The Margaret Delprat Remsen Mansion - 3 East 80th Street

 

William W. Hall erected lavish speculative mansions on the Upper East and West Sides in the 1890s and early 1900s.  He often commissioned the architectural firm of Welch, Smith & Provot to design his homes.  Such was the case in 1898 when he hired the firm to design a sumptuous double-wide mansion at 3 East 80th Street, just steps from Fifth Avenue.  Alexander Welch took the reins, designing the five-story residence in a dignified take on the French Beaux Arts style.

Foregoing the foliate swags and architectural confections often associated with the style, Welch created a refined design.  The offset entrance above a short stoop sat within a rusticated limestone base.  The three-story midsection, faced in gray brick and trimmed in limestone, was dominated by a three-sided stone oriel capped with a balustrade.  Welch faced the fifth floor with stone and crowned the wreathed-bracketed cornice with a row of copper anthemions.

The American Architect and Building News, September 1, 1900 (copyright expired)

On January 18, 1896, two years before Hall broke ground for 3 East 80th Street, Robert George Remsen died in his brownstone residence at 87 Fifth Avenue, just north of 16th Street.  One of the founders of the "Patriarchs," he and his wife, the former Margaret Delprat, were among the original New York 400--Manhattan's highest social clique.  At the time of Remsen's death, their once exclusive neighborhood was being invaded by commerce.

Margaret Delprat Remsen purchased 3 East 80th Street.  She and Robert had four daughters, Margaret Sophia, Georgiana Delprat, Frances, and Caroline.  Only Margaret, who was known as Maizie or May, was unmarried.  She moved into the new mansion with her mother.

The two women spent the warm months at their country residence in Connecticut.  On November 11, 1902, The New York Times updated its readers, "Mrs. Robert G. Remsen and Miss Remsen are in town for the Winter at their residence, 3 East Eightieth Street.  They were in New London, as usual, this Summer."

The women were given a fright on the evening of April 18, 1906.  A workman was hired to paint the servants' rooms on the top floor.  When he went home that afternoon, he left behind a burning cigar.  By 7:00, the draperies had caught fire.  May Remsen went into crisis mode.  The New York Times reported that she "sent the butler to turn in an alarm, and then organized the servants into a bucket brigade."  Despite their heroic efforts, it was not enough.  By the time the firefighters arrived, "the fire was gaining headway rapidly," said the article.  It took them half an hour to extinguish the blaze.  The New York Times reported, "The upper floor of the house was wrecked.  The loss is $3,000."  (The damages would translate to about $108,000 in 2025.)

The frightening chaos was almost too much for Margaret Remsen to bear.  The Times said she became "very much excited during the fire," and was taken next door to the Frank W. Woolworth mansion "where she was cared for."

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services

The butler whom May sent for help was John Smith.  He had been with the family since 1887, when he was 17 years old.  While many butlers lived with their employers, Smith lived with his wife and two children at 301 East 83rd Street at the corner of Second Avenue.  The faithful servant caught a cold in the winter of 1916.  It worsened to pneumonia and he died on March 29, just short of having served the family for three decades.

On Christmas Eve 1919, May hosted a debutante dance and supper at Delmonico's for Sylvia Remsen Hillhouse.  Sylvia was the daughter of May's sister, Georgiana and her husband Charles Betts Hillhouse.  The New York Herald reported, "Miss Remsen, Mrs. Hillhouse and her daughter received the guests, numbering about 250 of the younger set."  

Margaret Remsen was not mentioned.  It was likely that the elderly dowager was not there.  Two months later, on February 16, 1920, Margaret Delprat Remsen died.  Her funeral was held at Grace Church three days later.

May Remsen immediately left the mansion.  On April 23, The New York Times reported, "No. 3 East Eightieth Street was sold a few days ago to Miss Brice."  "Miss Brice" was Helen Olivia Brice, the 49-year-old daughter of Calvin S. and Olivia Meily Brice.  

Helen was presented to Queen Victoria in 1896.  The Evening Telegram said she, "is known equally as well in European society as in this country."  Like May Remsen, she would never marry.  The newspaper explained, "while her engagement to several scions of nobility has been rumored she has just as often made emphatic denials and is still single."

Helen would not immediately move into the mansion.  There would be decorating to do and the addition of a rooftop level unseen from the street.  And during the upcoming summer social season she would occupy her Newport residence, The Bluffs.  Then, on October 29, 1920, the New York Herald reported, "Miss Helen O. Brice, whose home since her youth was at 693 Fifth avenue, has moved into her new home at 3 East Eightieth street."

John Singer Sargent painted Helen's portrait in 1907.  (private collection)

Five months after moving in, Helen, like May Remsen had done, took charge of handling a fire in the mansion.  On March 13, 1921, The Evening Telegram titled an article, "Society Girl Directs Fight Upon Flames."  The report opened by saying:

While flames raged at the bottom of an elevator shaft and with clouds of smoke choking her, Miss Helen O. Brice, millionaire daughter of the late United States Senator Calvin S. Brice, organized a bucket brigade of her six servants in her home at No. 3 East Eightieth street today and fought the flames with sand until the arrival of the firemen.

The newspaper said that Helen was preparing to go to church when she heard the cries of "Fire!"  She found her servants pouring buckets of water on the flames and told them that "sand was the only thing with which the flames would be extinguished."  The Evening Telegram reported, "The servants were sent to the rear yard where three of them began digging up the dirt while three others carried the pails and buckets back into the house."  The article said that despite the heat and smoke, Helen stood at the door of the elevator shaft and directed the operations.

As May Remsen had done, Helen sent a servant to "sound the fire alarm."  When firefighters arrived, she was still on the scene, "directing her servants in fighting the flames."  The fire was extinguished and, while it was confined to the elevator shaft, fire officials said that the smoke, "perhaps did considerable damage to the furnishings in the house, which the firemen described as being magnificent."

Helen Olivia Brice died at the age of 79 in 1950.  She had sold 3 East 80th Street on October 18 the previous year.  The following day, The New York Times reported, "Plans for converting the five-story private dwelling at 3 East Eightieth Street, near Fifth Avenue, into small apartments were announced yesterday."

The renovations resulted in two doctors' offices on the first floor, three apartments each on the second through fifth floors, and one in the top level.  Over the subsequent decades, the ground floor spaces saw a succession of physicians, therapists, and one gallery, the Wender, which was here in the late 1980s through the early 1990s.

A renovation completed in 2000 created two triplex apartments.

photographs by the author