruth Lawrence.  Born on April 2, 1882, Lansing Reed was a corporate attorney and a partner in the law firm of Davis, Polk, Wardwell, Gardiner & Reed.  Ruth was born in Boston in 1886, the daughter of Episcopal Bishop William Lawrence.  (Her brothers were Bishop Frederic Lawrence Lawrence and Bishop William Appleton Lawrence.)

When the Reeds moved in, they had four daughters, Ruth Lawrence, Julia Cunningham, Hester Lansing, and Mary Parmalee.  A fifth, Joan, would be born on December 11, 1927.  The family's country home, Windy Hill, was at Cold Spring Harbor, Long Island.

As the daughters grew, their names gradually made their way into the society pages.  On September 7, 1935, for instance, The New York Times reported, "Miss Hester Lansing Reed...made her début tonight at a supper dance given by her parents at Windy Hill, their Summer home...The party was similar to those given for her sisters, Miss Julia Reed, last season, and the former Miss Ruth Reed, now Mrs. Samuel Hazard Gillespie Jr., during a previous Autumn."  The article noted, "The guests included about 250 members of the younger set."

Two years later, on February 23, 1937, The New York Evening Post reported, "Miss Hester Reed, the attractive daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Lansing Parmalee Reed...has been chosen by George Haines Weed of Savannah, Ga., to lead the Junior Promenade at Yale, this Friday night."

Around Thanksgiving that year, Lansing Parmalee Reed became ill.  His condition worsened to pneumonia and he died in the 71st Street house on December 2, 1937 at the age of 55.

Just five months later, in May 1938, Ruth Reed sold the house to editor Robert Littell and his wife, the former Anita Blaine Damrosch.  Born in Milwaukee on May 25, 1896, Robert was the grandson of Eliakim Littell, founder of The Living Age, and the son of Philip Littell, an editor on The Milwaukee Sentinel.  Robert started his career in 1922 as a staff member of The New Republic.   The same year that he and Anita purchased 158 East 71st Street, he joined The Reader's Digest.  He was the author of a novel, Candles in the Storm, and a play (with Sidney Howard), Gather Ye Rosebuds.

Anita was the granddaughter of Dr. Leopold Damrosch, founder of the Oratorio Society and introducer of German opera at the Metropolitan Opera, and daughter of Walter Damrosch, conductor of the New York Symphony Orchestra.  

The couple would have four children: Alisa, Walter, Philip and Blaine.  Their country home was in Tyringham, Massachusetts.

The family remained here until August 1952, when they sold the house to Janice Lowenstein.  Unlike most of its contemporaries on the block, 158 East 71st Street was never converted to apartments nor modernized on the exterior.

Other than replacement windows and stoop railings, the house looks little changed since the Choates added a stylish fourth floor.

photographs by the author

The Richard Stevens House -- No. 171 East 70th Street

photo by Nicolas Lemery Nantel / salokin.com

In 1871 development on the Upper East Side was rampant.  The official completion of Central Park was just two years away (as was, on a less positive note, the great Financial Panic of 1873).  Investors and developers funneled their funds into the erection of speculative rows of brownstone homes aimed at the upper middle-class.  Among them was Thomas Smith who commissioned William O’Gorman to design six houses on East 70^th Street, Nos. 165 through 171 that year.

Three stories high over an English basement, the Italianate houses would have been little different from scores of other such homes rising in the neighborhood.  The house at No. 171 became home to the Thomas Thorpe family by the last decade of the century.  Thorpe and his wife Mary took their several children each summer to Patchogue, Long Island.  They were an accident-prone brood.

In 1896 one of the boys was nearly drowned while swimming in the Patchogue Bay.  The following season his brother “while riding a bicycle, was run down by a stage and nearly killed,” as reported by The Sun.  And on July 4, 1898 8-year old Mary Thorpe was celebrating Independence Day with fireworks.  The Sun reported the following day “In lighting a pinwheel a flying spark ignited her dress.”  The newspaper said that she was severely burned; although Dr. T. S. Divors “does not think [the wounds] will result fatally.”

The Thorpes stayed on through the turn of the century, at one point purchasing No. 169 next door, presumably as rental income.  Both properties were in Mary’s name.  But then in 1906 the change that was sweeping over the Upper East Side in general was magnified on the East 70th Street

Joseph L. Buttenweiser had demolished Nos. 154 and 156 with the intention of building a sanitarium.  The iron framework had already been erected when the project came to a halt.  With Manhattan’s wealthiest citizens building in the area, property values here were more suited for upscale homes.  In February 1906 Harry H. Hollister and Henry D. Babcock purchased the property to “remodel the iron frame and improve the plot with private houses,” said The Sun on February 6.

The entire block was about to get a make-over.  Within the same week Babcock’s son purchased No. 158, Hollister’s son-in-law purchased No. 160, and Hollister purchased No. 162.  “These three dwellings will be modernized and occupied by the purchasers,” said The Sun.

“In view of the radical change taking place in the character of the block, Please & Elliman have formed a syndicate which has purchased the remaining parcels that were for sale in the block.”  The syndicate then sold off the houses for the owners.  Those sales included Nos. 176, 155, 157, 159, 173, 175, and the two houses owned by the Thorpes—Nos. 169 and 171.

