The Joseph H. Choate Jr. House - 158 East 71st Street

 

Born in Germany in 1823, Henry Elias earned his fortune in beer.  The founder and president of the Henry Elias Brewing Company, in 1873 he added to his resume with a membership to the Produce Exchange.  By the early 1880s, he and his family lived at 158 East 71st Street, one of seven identical houses built in 1871 by Andrew Barry and Ira G. Lane.  

Designed by Irish-born William O'Gorman, the 20-foot-wide house was three stories tall above a high English basement.  Faced in brownstone, its Italianate design included an arched entrance under a peaked pediment supported by scrolled, foliate brackets.  The parlor windows wore triangular pediments, while the upper floor openings sat within architraves with molded sills and cornices.

Henry Elias arrived in America in 1850 and started his first brewery in 1855.  Katharina Elias was Henry's second wife.  His previous marriage to Ernestine Schmidt ended in divorce.  Moving into the house with Henry and Katharina were their children, William, Elsa, and Katie; and Henry's son, Henry Jr., from his previous marriage.

In 1885, daughter Elsa was sent to Cassel, Germany (today's Kassel) for schooling.  The Evening World described the 16-year-old as "not over-bright but rather pretty."  Henry and Katharina visited her in the winter of 1887 and Henry died there on February 27, 1888.

His will directed that his stock in the Henry Elias Brewery Company (valued at $300,000, or about $10.5 million in 2026) be held in trust for his children.  Obviously embittered even in death, Elias mentioned his former wife, Ernestine, in the will.  It directed that his heirs "must never give her anything and that they shall receive nothing from him if they do."

What no one knew at the time of Henry's death was that Elsa had become the lover of Oscar Moeller, a "bald-headed, middle-aged man," as described by The Evening World, who ran a store in Cassel.  Following the settlement of her father's will, the two ran off.  In a sensational chain of events, the couple was captured and Moeller was arrested for abduction.  He escaped and, using a fraudulent passport, fled to England with Elsa, and then to Queensland, Australia.  They were recaptured there.  On August 7, 1888, The Evening World reported that Moeller "whines that he is not an abductor, but was being abducted by the giddy heiress."  The New-York Tribune said the scandal "has created quite a sensation in German society circles in this city."

In 1891, Katharina Elias leased 158 East 71st Street to Solomon and Doris Landsberger.  (Frustratingly, their name was often spelled as Landsberg.)  Landsberger was described by The New York Times as "a wealthy jeweler."  The couple had five children: Sadie, Jacob, Monte, Estelle and Madeleine.  

Solomon Landsberger died in the house on April 1, 1897.  His funeral was held in the house three days later.  

The following year, on December 18, 1898, Doris announced Sadie's engagement to Samuel G. Isaacs.  The wedding took place on March 12, 1899 and the reception was held in Carnegie Hall.  The New York Times noted, "Over 200 invitations have been issued."

The event was, perhaps, somewhat tarnished by Doris's arrest two months earlier.  For some time, Anna Coulter, a store detective in a Grand Street establishment, had been suspicious of Doris, going so far as to following her home to ascertain her address.  On January 13, 1899, Doris entered the store and Coulter "decided to watch her."  According to her, "I disguised myself as an old woman and followed her from counter to counter."  When Doris attempted to leave the store, Coulter detained her.  She was arrested for shoplifting and at the station house gave name as Mrs. S. Solomon.  Coulter, however, had done her homework and gave the detectives her true identity.

Doris's lawyer, Hyman Rosenheim, told The New York Times that his client was "a wealthy widow," saying she "possesses a fortune of over $175,000."  He surmised that she was suffering from kleptomania.  Happily for Doris, her case was dismissed after she appeared before the Grand Jury "and made a satisfactory explanation."

In May 1903, Katharina Elias sold 158 East 71st Street to Joseph Hodges Choate Jr.  It would become the home of him and his bride, Cora Lyman Oliver.  The couple were married the following month, on June 7 in Albany.  The New-York Tribune called the ceremony, "an assemblage representative of the society of New-York, Albany and other centres."

Choate was the son of Joseph H. Choate, Ambassador to Great Britain, and Cora was the daughter of General Robert Shaw Oliver.  On May 30, 1903, Automobile Topics reported, "A ten-day automobile trip will be a feature of the wedding journey and will be supplemented by a trip to England...Upon their return to America, in September, they will reside at 158 east 71st street, New York."

Joseph Choate as he appeared in 1897 and in 1922.  Harvard College Class of 1897, 1922 (copyright expired)

Born in 1876, Choate worked as a private secretary in the London Embassy until 1900 when he returned to law school.  When he and Cora married, he was a member of the law firm Evarts, Choate & Sherman.  

While the couple was on their honeymoon, architect George B. de Gersdorff made interior updates to the house.  (The renovations cost the Choates the equivalent of $113,000 today.)

