James Ross and Charles R. McNeill established their architectural practice in 1898. Among their first commissions was the designing of six upscale rowhouses on the north side of West 84th Street between Riverside Drive and West End Avenue for Matthews & Eppenstein. Completed in 1900, the five-story homes were designed, overall, in the Beaux Arts style. Ross & McNeil created an off-balanced row in an ABBBAA configuration. The flat-faced "A" models were clad in red brick. The B models, which included 315 West 84th Street, were faced in brown brick above their rusticated limestone bases. The upper three floors were bowed, terminating in a dignified stone balustrade that fronted the tiled mansard. Its prominent dormer wore an arched pediment.
The houses form a dignified row. 315 West 84th Street is hiding behind the tree in the foreground.
Matthews & Eppenstein had purchased the property from Henry Oppenheimer in November 1899. The transaction did not come without a problem. A house already existed at 315 West 84th Street and it was being leased to attorney Abner C. Thomas and his family. The developers apparently negotiated with family, because when the row was completed, the Thomas family moved into 315 West 84th Street.
Abner C. Thomas was born in Brooklyn in 1844. He received a civil engineering degree from the Polytechnic College of Pennsylvania. At the age of 21, he changed course, studying law in Bridgeport, Connecticut. He relocated to New York City in 1866 and opened his law office.
Thomas and his wife, the former Lucy Carnahan, had four children: Ethel Cary, Rhoda Cary, Lucy Cary and Abel Cary. Lucy had a long American pedigree. She was the first president of the Daughters of Ohio, and a member of the Daughters of the Revolution, and the Daughters of the War of 1812. She was, as well, a member of Sorosis, the first professional women's club in America.
The Thomas family had lived in the previous house as early as 1895. The last social event in that residence took place on December 5, 1899. That evening Rhoda Cary Thomas was married to Cornelius W. Luyster Jr. at the Church of All Angels on West End Avenue. The New-York Tribune remarked, "a supper and dance for the members of the bridal party will follow at the home of the bride's parents, No. 315 West Eighty-fourth-st."
In addition to his law practice, Abner C. Thomas was an author. He wrote, according to The Evening World, "many text books on law," most of which dealt with real estate law. In 1899, he was appointed surrogate justice by the Tammany organization.
In March 1903, F. W. Drury and his wife, Josephine, purchased 315 West 84th Street. Their residency would be relatively short and in May 1907, they sold the house to Corinne Roche.
A graduate of the Convent of the Sacred Heart, Corinne was highly involved in real estate, buying and selling properties in Manhattan. Her parents, Walter and Mary Amelia Doherty Roche, were both dead and moving into 315 West 84th Street were Corinne's sisters, Beatrice, Marie and Amelia. The Roches' summer home was in Deal Beach, New Jersey. At the time, Beatrice was still a student in the Convent of the Sacred Heart.
On September 24, 1907, Marie was married to Joseph Thomas Ryan in Deal, New Jersey. Her brother, John Doherty Roche, gave her away. The New York Times noted, "A reception followed the wedding at the Roche Summer home."
The Asbury Park Press began an article on September 11, 1909, "While on a vacation from the Convent of the Sacred Heart at Manhattanville, N. Y., several years ago, Miss Beatrice Roche gave a birthday party...and it was there that she first met Dr. William Vincent Pascual of Brooklyn, then a student at Columbia university." The article said a "rather romantic courtship" followed. Beatrice and Pascual were married in Deal on the morning of that article. Corinne was Beatrice's maid of honor and John gave her away. The reception was held in Marie and Joseph Ryan's summer home.
There were now just two sisters in the West 84th Street house. Corinne busied herself with her real estate dealings while remaining highly active in her alumnae association. On June 15, 1919, for instance, the New York Herald announced, "On the campus at Manhattanville members of the alumnae association of the Convent of the Sacred Heart College held their 'Old Students' Day' Tuesday." The article noted that Corinne Roche was the chairman of the arrangements.
Amelia was married to John William Kehoe in the Church of the Holy Trinity in September 1920. She was given away by Joseph Ryan. (John D. Roche had died on January 29, 1918.) Corinne attended her sister. The New York Times reported, "The ceremony was followed by a wedding breakfast at the home of the bride, 315 West Eighty-fourth Street."
image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services
Corinne was not left alone in the house. Amelia and John moved in. Kehoe was a textile executive and Amelia kept busy with charity work. She was vice president of the Manhattanville Children of Mary, was highly active in the ladies' auxiliary of St. Joseph's Day Nursery, and was treasurer of the Maplehurst Alumnae of the Sacred Heart. And in 1933, The New York Sun reported that she was chairman of the International Federation of Catholic Alumnae's annual bridge party.
Corinne Roche continued to buy and sell real estate. On May 9, 1930, for instance, The New York Times reported that she had purchased an apartment building on East 123rd Street, and by the early 1940s she owned a theater on Eighth Avenue.
In August 1944, real estate operator M. C. Berg purchased 315 West 84th Street, sparking a game of real estate hot potato. He resold it the following month "to an investor," according to The New York Sun on September 28. In April 1945, G. W. Cane purchased it and resold it the following month to real estate Dorothy Kaliski. She rented rooms in the house until 1953, when The New York Times reported on June 4 that she sold it to a buyer who would convert it into ten apartments. But, once again, the purchaser resold 351 West 84th Street the following month. On July 24, The New York Times reported, "The buyer plans to alter the building and occupy a large part of it."
The once elegant home became a rooming house. The following year, on December 21, 1954, The New York Times reported that the owner and nine other rooming house owners had been "threatened with forced evacuation of their tenements as firetraps."
A renovation completed in 1956 resulted in one apartment each on the first and second floors, two each on the third and fourth, and two furnished rooms on the fifth floor. There would be three more renovations to come, each one reducing the number of units. In 1973 the first and second floors were combined as a duplex, in 1995 that apartment was enlarged to a triplex, and, finally, in 2017 315 West 84th Street was restored to a single-family home.
photographs by the author
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