The 1869 Oswin O'Brien House - 128 East 37th Street

 

Prolific architect John G. Prague, who would design hundreds of Manhattan rowhouses before the 1890s, was hired in 1868 by speculative developer and carpenter John Coar to design four upscale homes at 124 to 130 East 37th Street.  Faced in brownstone, they rose four stories above English basements.  Prague's Second Empire design included slate-shingled mansards, nearly obligatory to the style.

The row was completed in 1869.  Oswin J. and Elizabeth G. O'Brien purchased 128 East 37th Street.  The couple had a son, Oswin Jr.  Born in 1826, Oswin Sr. was a stockbroker and member of the New York Stock Exchange.  Additionally, around 1864 he opened "The Palace" department store at the corner of 14th Street and Sixth Avenue.

The O'Brien family sold 128 East 37th Street in 1873 to William Adams Walker Stewart and his wife, the former Frances Loring Gray.  Stewart was a wealthy lawyer.  He would be lost at sea when his yacht, Cythera, disappeared during a  voyage to the West Indies in March 1888.  Eight years before that tragedy, he and Frances sold 128 East 37th Street to his massively wealthy father, John Aikman Stewart, for $17,000 (about $523,000 in 2024).

Born on Fulton Street on August 26, 1822, John A. Stewart was married to Sarah Youle Johnson.  He had served as Assistant Secretary of the Treasury during the Civil War.  Now he was president of the United States Trust Company and a director in several banks and insurance companies.  He and Sarah, who lived almost directly across the street at 125 East 37th Street, apparently purchased the house for their daughter, Emily, and son-in-law, Robert Waller, Jr.

In June 1882, John Aikman Stewart hired architect James Brown Lord to enlarge the Waller's house by adding a two-story extension to the rear.  It is unclear exactly how long Emily and Robert Waller remained here, but the house was occupied by the aristocratic Van Vleck family by 1889.

Walter Van Vleck was described by the New York Herald as "the dashing sergeant major of the Ninth regiment."  At the Regiment Ball in 1889, 17-year-old Minnie Ahearn caught Van Vleck's eye.  The New York Herald described her as being,

...tall for one of her years, with a fine, well developed figure and might easily pass for a maiden of twenty-five.  Her dark, heavy eyebrows and rich brown hair could attract attention anywhere, while her beautiful eyes and well rounded face have caused many a gallant masculine heart to flutter on the West side since she has been living on Twenty-sixty street with her aunt and guardian, Mrs. Margaret Higgins.

Margaret Higgins kept a close rein on her ward.  But the 40-year-old bachelor and his new sweetheart managed to communicate by love letters sneaked back-and-forth via a young girl.  The romance came to a climax on January 13, 1890, when Minnie Ahearn and Walter Van Vleck both disappeared.  

A week later, with the couple still missing, The Press pointed out the social differences between them.  "Love laughs at locksmiths and scorns all the artificial distinctions of rank, wealth, birth and breeding.  It is, however a long time since Love, the leveler, has shown himself so thoroughly democratic as in the probable elopement of Walter Van Vleck of 128 East thirty-seventh street with Minnie Ahearn of 204 West Twenty-sixth street."  The New York Herald wrote, 

At the residence of the Van Vleck family all was excitement yesterday.  Walter had been telegraphing to his two sisters and mother nearly every day during the week to make excuses for various engagements to dinner parties, &c., for him.  Members of the family are greatly shocked over the affair, because the young lady in the case does not move in the same fashionable set nor in society at all for that matter.

It was later confirmed that the two unlikely lovers had married.

By 1900, John Aikman Stewart was leasing 128 East 37th Street to the John Jay White family.  White and his wife, the former Virginia Grace Hoffman, had a teenaged daughter, Louise Lawrence White.

Interestingly, when the house was leased for winter social season of 1900-1901, the New-York Tribune did not mention Louise's parents.  The article on December 9, 1900 read, "Mr. and Mrs. Lester del Garcia have taken No. 128 East Thirty-seventh-st. for the winter.  It is the home of Miss White."