The population of 158 East 71st Street gradually increased.  Marion was born on February 1, 1905, and Helen arrived on November 21, 1906.  Two years later, on December 22, 1908, Priscilla would be born, and Joseph 3d on February 22, 1912.

Cora survived a terrifying incident on November 7, 1906.  She and Mrs. Samuel A. Tucker and her children went on a ride in Central Park.  Suddenly the horse bolted and the driver lost all control.  A mounted officer saw the runaway and galloped after it.  "At Ninety-sixth Street the policeman overtook the runaway and, leaning over from his saddle, caught the bridle of the frightened horse," reported The New York Times.  Officer Daly was "dragged to Ninety-seventh Street before he brought the runaway to a standstill."  The article said the women and children were "frightened, but were not injured."

The Choates brought back George B. de Gersdorff in 1908.  On July 23, The Evening Post reported that plans had been filed to enlarge the Choate house by adding a mansard level.  The article said it would "be used for sleeping quarters for servants, and will have two guests' chambers with baths and toilets."  

158 East 71st Street was now one-story taller than its neighbors.  via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

The addition would not be the last time that George B. de Gersdorff and the Choates would work together.  In 1918, the couple purchased 10 and 12 East 94th Street and hired Gersdorff to convert the vintage brownstones to a single mansion.  As construction of 10 East 94th Street was nearing completion, on January 12, 1919 the New-York Tribune reported that the Choates had sold 158 East 71st Street.  The article said, "It will be occupied by the purchaser after slight alterations have been made."

The buyers were Lansing Parmalee Reed and his wife, the former Ruth Lawrence.  Born on April 2, 1882, Lansing Reed was a corporate attorney and a partner in the law firm of Davis, Polk, Wardwell, Gardiner & Reed.  Ruth was born in Boston in 1886, the daughter of Episcopal Bishop William Lawrence.  (Her brothers were Bishop Frederic Lawrence Lawrence and Bishop William Appleton Lawrence.)

When the Reeds moved in, they had four daughters, Ruth Lawrence, Julia Cunningham, Hester Lansing, and Mary Parmalee.  A fifth, Joan, would be born on December 11, 1927.  The family's country home, Windy Hill, was at Cold Spring Harbor, Long Island.

As the daughters grew, their names gradually made their way into the society pages.  On September 7, 1935, for instance, The New York Times reported, "Miss Hester Lansing Reed...made her début tonight at a supper dance given by her parents at Windy Hill, their Summer home...The party was similar to those given for her sisters, Miss Julia Reed, last season, and the former Miss Ruth Reed, now Mrs. Samuel Hazard Gillespie Jr., during a previous Autumn."  The article noted, "The guests included about 250 members of the younger set."

Two years later, on February 23, 1937, The New York Evening Post reported, "Miss Hester Reed, the attractive daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Lansing Parmalee Reed...has been chosen by George Haines Weed of Savannah, Ga., to lead the Junior Promenade at Yale, this Friday night."

Around Thanksgiving that year, Lansing Parmalee Reed became ill.  His condition worsened to pneumonia and he died in the 71st Street house on December 2, 1937 at the age of 55.

Just five months later, in May 1938, Ruth Reed sold the house to editor Robert Littell and his wife, the former Anita Blaine Damrosch.  Born in Milwaukee on May 25, 1896, Robert was the grandson of Eliakim Littell, founder of The Living Age, and the son of Philip Littell, an editor on The Milwaukee Sentinel.  Robert started his career in 1922 as a staff member of The New Republic.   The same year that he and Anita purchased 158 East 71st Street, he joined The Reader's Digest.  He was the author of a novel, Candles in the Storm, and a play (with Sidney Howard), Gather Ye Rosebuds.

Anita was the granddaughter of Dr. Leopold Damrosch, founder of the Oratorio Society and introducer of German opera at the Metropolitan Opera, and daughter of Walter Damrosch, conductor of the New York Symphony Orchestra.  

The couple would have four children: Alisa, Walter, Philip and Blaine.  Their country home was in Tyringham, Massachusetts.

The family remained here until August 1952, when they sold the house to Janice Lowenstein.  Unlike most of its contemporaries on the block, 158 East 71st Street was never converted to apartments nor modernized on the exterior.

Other than replacement windows and stoop railings, the house looks little changed since the Choates added a stylish fourth floor.

photographs by the author

The Francis G. Lloyd House - 157 East 71st Street

 

The contracting firm of Breen & Mason was composed of James R. Breen and Alfred G. Mason.  In 1881, they acquired the 40-foot-wide wooden structure at 155-157 East 71st Street.  The partners acted as their own architects for this project, designing two four-story-and-basement, neo-Grec-style homes on the property.  Completed in December 1881, the high-stooped brownstones were distinguished by the windows, which sat within shallow architraves atop paneled spandrels and capped with prominent cornices.

