The 1899 Vincent Loeser House - 320 West 108th Street

 

Prolific developer Joseph A. Farley and the architectural firm Janes & Leo repeatedly worked together in the late 1890s.  In fact, their offices were in the same building, 967 Boulevard (later renamed Broadway).  Janes & Leo designed several projects of speculative, upscale rowhouses in the Upper West Side and on October 7, 1898 they filed plans for another: four sumptuous homes at 316 through 322 West 108th Street for Farley.

Mysteriously, the architects designed the row as three harmonious neo-Georgian-style homes and one Beaux Arts beauty that had nothing in common with the others.

The architects solved the problem of the downward slope of West 108th Street by increasing the stoops of each house by one step.  Record & Guide, September 2, 1899 (copyright expired)

The plans projected the construction costs at a total of $110,000 (or just over $1 million each in 2025 terms).  Faced in red brick above a limestone base, 320 West 108th Street rose five stories.  Its American basement plan placed the entrance above a three-step stoop, its doorway flanked by free-standing Scamozzi capitals.  The lower four floors were bowed, providing a stone-balustraded balcony, or sleeping porch, to the fifth floor.  

On December 21, 1899, The World reported that Farley had sold 320 West 108th Street for $42,000 (about $1.64 million today).  The owners were Vincent Adolf Loeser and his wife, the former Mary Craven Thomae.  The couple, who were married in 1893, were both born in Brooklyn--Vincent in 1857 and Mary in 1867.  They had no children.

Educated in private schools, at the age of 22 Loeser became a member of the Produce Exchange.  When he and Mary moved into the West 108th Street house, he was the head of the brokerage firm Loeser, Robinson & Armstrong and a member of the Academy of Political Science.  In 1905, he was appointed president of the East River National Bank.

Like all well-to-do New Yorkers, incidents in the lives of the couple were followed by the society columns.  On October 3, 1909, for instance, the New York Herald announced, "Miss Carol Thomae and her aunt, Miss Caroline Jenks, of No. 22 Monroe Place [Brooklyn], will spend the winter with Miss Thomae's sister, Mrs. Vincent Loeser, at No. 320 West 108th Street."  And at the end of the summer social season of 1911, The New York Times noted on November 12, "Mr. and Mrs. Vincent Loeser will spend the Winter at 320 West 108th Street."

Carol Thomae still lived at 22 Monroe Place in Brooklyn in 1918.  On April 1 that year, Vincent and Mary visited her and while there, Vincent suffered a fatal heart attack.  He was 60 years old.

Mary left West 108th Street shortly after her husband's death.  She sold the house to Joseph P. Walsh and his wife, Agnes.  Born in Brooklyn, Walsh graduated from De La Salle College in 1883.  He and Agnes had a daughter and two sons.  

After running a plumbing supply business, Walsh became treasurer of the Law Recording Company in 1906.  He was not primarily known for his professional activities, however.  The New York Herald said, "Mr. Walsh at one time was one of the best known bowlers and bicycle riders in the city."  A member of the New York Athletic Club, he was still active in both sports when he purchased 320 West 108th Street.  Unfortunately, he would not enjoy the house for long.  He died here at the age of 57 on December 27, 1921.

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services

Agnes Walsh leased a room to a Columbia grad student in 1923.  Paul Alexander Tihler was from Youngstown, Ohio.  The 37-year-old was enrolled in Columbia's School of Architecture.  During the war he had served as a first sergeant with the medical corps.  His talent as an architect earned him a bronze model for excellence from the Institute of Beaux Arts in 1917.

Tihler spent Thanksgiving Day with friends.  They later said that he "was not feeling well" and "that he had been unable to find employment for the last six months," according to The Columbia Spectator on December 8, 1923.  The day before that article, Agnes Walsh had found Tihler dead in his room.  The Columbia Spectator reported, "Dr. Vance said last night that a blotter had been placed over the gas jet in the room to direct the fumes of the gas downward."  Tihler's death was ruled a suicide.

Agnes Walsh sold 320 West 108th Street to Marietta Sinopoli in October 1927.  For the next seven years it was home to the Japanese M. E. Church, and in 1936 was sold twice.  The late Depression and World War II years were not kind to the once elegant home.  In 1944 it was listed as a rooming house.

A renovation completed in 1986 resulted in apartments, including one within the new penthouse level, unseen from the street.  It is possible that during the remodeling the stone balustrade was removed from the fifth floor balcony.

photographs by the author