The 1843 Christopher Gwyer House - 267 West 11th Street

 

The full-height fourth floor and Italianate cornice were the result of a 19th-century renovation.

Well-to-do butcher Christopher Gwyer purchased the vacant plot at 59 Hammond Street (later renamed and numbered 267 West 11th Street) from builder and developer Andrew Lockwood in 1842.  Lockwood had earlier erected two handsome homes on the abutting plots at 61 and 63 Hammond Street.  He stipulated in the deed that he would erect a similar house for Gwyer within six months of the transfer.

The Gwyer residence, completed in 1843, equaled and in some ways surpassed its neighbors in elegance.  The four-story house was faced in red brick above the high brownstone English basement.  Handsome ironwork decorated with anthemions and lyres protected the areaway, and stone railings and newels originally graced the stoop.

Beside the imposing brownstone framed doorway, the floor-to-ceiling parlor windows were most likely fronted by a cast iron balcony.   A short attic story took the place of the peaked roof and dormers of the earlier Federal style.

Born on February 7, 1795, Christopher Gwyer operated two meat businesses--one in the Washington Market and the other on Hudson Street.  He and his wife, Mary, had four sons, Christopher Jr., George W., John C. and William E.  

It appears that Gwyer's sister, Sarah, and her husband, Samuel Wignalls, lived here as well.  Wignalls died at the age of 54 on April 25, 1848.  His funeral was held in the parlor two days later.

By 1870, Christopher Jr. and George had entered the butcher business.  The three Gwyers operated their own shops.  Christopher was listed as a meat dealer at 25 Washington Market, while George was a poulterer at 202 Washington Market.  Their father's butcher stall was at 8 Washington Market.

Christopher Gwyer died about 1872.  On June 29, 1873, the New York Dispatch reported, "Christopher Gwyer, Jr., is the oldest son of the well-known butcher of Washington Market, is a handsome brunette, very gentlemanly in his address.  Rich, lively, sharp, industrious, and promises in time to be as fat and as wealthy as was his father.  He has several brothers in the poultry line, who are themselves no chickens."

By the time of the article, John C. Gwyer was working for at least two of his brothers on the accounting side of their businesses.  He was listed in directories as "treasurer" of two of the Gwyer operations.  Christopher Jr. moved far uptown to East 116th Street in 1878.  Mary A. Gwyer, too, had moved by 1887, when she leased 267 West 11th Street to Dr. Robert W. Buchanan.  (By then, the attic floor had been raised to full height with a handsome bracketed Italianate cornice, and up-to-date Italianate entrance doors had been installed.)

Born in Scotland in 1862, Buchanan had relocated to Halifax, Nova Scotia, where he met his wife.  In 1883, he graduated from the Chicago College of Physicians and Surgeons.  He and his wife had a young daughter, Gertrude.  Buchanan set up his medical practice in the house, but unfortunately, according to The Philadelphia Times, "He was not very prosperous.  His wife proved unfaithful, and he separated from her, retaining his daughter Gertrude."

Annie Buchanan returned to Nova Scotia.  The failure of his marriage coupled with his financial problems nearly undid the doctor.  The Philadelphia Times said, "He took to drinking and dissipation.  Then he fell in with a woman named Annie Sutherland, the keeper of a notorious house in Newark."

Annie Sutherland was 10 years older than Buchanan.  She fell "desperately in love" with him and convinced him to divorce his wife.  But while she was in love with the doctor, he was in love with her significant fortune.  He obtained his divorce on November 12, 1890.  On November 27, Annie rewrote her will, leaving her entire estate to Buchanan, and two days later they were married.

With his newfound prosperity, Buchanan ended his private practice and became a police surgeon and a "commissioner in lunacy."  Annie gave up her Newark brothel to lead the life of a respectable married woman and step-mother.

Dr. Robert Buchanan, The Philadelphia Times, July 2, 1895

Although professionally successful, Buchanan's domestic life grew tense.  He told peers that she was his housekeeper, not his wife; and confessed to more than one acquaintance he wanted to "dump the old woman."  When Annie threatened to divorce him in April 1892 and return to Newark, taking her fortune with her, Buchanan took action.

On the morning of April 22, Annie made breakfast.  Her husband brought her a cup of coffee.  Soon afterward, she "was taken ill without any preliminary warning," according to The Philadelphia Times.  She died the next day "in the presence of two doctors, a nurse and a clergyman, who, one after the other, had been hastily summoned by the apparently distracted husband."  The death certificate listed the cause of death as "cerebral apoplexy."  Annie Sutherland Buchanan was buried in Greenwood Cemetery on April 25.  She left Buchanan "a fortune, and his little daughter $10,000," said The Evening Post.  (Gertrude's inheritance alone would equal about $345,000 in 2024.)