The James R. Breene family moved into 157 East 71st Street just in time for a wedding.  On December 8, 1881, the New-York Tribune reported, "James R. Breene's daughter, Ariana A., was married yesterday at 7 p.m. in her father's house, No. 157 East Seventy-first-st., to John H. Bellamy."  

By 1890, Charles Brenneman and his family occupied the house.  He and his wife, Elizabeth, had a daughter, Emma.  On February 3, 1903, Emma's engagement to William Thomas Fritte was announced.  Four weeks earlier, on January 25, The New York Times reported that Brenneman had sold 155 and 157 East 71st Street.

The buyer, Dr. Andrew J. McCosh, resold 157 East 71st Street to Otto and Carrie Strack in the spring of 1904.  The couple's residency would be short-lived and tragic.  The family had not fully settled in when, on May 18, 1904, five-year-old Walker Strack died in the house.

A year later, on June 22, 1905, The New York Times reported that Otto Strack had sold the house to John L. Martin.  His ownership, too, would be short.  

Frank Guerin Lloyd purchased 155 and 157 East 71st Street in March 1907.  In October, he commissioned the architectural firm of Trowbridge & Livingston to update the residences.  No. 155 would be used as rental income and 157 East 71st Street would become the Lloyds' home. 

The architects' plans for 157 East 71st Street included new plumbing, windows and a "one-story partition."  The New-York Tribune said that the "making over" of the house would transform it "into an American basement dwelling house."  The plans included "remodeling the interior."  American basement houses differed from English basement houses in their lack of stoops.  While Trowbridge & Livingston left the upper floors untouched, the entrance was now slightly below grade.  Now fronting the second floor, or piano nobile, was a trio of French windows fronted by an iron railing.  The renovations, completed in April 1908, cost Lloyd $15,000, or about $517,000 in 2026.

via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

Francis Guerin Lloyd was born in New Jersey in 1848.  He married Matilda Hedenberg Herbert on August 9, 1875.  The couple had two surviving children. (Two others had died in childhood.)

Lloyd was hired by Brooks Brothers, the men's clothing firm, when he was 14 years old.  He worked his way up, and in 1879 was made a partner.  Upon the death of John E. Brooks in 1896, Lloyd became senior partner.  By the time he purchased 157 East 71st Street, he was president of Brooks Brothers.  The family's country home was in Bernardsville, New Jersey.

Moving into the house with the Lloyds was their daughter-in-law, Julia A. Trowbridge Lloyd.  Daniel Herbert Lloyd died in 1907, a year after the couple's marriage.  According to the New-York Tribune, when Julia's father, who was a physician, died, he "left his daughters independent fortunes."  Additionally, said the newspaper, Daniel Lloyd, "left a large estate."  Julia maintained her own country home, Driftwood, in Noroton, Connecticut.

Near Driftwood was the summer home of Thomas Crimmins, son of millionaire John D. Crimmins.  The properties were, apparently, close enough for a romance to blossom.  On February 12, 1910, the New-York Tribune reported that the pair had been quietly married in Augusta, Georgia.

Now sharing the house with Francis and Matilda were James Henry McKinley, a "well known tenor and teacher of singing," and his wife, the former Laura Celestine Fiske.  The relationship between the two families is unclear, but they would live together in the East 71st Street house for years.

Perhaps unexpectedly, the Lloyds did not routinely entertain.  An exception came on April 3, 1915.  Matilda's niece, Emilie Mathilde Roe, was married to Duncan MacIntosh Hay in St. Thomas's Church that day.  The New York Times reported that the ceremony was "followed by a breakfast at the home of Mrs. Francis G. Lloyd, 157 East Seventy-first Street."

On the morning of October 6, 1920, Francis Lloyd left the house, heading to his office.  On the way, the 72-year-old suffered a fatal heart attack.  

Matilda H. Lloyd moved permanently to the Bernardsville estate where she died on October 25, 1945.  The McKinleys remained at 157 East 71st Street.  Laura's uncle, Alexander P. Fiske, moved in with the couple.  He died at the age of 89 on May 30, 1922 and his funeral was held in the parlor the following day.

On August 18, 1928, the Real Estate Record & Builders' Guide reported that James and Laura McKinley had purchased a brownstone at 626 West End Avenue.  The article mentioned that they had "resided at 157 West 71st St. for the past 25 years."

When the house was sold in August 1941, The New York Times reported that the buyer, Inez C. Robb, president of the Callaway Holding Corporation, had hired architect John S. Burrell to covert "the old residence into a modern apartment building for ten families."

The renovation resulted in two apartments per floor.  Among the residents was the building's owner, Inez C. Robb.  An advertisement in The New York Sun on March 13, 1942 described the one-room, kitchen and bath apartment 2-E saying, "Decorator will lease beautifully furnished, comfortable, large living-bedroom.  Full-sized kitchen, bath, wood burning fireplace.  Fully equipped."

Robb sold the building in September 1956.  It was updated in 1982, while preserving the configuration of two apartments per floor.