Robert H. E. Elliott purchased both of the Thorpe homes, according to The Sun.  Elliott apparently had no intentions of moving in to No. 171, for within three days he resold it.  No. 179 down the block sold on the same day.

Richard T. Stevens and his wife Georgiana purchased No. 171.  The couple was rarely in town for the winter season and the house was repeatedly leased.  In 1909 Edward Powis Jones took the house.  He was a partner in the Sperry Gyroscope Company.  Jones would be one of the last renters in the old brownstone.  Within two years the Stevens commissioned George B. de Gersdroff to update their Victorian dwelling.

As was happening throughout the area, the architect removed the brownstone façade, moved the entrance to the sidewalk level, and created an updated Edwardian residence.  Following the lead of Augustus N. Allen who had remodeled the house next door at No. 169 in 1910; de Gersdroff turned to the neo-Federal style.

Completed in 1911, the Stevens house gave the first impression as having been built as a pair with its neighbor.  Both had rusticated brick bases, iron-railed balconies at the second floor, and centered three-part openings at the three upper stories.  The similarities continued with the large centered dormers above the cornices.

photo by Nicolas Lemery Nantel / salokin.com

The Stevens continued to lease the house and in 1913 it was taken by Robert L. Livingston.  A member of the influential and wealthy Livingstons “of Revolutionary stock,” as described by The Evening World, Robert had had his share of misfortune.  On December 21, 1902 he had married Helen L. Kountze, “much courted for her good looks and charming manner,” according to The Evening World.

The newlyweds received a “colonial villa” in Morristown, New Jersey as a wedding present from Robert Livingston, Sr.  A year later his lovely Helen Kountze suddenly died at the home of her parents.

Now joining him in the 70th Street house in 1913 was his relatively new bride.  Livingston had married Marie Sheedy in February 1911.  The Evening World called her the “richest girl in Denver.”

The Stevens continued to rent the house in the years to come.  In 1919 they signed a lease “for a matter of years” according to The Sun.  Their new tenants were Duncan D. Stuphen, his wife Jane, and her widowed mother Eleanor Kevan Fraser.

Sutphen was a member of the textile firm A. D. Juilliard & Co.  The year 1919 would be a highly traumatic and tragic one for the businessman.  Suddenly on Tuesday morning February 11 Eleanor Fraser died in the house.   Her funeral was held in the parlor three days later, on Valentine’s Day, at 10 a.m.

Duncan Sutphen would attend another funeral in April—that of his employer, millionaire Augustus D. Juilliard.  But even more tragically, the following month, on May 24, his wife, Jane, died in the 70^th Street house.  In a morbid case of déjà vu, her funeral was held here on Tuesday morning, May 27 at 10:30.

photo by Nicolas Lemery Nantel / salokin.com

The Stevens continued to hold on to the property and it saw a succession of wealthy tenants.  On June 22, 1921 The New York Times reported that “Mr. and Mrs. Frederick L. Collins have taken Mrs. Richard T. Stevens’s house at 171 East Seventieth Street for their residence.”  Collins was the publisher and president of McClure’s magazine.

Following the Collins family, that of Dr. Hugh Auchincloss would be long-term residents.  The family summered in Kennebunkport and the East 70^th Street home would be the scene of many social events throughout the years. 

On November 26, 1927 a dinner was given in honor of daughter Frances, followed by a debutante ball at the Colony Club.  The following year it was daughter Maria’s turn to be introduced to society.  Now the young women participated in hosting teas and receptions in the house for their favorite charities. 

Hugh and Katharine Auchincloss lived on at No. 171 as one-by-one their children were wed.  Frances married Thomas Watson Armitage in a fashionable St. Bartholomew’s ceremony on January 10, 1930; Maria was next, marrying Allen Look in Kennebunkport on July 2, 1934; and in 1942 the engagements of both Barbara and Hugh Jr. were announced.

In 1946, after four decades of ownership, Georgiana H. Stevens sold the house to Robert W. Straus, Jr.  A member of an old and prominent New York family, Straus was a publisher and President of Farrar, Straus & Giroux.

By 1959 the Strauses had become unhappy with the Edwardian interiors.  They mentioned their issues to an artist friend, Francis Scott Bradford.  Among these, according to Rita Reif of The New York Times on April 9, 1960 were “leaded windows, which obscured the views of street and garden and rejected sunlight” and “foot-thick moldings, which cheated the rooms of height.”

Although Bradford was “a complete amateur in architecture, interior and furniture design,” according to Reif, he set about gutting and renovating the Straus interiors.  He designed the furnishings and produced a 1960s Modern environment appropriate for the Jetsons.  While the spaces were trendy and artistic, they were irrelevant to the building and were quickly dated.

photo by Nicolas Lemery Nantel / salokin.com

Before the house went on sale for $5.75 million in 2013, Bradford’s Mod renovations had been reversed.  Ceiling moldings were replaced, period mantels installed and parquet floors laid in an effort to recapture an historic feel.  In the meantime, little has changed to de Gersdroff’s 1911 façade.