On May 10, 1903, The New York Times reported on the engagement of Louise to Walter Lispenard Suydam, Jr., saying, "The extreme youth of the couple neither being over eighteen years of age, gives it a touch of the romantic."  The article noted, "The attendants selected are related to nearly all the old Knickerbocker representative branches, including the Suydams, the Lispenards, the Delafields, the Lydigs, the Mesiers, the Hoffmans, the Jays, and a score of others."

Walter Lispenard Suydam.  Portraits of the Presidents of the [Saint Nicholas] Society, 1835-1914 (copyright expired)

Indeed, the couple was so young that on January 28, 1904, in reporting that Louise "gave one of a series of days at home," The New York Times mentioned that she "was Miss White, and she and Mr. Suydam were married last Summer.  Mr. Suydam was then still at college, and his wife had not made her debut in society."

The Suydams appeared in the society columns repeatedly over the next few years.  The couple welcomed a baby girl, Louise Lispenard, in June 1905.  Tragically, she died on January 24, 1906, at the age of six months.

Two years later, Louise had a brush with death.  On February 15, 1907, The New York Times reported, "Mrs. Walter L. Suydam, Jr., who is in town for the Winter at her home, 128 East Thirty-seventh Street, is seriously ill with typhoid fever."

The Suydams remained here until 1909 when the 11-room, two-bath house was sold.  The couple's marriage would end tragically two years later.  In 1911, Louise left Walter for the 22-year-old son of a Brooklyn plumber, Frederick Noble.  They were married in January 1912.  A month later, on February 5, The New York Times ran the headline, "Dies With Youth She Eloped With / Suicide by Gas Ends Romance of Young Noble and the Former Mrs. Suydam."  The article said that their short marriage was troubled, and surmised that Louise discovered she was still in love with Walter.  The two committed suicide together.

In the meantime, the 37th Street house was purchased jointly by Alexander Stewart Walker and Leon Narcisse Gillette, partners in the architectural firm of Walker & Gillette.  They converted the upper floors to apartments and installed their offices in the lower floors.  An advertisement in The New York Times on April 23, 1911 offered, "Two Apartments, 128 East 37th Street, 3 and 4 rooms and bath."

Walker & Gillette was a highly respected firm which, at the time, was mostly responsible for lavish country homes and New York City townhouses.  Among the residences they designed from 128 East 37th Street were the 1914 Warren M. Salisbury estate in Pittsfield, Massachusetts; the 1917 Henry P. Davison mansion at 690 Park Avenue; and Coe Hall in Oyster Bay, Long Island, erected between 1918 and 1921. 

Walker & Gillette occupied 128 East 37th Street through 1926.  In the 1930s, the house was owned and occupied by well-known stage designer, Norman Bel Geddes and his partner, George Howe.  Bel Geddes was described by The New York Times as "a brilliant craftsman and draftsman, a master of style, the 20th century's Leonardo da Vinci."

In 1936, Bel Geddes designed the "Metropolis City of 1960."  It, perhaps, landed him the job that year of assisting production designer William Cameron Menzies in fabricating the sets for the H. G. Wells science fiction film, Things to Come.

Not everything was so positive for Bel Geddes in 1936.  That year on August 21, the Elmhurst, New York Daily Register reported that Edna Buckler had filed a $2 million lawsuit claiming that the play Dead End was "a plagiarism from her play entitled 'Money.'"  The article said she was suing the play's author, Sidney Kingsley; its producer, Norman Bel Geddes; Random House, which published the drama; and Samuel Goldwyn, who bought the film rights.

A scalloped, arched entranceway was created after the removal of the stoop.  image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

In 1940, following Bel Geddes's sale of the house, it was converted to apartments.  The stoop was removed and a rather dramatic entrance created at the former English basement level.  Otherwise, the exterior was little changed.

At some point the entrance framing was removed.  There are four apartments in the house today, including three duplexes (two of which share the third and fourth floors).

photograph by the author

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