Then, in September 2000, Todd Romano Antiques & Decorations opened in the ground floor.  The New York Times said it, "offers furnishings from 18th-century French to 1970's Lucite, with upholstered pieces of his design."  Romano later moved his operation to East 59th Street.

On the exterior, little has changed to 157 East 71st Street since Trowbridge & Livingston remodeled it nearly 120 years ago.

photographs by the author

The Oswald Garrison Villard House - 179 East 71st Street

 

In April 1909 the two three-story, wooden houses of Mrs. Gertrude B. Miller and Richard M. Hoe at 177 and 179 East 71st Street respectively were sold.  The real estate firm of Pease & Elliman handled both transactions.   A principal in that firm, Douglas Elliman, and his wife Theodora purchased 177, while developer David Goodrich acquired the other.  The new owners worked closely together on the plans for the properties.

They commissioned architect S. Edson Gage to design two mirror image, upscale homes on the site.  Completed in 1910, the five-story residences were entered just above street level.  Gage designed them in the neo-Federal style, cladding them in Flemish bond brick and adding period appropriate elements like narrow entrance door sidelights, and splayed lintels and keystones.  Three sets of French windows at the second floor opened onto a full-width balcony with Federal style iron railings.  The fifth floor was set back and hidden behind a stone railing.

A street sweeper works on a treeless East 71st Street in 1941.  image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

David Goodrich sold 179 East 71st Street in 1911 to Oswald Garrison Villard and his wife, the former Julia B. Sanford.  The couple was married in 1903 and had three children, Henry Hilgard, Oswald Jr., and Dorothy.

Born in 1872 to journalist Henry Villard and Fanny Garrison, Oswald was an 1893 graduate of Harvard University.  He followed in his father's professional footsteps and when he and Julia moved into 179 East 71st Street he was president and editor of the New York Evening Post.  

He also closely followed his mother's example.  Fannie Garrison Oswald was a pacifist and civil rights activist.  She and Oswald help found the NAACP in 1909.  Villard served as the organization's disbursing treasurer for years.  When Woodrow Wilson initiated segregation within the Federal offices in Washington, Garrison fired off a letter of protest to the President in July 1913.

Osward Garrison Villard, from the collection of the University of Massachusetts Amherst

A vocal pacifist like his mother, Garrison's stance came into question when the United States entered World War I in April 1917.  In May, the Midday Recruiting Committee wrote to him, asking him "to write and tell it whether the statement reported to have been made by him represents his views now."  His staunchly pacifist statement had been made on February 18, two months before the country entered the conflict.  The New York Herald reported, "Mr. Villard was quoted as having said that he would not resist an invasion of this country by a foreign foe and as having refused to reply to a hypothetical question concerning the invasion of American homes."

S. Edson Gage designed 177 and 179 (right) as mirror images of one another.

In 1918 Garrison became editor of The Nation.  He used the editorial page to espouse his views on civil liberties, civil rights, and foreign policy.  The same year he resigned his position as president of the Philharmonic Society.  A reporter from the New-York Tribune went to 179 East 71st Street on the evening of January 4 to confirm the rumor.  Villard told him that he felt "he had accomplished for the Philharmonic all that was in his power."  But there seemed to have been more to the break than that.  "Mr. Villard refused to comment on the report that his attitude toward the war had played a part in his resignation," said the article.

On October 31, 1925, the Record & Guide reported that Julia Villard had sold 179 East 71st Street to Mrs. Vanderbilt Webb.  Aileen Clinton Hoadley Osborn Webb was the wife of Vanderbilt Webb, son of Eliza Osgood Vanderbilt and Dr. William Seward Webb, and a grandson of William Henry Vanderbilt.  Married in 1921, the couple had four children, Derick V., W. Osborn, Richard, and Barbara.

Aileen was the daughter of William Church Osborn, director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Alice Clinton Hoadley Dodge.  Through her mother, she was the granddaughter of millionaire William Earl Dodge Jr.  

Vanderbilt Webb had attended the prestigious Groton School, graduated from Yale University in 1913, and studied at Oxford University in England before earning his law degree from Harvard University in 1916.  He was a member of the law firm Patterson, Belknap & Webb.  His broad interests were reflected in his being a trustee in the Metropolitan Museum of Art; the American University of Beirut, Lebanon; the Groton School; and Colonial Williamsburg, Inc.

Vanderbilt Webb (original source unknown)

With the onslaught of the Depression, Aileen turned her attention to the conditions of the impoverished.  She encouraged the making of handmade goods which women could sell to improve their families' situations.  In 1940 she founded America House to help craftsmen sell their products.

Aileen Osborn Webb, The Craftsman's World, 1959

In the meantime, Barbara Webb was introduced to society in the winter season of 1934.  She had attended the exclusive Chapin School and the Brownmoor School in New Mexico before attending Bennington College.  

