By the time Russell Cornell Leffingwell purchased 38 East 69th Street in 1927, the 49-year-old attorney had made a name for himself in both the financial and legal communities. In 1917, he was appointed Assistant Secretary of the Treasury. In reporting on the appointment, The New York Times said, "Mr. Leffingwell is well known as a finance lawyer, and has for several years been a member of the firm of Cravath & Henderson." Leffingwell presided over the sale of Liberty Bonds, and The New York Times said, "He has given his services without compensation, and has lived almost night and day in the Treasury Building since he took up the work on the loans."
Russell Cornell Leffingwell, from the collection of the Library of Congress
Leffingwell married Luchen (known as Lucy) Hewitt in 1906. The following year their daughter Lucy was born. After World War I, he brought his family back to New York City and in 1923 was made a partner in the banking firm J. P. Morgan & Co.
The high-stooped brownstone on East 69th Street that Leffingwell purchased in April 1927 was one of seven identical rowhouses built around 1875. Noting that the vintage house "is in the vicinity of many fine residences," The New York Times said he bought it "as a site for improvement with his new home...Construction of Mr. Leffingwell's new residence will be started immediately."
Those plans soon changed. Leffingwell purchased the house next door at 40 East 69th Street and, rather than demolish the four-story residences as originally reported, he hired architect Edward Shepard Hewitt to combine and remodel them. The entry to No. 38 was closed and an elegant, split staircase replaced the stoop of No. 40 and a handsome neo-Georgian entrance installed. Interestingly, Hewitt made few other changes to the facade. The lintels of the first through third floor windows were shaved flat, replaced by prim keystones. Round-arched openings replaced the originals on the fourth floor, and an impassive parapet took the place of a cornice.
The neo-Georgian doorway was a mere hint of the interiors. Hewitt lavished the rooms with details inspired by 18th century English architecture, including delicate plaster Adam-style ceilings.
Georgian doorways flanked the marble-tiled entrance hall. from the collection of the Library of Congress.
Lucy had been introduced to society while an undergraduate at Vassar College in 1926. The family had just moved into the East 69th Street mansion when her parents announced her engagement to Thomas John Edward Pulling on January 15, 1928.
The Library. from the collection of the Library of Congress.
The Leffingwell's 116-acre country estate was Redcote at Oyster Bay, Long Island. Its picturesque main house was originally a 19th-century farmhouse.
Lucy's wedding took place at St. John's Episcopal Church in Cold Spring Harbor, Long Island on June 23, 1928. The New York Times reported, "Following the ceremony at the church there was a reception at the home of the bride's parents on Yellow Cote Road."
Two views of the dining room, with its exquisite Adam style ceiling. from the collection of the Library of Congress.
At the time of Lucy's wedding, in addition to his partnership in J. P. Morgan & Co., Russell Leffingwell was a director of seven corporations and a trustee of Vassar College. Now empty-nesters, Russell and Lucy remained socially visible. On June 3, 1930, for instance, the New York Evening Post noted, "Mr. and Mrs. Russell C. Leffingwell are at the Westbury before going to Oyster Bay," and four months later on October 22, the newspaper reported the Leffingwells "who had an apartment at the Claridge during their stay in London, are returning today on the Olympic and will go to...38 East Sixty-ninth Street. They will be among those entertaining at the opera Monday night."
On December 14, 1931, the New York Evening Post ran a long article about the many entertainments surrounding the debut of Helen Batcheller. It said in part, "Miss Batcheller was a guest of honor at a large dinner her uncle and aunt, Mr. and Mrs. Russell C. Leffingwell. gave at their home, 38 East Sixty-ninth Street, before the first Junior Assembly."
Two years later, on September 24, 1933, The New York Times began an article saying, "A plot to kidnap a niece of Russell C. Leffingwell, a partner of J. P. Morgan and former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, was frustrated yesterday by Department of Justice agents and the police of Yonkers, N. Y." As Helen Batcheller's wedding to John K. Dougherty neared, her parents received letters that threatened "to abduct her and blow up the Batcheller home unless they received $190,000 to insure her safety."
The terror threat derailed the recent debutante's plans for a society wedding. "On Sept. 13, however, Miss Batcheller and Mr. Doughtery were married quietly at her home, with agents of the Department of Justice as the only witnesses except members of the immediate family." About a week later, the blackmailers arranged a drop-off point for the money. Helen's father deposited the package behind a billboard in Yonkers. Not surprisingly, when a woman retrieved it later, she was arrested, leading to the capture of the other conspirators.
Two views of the living room. from the collection of the Library of Congress
During the Great Depression and World War II, Leffington was consulted about the economy and was supportive of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's taking the country off the gold standard. He told a meeting of the Academy of Political Science in 1934, "When the horrible cycle of deflation began to revolve toward the abyss, the only hope for humanity was to stop gold payments, to go off gold...Cheap money opens the door to recover."
Lucy did her part on the social side. On February 2, 1942, The New York Sun reported, "Mrs. Russell Leffingwell will give a luncheon tomorrow at her home, 38 East 69th street, for members of the executive committee of the Women's Council of the Community Service Society. Mrs. Leffingwell's husband is an honorary vice-president of the society."
In 1948, Russell Leffingwell was made chairman of the board of J. P. Morgan & Co. Although he retired in 1955, he remained on the board as a director.
The Blue Room contained colonial furniture. from the collection of the Library of Congress
In February 1959, Lucy suffered a heart attack. It was followed by pleurisy and pneumonia, and she died at the age of 78 in the East 69th Street mansion on February 8. In reporting her death, The New York Times recalled that she "had been active in the Charity Organization and Community Service Societies and, during World War II, in the work of the Lenox Hill Hospital."
The following year, on October 2, 1960, Russell Cornell Leffingwell died at the age of 82. His decades of accomplishments filled columns in newspapers like The New York Times that reported his death.
In 1966 the Leffingwell mansion was converted to doctors' offices in the basement and two duplex residences on the upper floors. A subsequent renovation, completed in 1970, resulted in a duplex apartment in the basement and parlor levels, and a triplex on the top floors.
photographs by the author
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