The Frank and Elizabeth Larom House - 219 West 78th Street

 

The extended Hall family were builders and developers.  William Hall began the tradition that was continued by his sons William W. and Thomas M. Hall.  (They operated both as William Hall's Sons and W. W. & T. M. Hall).  Joining in the familial trend were Arlington C., and Harvey M. Hall, who worked together; and William H. Hall Jr. and T. R. A. Hall.

In 1890, the latter two purchased ten building lots on the northern side of West 78th Street between Broadway and Amsterdam Avenue.  They hired the architectural firm of Thom & Wilson to design upscale, three-story and basement homes on the site.  Completed in 1891, they wore Romanesque Revival pants and Renaissance Revival shirts.

Among them was 219 West 78th Street.  Its basement and parlor levels were clad in chunky, undressed brownstone blocks, typical of the Romanesque Revival style.  Beefy carved stoop newels continued the motif.  Thom & Wilson introduced the Renaissance at the parlor floor with sumptuous fruit-and-flower carvings in the single lintel that connected the windows and above the doorway.  Formal fluted columns with complex capitals flanked the entranceway.

The second and third floors discarded any hints of Romanesque.  The windows within the planar brownstone surface were framed by shallow quoins and capped with lintels carved with intricate swags of fruits and flowers.  A pressed metal cornice with paired corbels completed the design.

On October 6, 1892, only two of the homes were still unsold, including No. 219.  An advertisement in The Evening Post for the "3-Story High-Class Houses" read:

For sale--206 and 219 West 78th St.; remainder of row of ten thoroughly seasoned; ready for decorating; restricted neighborhood front and rear.  Liberal mortgage.

The mention of "restricted neighborhood front and rear" meant that commerce (like stores) was prohibited on the 78th and 79th Street blocks.

The house underwent a quick succession of owners until about 1896 when glove importer Frank William Larom and his wife, the former Elizabeth Elmira Shute, moved in.  Born in 1862 and 1867 respectively, the couple was married on December 14, 1887.  They had two children, Irving Hastings and Edith Emerson.  

Elizabeth had deep American roots and was a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution and the National Society of New England Women.  Her father, builder William Shute, had erected the Grand Opera House.  Like most wives of affluent businessmen, Elizabeth was involved in charitable work.  She annually donated items to the New York State Woman's Relief Corps Home for orphans and wives of veterans.  In 1896, for instance, she donated "1 blanket, 5 tidies, 13 books, dolls and toys."  ("Tidies" were embroidered pieces of cloth used to protect the backs of upholstered furniture.)  The 1914 Woman's Who's Who of America would mention that Elizabeth "interested in animal welfare."  (She was a member of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.)  It also noted that she was "against woman suffrage."

Edith Emerson Larom was 12 years old when she died on April 21, 1905.  The little girl's casket sat in the parlor until her funeral there on April 24.

The 1914 Social Register listed Irving Hastings Larom as living in the Cottage Club at Princeton University.  Known as Larry, upon his graduation the following year, he relocated to the Far West with Winthrop Brooks (of the Brooks Brothers family).  They established Valley Ranch near Cody, Wyoming.  A dude ranch, he advertised in part, "You'd enjoy wearing ranch clothes, the cowboys, the ranch work, the saddle-leather atmosphere of the place."

Now empty nesters, Frank and Elizabeth sold 219 West 78th Street in December 1918 to Dr. Ferdinand G. Kneer and his wife, the former Annie L. Thoe.  Kneer had been the pathologist at Harlem Hospital, and was now a surgeon at St. Katherine's Hospital.  Additionally, he was also president of the Kneer-Kuhl Co. and an amateur photographer and a pioneer in the creation of colored "optical lantern" slides.  He used those in illustrating his lectures.

Ferdinand G. Kneer died on June 17, 1927.  His funeral was held in the parlor three days later, followed by services in the Church of the Transfiguration on East 29th Street.  Annie did not remain in the house for long.  She sold it in February 1929 to the Monel Holding Corporation.  The New York Times remarked that the buyer "will remodel the premises into small suites."

Something went awry with the negotiation, however.  The Monel Holding Corporation was still leasing the property from Annie L. Kneer as late as 1934.  On November 13, 1938, The New York Times reported that Annie L. Kneer had leased the house to a new tenant for five years.  "The tenant will alter the building," said the article.

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

The residence was remodeled again after the Feingold Realty Corporation purchased it in September 1962.  "The buyer, an architect, plans to alter the building into small apartments, one of which he will occupy," reported The New York Times.  That architect was Alexander Feingold.  He reconfigured the interior to seven apartments while preserving the exterior appearance. 

At the time of Feingold's purchase, the neighborhood had severely declined from the era when Frank and Elizabeth Larom first stepped from their carriage in front of the stoop.  Thirty-five years later, Feingold still lived here.  He recalled his early years in the house to The New York Times journalist Christopher Gray in 1995, saying, "the block was plagued by prostitution and drugs."  Feingold and his neighbors turned things around.  Gray reported, "An early step forward, around 1966, was the planting of trees by the Department of Parks, followed by brick enclosures Mr. Feingold's firm designed for the tree pits a few years later."

There are still seven apartments in the building.  And Thom & Wilson's interesting hybrid design is amazingly intact.

photographs by the author