In April 1939, a year after graduating, Barbara's engagement to Henry Benson Rockwell was announced.  It gave society columnists an opportunity to recount the couples' social pedigrees.  The New York Times noted the Barbara "is a great-granddaughter of General James Watson Webb, noted journalist, diplomat and soldier, and a great-great-granddaughter of Jacob L. Cram, a leading New York merchant before the Civil War.  Through her father also, Miss Webb is a descendant of Commodore Vanderbilt, and a great-granddaughter of the late William H. Vanderbilt."

The Webbs were still living at 179 East 71st Street in January 1944 when Derick V. Webb became engaged to Elizabeth B. Canfield.  A graduate of Yale, Webb had entered the Army in October 1942 and was on leave.  In reporting on the engagement on January 7, The Putnam County Republican mentioned that his brother, "Pfc. Richard H. Webb [was] recently wounded in Italy."

When Vanderbilt Webb died on June 17, 1956 at the age of 65, he and Aileen were living at 66 East 79th Street.  No. 179 East 71st Street was now home to New Yorker illustrator Saul Steinberg and his artist wife Hedda Sterne.

Born in Romania in 1914, Steinberg was educated at the University of Bucharest and the Polytechnic University of Milan where he studied architecture.  The Fascist anti-Semitic laws forced him to leave Italy in 1938, and he arrived in New York in 1942.  He and Hedda, also born in Romania, were married in 1944.

Although he was best known for his New Yorker drawings, and for others in publications like Fortune, Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, and Mademoiselle, his artworks were routinely exhibited in galleries and museums.  He would eventually have more than 80 one-man artist shows throughout the United States, South America and Europe.

Like her husband, Hedda Sterne had attended the University of Bucharest.  During World War II she and her family suffered under the Bucharest pogrom before she was finally able to sail for New York on October 17, 1941, where she quickly achieved success with her art.  She became friends with Peggy Guggenheim and became reconnected with painters she had known in Europe, including Marcel Duchamp, Max Ernst, and André Breton.  By 1943 her artworks were being shown regularly in New York galleries, particularly Peggy Guggenheim's.

Hedda Sterne and Poussin in the rear yard of 179 East 71st Street.  Artful Cats, 2019

According to the Mary Savig's Artful Cats: Discoveries from the Archives of American Art, while living at 179 East 71st Street Steinberg painted a portrait of Hedda's cat Poussin "inside the cabinet under their kitchen sink; the idea was to keep away mice."

The couple separated in 1960, although they remained married until Steinberg's death in 1999.  Hedda died on April 8, 2011 at the age of 100.  

No. 179 East 71st Street, having had only a handful of owners, has seen almost no outward change since its completion in 1910.

photographs by the author

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The Hanford Twitchell House - 166 East 71st Street

 

166 East 71st Street (left) is one of a mirror image pair.

Born in London in 1844, Thomas Graham was the son of a builder.  He set out on a career in architecture, studying in the office of Jardine & Thompson, but left at the outbreak of the Civil War to serve with the First New York Engineers.  Upon his return to New York, he learned the cabinet making and stair building trade.  He switched careers again in 1870 when he again took up architecture and building.  Graham's projects were often a family affair.  His wife Jennie was sometimes the owner of record, while he did the designing and contracting.  And in 1898 the couple's son, William Van Wyck Graham would join his father's business.

In 1894 Jennie Graham purchased and demolished the 25-foot-wide wooden building at 164-166 East 71st Street.  Robert Graham designed two mirror-image brick-and-stone dwellings on the site.  Completed the following year, they were a handsome blend of Romanesque and Renaissance Revival styles.  The basement and parlor levels were faced in rough cut stone, while the three upper floors were clad in beige Roman brick and trimmed in limestone.  Graham gave the openings of each level successively less ornamentation.  The second floor windows sat on molded sills and their shared lintel was supported by foliate brackets.  The sills of the third floor were plain, and the single lintel had no brackets.  Finally, the windows of the top story were given understated sills and lintels.  Complex, ornate cornices crowned the structures.

No. 166 was originally home to the Decker family, who left in 1905.  It was next purchased as an investment by Charles H. Strong.  He leased it in 1907 to Francis Gordon Brown and his wife, the former Caroline Lawrence Bogert.  A banker with J. P. Morgan & Co., Brown had attended the exclusive Groton School and graduated from Yale University.  The couple was married in 1905 and had a one-year-old son, Francis Jr.  

Reeve Schley, the next to rent the house, was here by 1912.  An attorney with Simpson, Thacher & Bartlett, he graduated from Yale University in 1903, and from Columbia in 1906.  He and Kate de Forest Prentice were married in 1907, and had two children, Reeve Jr., born on September 7, 1908, and Eleanor Prentice, born on July 17, 1911.

The Schleys' affluence was evidenced when Kate lost a piece of jewelry in the spring of 1916. Her notice in The Evening Telegram read:

Lost--Diamond and platinum horseshoe pin, on April 12, probably in front of Castles in the Air, West Forty-fourth Street. Return to Mrs. Reeve Schley, 166 East 71st St. Reward, $100.

