Developer Cornelius W. Luyster broke ground for five high-end townhouses on West 76th Street just west of Central Park West in 1892. Completed the following year and designed by John H. Duncan in the Renaissance Revival style, they were four-stories tall above English basements.
The basement and parlor levels of the westernmost house, 19 West 76th Street, were faced in planar brownstone. A dog-legged stoop decorated with swirling volutes and rondel-filled panels rose to the double-doored entrance. It and the parlor windows were flanked by shallow pilasters decorated with carved anthemions. The upper portion was clad in variegated beige brick. The second floor was dominated by a three-sided oriel that provided a balcony to the third. Windows at that level sat within molded brownstone architraves, while those at the fourth were surrounded by elaborate terra cotta frames, their cornices topped with swan's head pediments crowned with urns. Above a terra cotta frieze, the cornice was supported by foliate brackets of the same material.
Duncan changed from brownstone trim to terra cotta at the top floor with satisfying results.
John H. Uhlman was the original owner of the 25-foot-wide residence. He sold it to Henry A. Caesar and his wife, the former Laura F. Unger, in March 1902.
Born in Brooklyn on May 15, 1856, Caesar was educated abroad and founded H. A. Caesar & Company, factors and commercial bankers, in 1886. He was also a director of the Germania Life Insurance Company and the Chemical Bank and Trust Company. He and Laura had three sons, Paul N., born in 1889; Harry I., born in 1891; and Charles U., who arrived in 1897. The 1908 Men of America mentioned, "His favorite recreation is big game hunting."
The Caesars' 39-acre summer estate, Lauriston (named for Laura) was in Rumson Borough, New Jersey. The mansion on the property was designed by Leon Cubberly in 1870.
The mansion at Lauriston today. image via Preservation New Jersey
Harry I. Caesar was married to Doris Porter in St. Thomas's Chapel on December 27, 1913. The bridal party included socially elite surnames like Slocum, Townsend, Symington, and Hoagland.
The family remained at 19 West 76th Street until April 1917 when they sold the house to Solomon Marcuse Stroock and his wife, Hilda Weil. The couple were married in 1904 and had three children, Minette, Robert Louis, and Alan Maxwell.
Stroock was born on September 22, 1873 of German immigrants. He graduated from the College of the City of New York in 1891, received his Masters degree from Columbia University in 1892, and his law degree from Columbia Law School in 1894. After being in partnership with attorney M. Warley Platzek since 1896, in 1907 Stroock established a law office, Stroock & Stroock, with his brother, Moses.
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Solomon Marcuse Stroock, The Jewish Tribune, November 25, 1927 (copyright expired)
Stroock was highly involved in Jewish affairs. He was chairman of the board of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America and a member of the American Jewish Historical Society. In 1903, he contributed to the latter's American Jewish History, an academic journal that focused on the history of Jews in the United States.
Like the Caesars, the Stroocks left the city during the summer social season. On May 20, 1921, for instance, The American Hebrew reported, "Mr. and Mrs. Sol. M. Stroock of 19 West Seventy-sixth street will spend the summer at Ossining, N. Y."
image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.
On August 30, 1939, The New York Times titled an article, "19 West 76th St. Leased." The article said the "lessee will occupy the house after improvements are made." That was stretching the truth. The unnamed tenant converted the residence to unofficial apartments.
Solomon Marcuse Stroock suffered a fatal heart attack while he and Hilda were at the Greenbrier Hotel in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia on September 11, 1941. The West 76th Street house was sold to James H. Cruikshank, who resold it in November 1942 to George Lawall. In reporting on the latest sale, The New York Times mentioned, "The building contains nineteen rooms and eight baths."
A renovation completed in 1974 resulted in 14 apartments. None of the alterations, happily, affected the exterior.
photographs by the author
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