Two weeks later, Buchanan traveled to Novia Scotia and remarried his first wife (confusingly for newspapers also named Annie).  The marriage, said The New York Times, "made the affair look suspicious."  In May, two men visited the office of District Attorney Nicoll and "said Mrs. Buchanan had been poisoned by her husband."  Undercover police watched the West 11th Street house and trailed Dr. Buchanan.  In the meantime, on June 5, 1892, Nicoll ordered Annie Buchanan's body exhumed for an autopsy.  It revealed no evidence of cerebral hemorrhage, but the presence of large amounts of morphine.

As Dr. Buchanan was walking down Broadway with his attorney, Charles E. Davidson, on the afternoon of June 6, detectives arrested him for the murder of his wife.  His counsel quickly told reporters that Annie Buchanan, "was a confirmed morphine eater, and that if her death resulted from narcotic poisoning, she administered the drug herself."  

At trial, damning evidence came out.  One witness testified that Buchanan "had made preparations for flight to South America," and on April 3, 1893, Annie Florence Warren testified that Buchanan had lamented to her husband, "If I had only had the woman's body cremated nothing would have been found."

On July 2, 1895, The Philadelphia Times headlined an article, "Execution of Dr. Buchanan / The Wife Murderer Pays the Penalty of His Crime at Last."  That morning Buchanan had been electrocuted at Sing Sing prison.

Throughout the sensational case, Mary A. Gwyer had rented 267 West 11th Street to another physician, Dr. George Brockway.  It was the scene of the funeral of his 82-year-old father, Herman R. Brockway, on July 7, 1897.

Around 1900, Mary sold the house to George B. Deane, known in the neighborhood as Old Uncle George.  Born in Greenwich Village in 1817, he was described by The New York Times in 1903 as, "a picturesque and quaint figure of the Greenwich Village section of the city."  A founder of the Republican Party in New York City, he had served in the State Assembly.  The feisty politician had once suggested to Theodore Roosevelt, then president of the Police Board, that he "detail" (or promote) a policeman.  Roosevelt, who had been appointed to his position, replied that "the merit system was in vogue."  (The merit system promoted officers based on their performance.)  Deane was said to have answered, "The merit system was in vogue when you were appointed, also."

The widowed George B. Deane died in the West 11th Street house at the age of 86 on December 29, 1903.  His son, Joseph W. Deane, sold it on March 6, 1906, The New York Times noting it was "formerly owned by the McGuire [sic] estate."

The residence became a high-end boarding house.  Among the residents were Lorenzo N. Rider, a 1906 graduate of Union College and an employee of the Western Electric Co.; George Michael Lawton, who held a Ph.B. degree from Wesleyan University; and Robert H. Wade.  Lawton was affiliated with the Coal and Iron National Bank in 1911, the year that Wade was inducted into the U.S. Army.  He left for camp on April 2 that year.

The substantial stone stoop newels and railings survived in 1941.  image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

An advertisement in The New York Times on October 3, 1920 offered, "Enormous, furnished comfortable back parlor, splendid light, private bath, steam heat. $20."  The rent would translate to about $300 per month today.

The house was occupied by real estate operator F. K. Maximillian and his wife, Adele, at the time.  It appears it was Maximillian who erected the small building in the rear yard, which was accessed through the narrow horsewalk, or passageway, between 267 and 265 West 11th Street.  

The little rear building was home to Adele's showroom.  She designed and made custom children's clothing.  An advertisement in Harper's Bazaar in April 1928 began, "When they are six or one or twelve years old, they delight in wearing the fascinating clothes designed for girls and small boys in my own studio."

A "brother and sister" outfit designed by Adele Maximillian.  Children, the Magazine for Parents, January 1927

The Maximillians remained here into the Depression years.  The former clothing shop became a bake shop in 1940.  On November 22, the Kinderhook, New York Advertiser reported that Dr. Berta Hamilton and Mrs. Piri S. Stanton...have announced the opening of Brick School Tea House Workshop at 267 West 11th street, New York City, specializing in fine cakes, pastries and candies."

By 1949, the rear building had been renovated as a residence.  It was rented that year to artist Joan Mitchell and her partner Barney Rossett.  On September 23, 2021, poet Eileen Myles recalled her first visit.  "Turns out there's a tiny metal gate to the right of the building, itself full of grates and scrolls, and it leads to the single-story building behind 267 West 11th, where Joan and Barney actually wound up living."

Today the former Gwyer house is a two-family home.  The stone balustraded stoop railings and newels were replaced with metal versions prior to 1969, but the overall integrity of the residence is greatly intact.

photographs by the author

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