The ample reward would translate to about $2,750 in 2023.

Two months later, on June 28, the New York Herald reported that the Schleys "have closed their home at No. 166 East Seventy-first street, and are at the Plaza for a short stay before going to their summer place, Meadowcroft, at Monmouth Beach, N.J." The family would not return to East 71st Street. Charles H. Strong leased the house that year to Marvyn Scudder and his wife.

The Scudders remained through 1927, after which 166 East 71st Street became home to Anna Elizabeth Martin Dew. Born in Georgia in 1858, she was the widow of James Harvie Dew who had died in 1914.

In October 1928 Anna announced the engagement of her niece, Bessie Dew Martin to Frederic Bowne, Jr. Both of Bessie's parents were deceased. The couple's marriage in St. Thomas' Church on January 18, 1929 was a social affair. The groom was a descendant of John Bowne, a founder of Flushing, New York and the builder of the historic 1661 Bowne House. Brooklyn Life noted that the bride "is a lineal descendant of Martin de Tours of France, who went to England and was made the Earl of Pembroke. Chief Justice John Marshall of Virginia, is another ancestor."

Having owned the house for more than three decades, Charles H. Strong sold it in April 1931. The new owner resold it in 1933 to Hanford Mead Twitchell and his wife, the former Gertrude Virginia Sterry.

The couple was married on May 31, 1924. When they moved into the East 71st Street house, they had a five-year-old son, Hanford Jr., a two-year-old daughter, Virginia, and a one-year-old, Sterry. Two more children would follow. Cleveland arrived in 1938, and Joan in 1940. The family's summer home was in the Hamptons.

Hanford had graduated from Lawrenceville School in 1916, and from Princeton University in 1920. Since 1925 he had been a broker with the real estate firm of Albert B. Ashforth.

Both Hanford and Gertrude came from socially prominent families, as was evidenced when they hosted a tea and reception on December 12, 1936 for their debutante niece, Prudence Cleveland Smith of Providence. Introducing the Rhode Island girl to Manhattan society was important. The New York Times noted, "Miss Smith will make her debut at a dinner dance to be given by her parents on Dec. 29 in Providence. Her grandmother, Mrs. Frederic Sterry, will give a luncheon for the debutante early next month at the Plaza here."

Hanford was a vice president of Albert B. Ashforth, Inc. by 1951, when he resigned and formed a real estate appraising and consulting company, Hanford M. Twitchell. Among his clients were the U.S. Information Service of the United States Government, the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, and The Prudential Insurance Company of America.

The Twitchells remained at 166 East 71st Street through 1961, after which Hanford and Gertrude moved to Rio de Janeiro. Perhaps because of its narrow proportions, the house has never been converted to apartments. Other than a somewhat regrettable replacement door, it is little changed on the exterior since its completion in 1895.

photographs by the author

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The 1895 Henry Hesse House - 164 East 71st Street

 

The Hesse house (right) is a mirror-image of 166 East 71st Street

In March 1884 The Manufacturer and Builder reported that developer Moritz Bauer "intends to erect a first-class four-story and basement brown stone private dwelling" at 164 East 71st Street.  Bauer had already hired Hugo Kafka to design the upscale residence.

But something upset Bauer's plans.  A decade later two wooden dwellings still occupied the narrow plots at 164 and 166 East 71st Street.  That would change in 1894 when Thomas and Jennie Graham purchased the properties.  The couple were active in real estate within the neighborhood and made a successful team.  Jennie filled the position of developer and owner, while Thomas designed the structures.

They replaced the frame houses with two mirror-image, brick and stone rowhouses.  A handsome blend of Romanesque Revival and Renaissance Revival styles, their basement and parlor levels were faced in rough-cut stone.  Stone voussoirs took the place of decorative lintels at the parlor level.  A shared stone cornice with delicate dentils that capped the first floor terminated in foliate bosses.

Graham gave the second and third floor windows a common lintel--possibly to fool the eye and disguise the homes' narrow 12-foot-widths.  Complex pressed metal double cornices with elaborate friezes, dentils and foliate brackets completed the design.

In July 1895 Jennie Graham sold 164 East 71st Street to Henry Hesse, Jr.  A physician, he was 33 years old at the time, and his wife, the former Clara Lauterjung, was 22.  The population of the house was increased on September 21, 1896, when son Henry Rudolph was born, and again in 1898 with the birth of Margot Pauline.

Although he never served in a war--he was born the year the Civil War broke out--Henry was nonetheless highly patriotic and joined the volunteer 23rd Regiment as a teen.  When the Hesses moved from Brooklyn to the East 71st Street house he held the rank of second lieutenant and was Assistant Surgeon of Company B of that regiment.

Henry Rudolf was a bit slower to offer his services.  It is unclear how he managed to avoid his obligations during World War I, but it was not until 1919 (following the declaration of peace) that he registered for military service at the age of 23.

The Hesse family lived quietly in their narrow house, their names appearing in society pages only when the children married.  The East 71st Street house was the setting for Margot Pauline's wedding to Dr. Alfred G. Langmann on June 4, 1925.  In reporting on the ceremony, The New York Times mentioned, "The bride was graduated from Vassar in 1921."

Henry Rudolph would take his time in finding a wife.  When he married Hilda Poel on April 18, 1927, he was 31 years old.  Now empty-nesters, his parents sold their home of more than three decades to Dr. S. H. Shindell in August 1928.  The New York Evening Post remarked, "The purchaser will occupy the house as a residence and office."

Dr. Shindell's practice was quite different from that of his predecessor--he was a veterinarian.  He was called to assist in a birth at 62 Washington Square South in 1935 when H. E. Van Herwarth's cat went into labor.  Normally, cats give birth unattended, but Sakura Jane was a "world-famous prize seal-point Siamese," according to The New York Post on October 22.  Shindell was stunned when the kittens kept coming--finally numbering ten in all.  He told reporters it was "the largest litter of kittens of which he has ever heard."

Nature had not intended for Sakura Jane to give birth to ten offspring.  The New York Post explained, "With so many babies to feed, Sakura Jane has not enough milk to go around."  Shindell told Van Herwarth he would had to find a wet nurse cat--a daunting challenge.  The surrogate mother did not have to be a Siamese, but "she must have given birth within the last forty-eight hours."  (It is unclear if Van Herwarth ever found a feline wet nurse.)

By 1940 the Thomas Bandes family lived at 164 East 71st Street.  He and his wife Mary had two sons, Gerald and Selwyn, who were 18 and 11 years old respectively at the time.  Living with them was a 28-year-old servant, Mercelina Gordeurn.

In the last quarter of the 20th century, 164 East 71st Street was home to the resourceful Carole Eppley.  She ran a "kitchen-bakeshop," as described by The New York Times on March 19, 1978, from the house.  The article said in part, "There may be nothing new about the Easter rabbits in general, but there is news in their delectably sweet and sprightly reincarnations as original and charming cookies."  The rabbit cookies were just part of Carole Eppley's Easter confections.  The article said she was "baking fluffy, coconut-furred lamb cakes ($10 each), egg-shaped petits fours decorated in pastels ($2 each), a dozen different barnyard animals $9 a dozen) and bird's nest cookies, which are really brown sugar cookies filled with green grass frosting and a rainbow assortment of jelly beans."

A charming built-in bench on a staircase hall landing survives, as do the intricately inlaid flooring.  image via compass.com

The former Hesse house was remodeled in 2013.  While much of the 1896 detailing was removed, some--like the main staircase and some mantels--survive.  The exterior is well preserved.

photographs by the author

no permission to reuse the content of this blog has been granted to LaptrinhX.com 

The 1881 Frank C. Markham House - 155 East 71st Street

 

James R. Breen and Alfred G. Nason started their partnership as "carpenters."  By the early 1870s they had become full-fledged contractors.  Both men became wealthy and influential (Nason was a friend of Presidents Ulysses Grant and Theodore Roosevelt).  Among the structures built by Breen & Nason would be Grant's Tomb.

There were rare instances when the partners acted as their own developers and architects.  They started one such project on April 1, 1881 when they purchased the old 40-foot-wide wooden house at 155-157 East 71st Street from Thomas D. Stetson for $15,500 (around $425,000 in 2023).  The price reflected the increasing development in the Lenox Hill district.

Before the end of the year Breen & Nason had completed two upscale, mirror-image houses.  An advertisement on Christmas Day 1881 read:

An elegant new four-story and basement house, No. 155 East 71st-st., just completed by Breen & Nason, No,. 341 East 59th-st.; cabinet finish, mirrors &c.; house open daily.

The 20-foot-wide residence was designed in the neo-Grec style.  At four stories tall, the high-stooped house and its fraternal twin towered over their neighbors.  Breen & Nason's use of spandrel panels below and above each window emphasized the geometry of the neo-Grec style.

Frank Chauncey Markham purchased 155 East 71st Street in April 1882, paying the equivalent of $807,000 today.  A stockbroker, he and his wife, the former Louisa Hill, had two daughters, Mary Louise and Helen Taylor.

The family moved into the new house just in time for Mary Louise's introduction to society.  As was often the case, a wedding quickly followed.  On June 15, 1884 the Buffalo Courier reported on her marriage to Charles Townsend in St. James Church.  A reception followed in the Markham house.  "The bridal party received before a large mirror, which was festooned with bands of  roses of all colors," said the article.  "The floral decoration in all the reception rooms and halls were noticeably effective.  The newel-post in the main hallway supported a huge vase of regal flowers."  The article said that after the last of the guests left, the bride and groom "disappeared for parts unmentioned."

The Markhams left the East 71st Street house not long afterward.  It became home to Herrman and Eveline Schiffer.   Eveline was the daughter of Minna and Samuel Schiffer, and whether she and Herrman were related before marriage is unclear.

On June 1, 1888, Herrman and Alfred Schiffer became partners with Isaias Meyer in the silk manufacturing firm Pelgram & Meyer.  They filled the position of Meyer's deceased partner, Charles R. Pelgram.

Eveline Schiffer fell ill early in 1889 and died in the house on March 19.  Her funeral was held in the drawing room on March 22.

No. 155 East 71st Street next became home to Dr. Andrew J. McCosh, who purchased it on June 22, 1903.  Born in Belfast, Ireland in 1858, he was the son of Dr. James McCosh,  who had become president of Princeton University in the family's new homeland.  Not surprisingly, McCosh attended Princeton, before earning his medical degree from the Columbia's College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1880.

By the time Dr. McCosh purchased 155 East 71st Street, he was considered to be one of the leading surgeons of the country, and was a professor of clinical surgery at Columbia University.  He was the author of several medical books, including Remarks on Spinal Surgery, Four Cases of Brain Surgery, and Surgical Intervention in Benign Gastric Lesions."

Andrew McCosh's residency would be short.  He sold the house in February 1905 to Francis G. Lloyd, the president of Brooks Brothers.  It does not appear that the Lloyds ever lived in the residence, but rented it.  Lloyd hired the architectural firm of Trowbridge & Livingston to make interior updates and install new windows in 1907.

Lloyd's tenants by 1910 were the family of merchant Gustavus Owen Winston.  The wealthy young man was just 27-years-old at the time.  His and his wife, the former Margaret Dey, had three sons, four-year-old John Lloyd; Owen Lloyd, who was 3; and little Francis Lloyd, just one year old.  Also living with the family was Gustavus's brother, 19-year-old Eric S. Winston.  Their father Gustavus S. Winston, had died in 1899 and their mother was now remarried.

The Winston family had five live-in servants: three Irish maids who ranged in age from 16 to 25, a French-born servant who was most likely Margaret's lady's maid or possibly the children's nursemaid, and 17-year-old William Zangl, who was born in Austria.

Eric S. Winston was attending Harvard at the time.  He graduated in 1912 and two years later his engagement to Maud Arden Kennedy was announced.

The well-dressed and well-to-do Eric and Maud Winston at the New York Horse Show not long after their marriage.  from the collection of the Library of Congress.

The Winstons left 155 East 71st Street in 1914.  Francis G. Lloyd leased the house next to Clendening J. Ryan, son of millionaire Thomas Fortune Ryan, and then to Thomas Frothingham.

In 1919 he sold the house to stockbroker Richard Lewis Morris and his wife, the former Caroline Whitney Fellowes.  Morris was the son of Stuyvesant Fish Morris and Ellen James Van Buren and was descended from Lewis Morris, a signer of the Declaration of Independence.  He and Caroline had two children, Cornelia Fellowes, born in 1909, and Richard Jr., born in 1917.  Their summer home, The Three Chimneys, was in Southampton.

In 1925 the Morrises hired architect Auguste Noel to modernize their brownstone house.  He removed the stoop and moved the entrance to the former English basement level, just below grade.  He enlarged the openings at what was now the third floor, connecting them with a single lintel.

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

Cornelia was introduced to society at a dinner dance at the Park Lane on December 1, 1928.  Saying she was "well known to the younger set of the Hamptons," the Standard Union noted that Cornelia "spent last year in France at L'Ermitage, Versailles."

Unlike many debutantes, Cornelia seems to have been in no hurry to marry.  It was not until April 28, 1933, that the New York Evening Post reported, "Descendants of families prominent in the early history of the United States are being married this afternoon when Miss Cornelia Fellowes Morris becomes the bride of Mr. Malcolm Graham Field."  Coincidentally, the wedding took place in St. James Church, where Mary Louise Markham had been married half a century earlier.  A reception following in the East 71st Street house.

As was the case with all wealthy families, the society pages followed the Morrises' movements.  On May 4, 1934, for instance, The New York Sun reported that Richard and Caroline "will be among the New Yorkers attending the Kentucky Derby on Saturday.  They are motoring to Louisville, stopping en route at Washington, Arlington, Charlottesville and White Sulphur Springs."

Richard Lewis Morris died at the age of 79 on July 4, 1954.  He and Caroline had been gone from 155 East 71st Street for several years at the time.  In 1953 the house was converted to a triplex apartment in the lower part, with one apartment each on the upper two stories.  

The configuration lasted until 1967 when the basement level was converted to an office, with a duplex on the first and second floors, and one apartment each on the third and fourth.  The top two floors were combined to a duplex apartment in 1988.

photographs by the author

no permission to reuse the content of this blog has been granted to LaptrinhX.com