The Ernest G. Stillman Mansion - 45 East 75th Street

 

photo by Ajay Suresh

Dr. Ernest Goodrich Stillman was born in Newport, Rhode Island on July 14, 1894, the son of multi-millionaire banker James J. Stillman and his wife, Sarah Elizabeth Rumrill.  Upon his father's death in 1918, Ernest and his two brothers, Charles and James, each inherited $9,694,561.  Ernest's windfall would be the equivalent of about $196 million in 2024.

Dr. Stillman graduated from Harvard in 1908 and earned his medical degree from Columbia University in 1913.  He was a research staff member at the Rockefeller Institute Hospital (not especially surprising considering that two of his sisters, Sarah and Isabel, had married Rockefellers).  Stillman and his wife, the former Mildred Marguerite Whitney, had three daughters, Jane, Dora Whitney and Penelope; and three sons, John Sterling, Calvin Whitney and Timothy Goodrich.  

In 1924, Stillman purchased the three high-stooped brownstones at 45 to 49 West 75th Street and hired the architectural firm of Cross & Cross to design a replacement mansion on the site.  Completed the following year, its architect of record was H. W. Andrews.  He designed the 51-foot-wide, four-story mansion in the neo-Federal style, giving East 75th Street a splash of 18th century America.

A graceful fanlight crowned above the main entrance.  Sitting above a stone bandcourse, four large, multi-paned windows at the second floor were fronted by iron balconies.  The slate-shingled mansard was punctured by five alternating pedimented and flat-headed dormers.  A Chippendale railing crowned the roof.

photo by Wurts Bros. from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York.

Stillman's mother was taken to her country home at Cornwall-on-Hudson in 1925, the year the family moved into 45 East 75th Street.  Her health was fragile and Middletown [New York] Daily Herald said, "it was said she could not live out the year."  On October 18, Sarah Stillman was brought from Cornwall-on-Hudson to 45 East 75th Street in a private ambulance.  Ernest G. Stillman soft-peddled her condition, telling reporters, "she made the trip by motor to avoid the fatigue of transferring from train to ferry."  Sarah Elizabeth Rumrill eventually returned to her home at 102 East 35th Street, where she died a little over a month later, on November 30, at the age of 73.

Stillman filled the 75th Street mansion with a magnificent collection of Japanese art and literature.  It was later divided between the Widener Library and the Peabody Museum.  The family maintained two summer homes, the Cornwall-on-Hudson residence and another in Northeast Harbor, Maine.

Jane, born in 1913, was the eldest of the Stillman children.  On October 26, 1931, the New York Evening Post reported, "Dr. and Mrs. Ernest G. Stillman will present their daughter, Miss Jane Stillman, to society at an old fashioned afternoon reception, at their home, 45 East Seventy-fifth Street. This has been arranged primarily for old friends of the family, and there will not be dancing."

Debutante entertainments continued throughout the winter social season, and on December 23 the newspaper announced that Ernest and Mildred, "are giving a dinner-dance this evening at the Ritz-Carlton for their daughter, Miss Jane Stillman.  The debutante made her format debut at a tea at the Stillman home on December 6, and tonight's party has been arranged for her friends in the younger set."

Mildred's entertainments in the 75th Street mansion often centered around charities.  On November 15, 1942, for instance, The New York Times reported that she would be hosting a tea "for members of the debutante committee aiding in the plans for the annual card party in behalf of the New York Child's Foster Home Service."  She and Ernest jointly provided funds for the construction of the Cornwall Hospital, and she was a director and chairman of the foster home committee of the New York Nursery and Childs Hospital, to which she contributed generously.

She was, as well, an author, editor and poet, best known for her children's books.  She was already a successful author when she and Ernest were married in 1911.  Among her children's books were The Mermaid and the Little Fish, A Present for Santa Claus, and A Boy of Galilee.  Additionally, The New York Times said, "she was widely recognized as a translator of writings by the French religious philosopher, Francois Fenelton."

Philanthropy was as much a part of Ernest Stillman's life as was medicine.  He funded the building of Shaler Hall and the Fisher Museum at Harvard University, donated a horticultural research unit in Petersham, Massachusetts to the university, and financially supported the Cornwall Hospital in upstate New York.  Ardently interested in forestry and silvicultural research, he donated the 3,800-acre Black Rock Forest along the Hudson River in Orange County, New York to Harvard along with a large endowment.

Dr. Ernest Goodrich Stillman died in the mansion on December 16, 1949 at the age of 65.  His love of trees and forestry was reflected in his will, which directed his executors "to have my remains cremated and the ashes scattered in Black Rock Forest."

Eight months later, on August 22, 1950, Mildred Marguerite Whitney Stillman suffered a fatal heart attack in the house at the age of 60.  The New York Times mentioned that, in addition to her many philanthropies, "She was a founder and former secretary of the New York Junior League."

The mansion was purchased by Miss Hewitt's Classes, a private girls' school founded in 1920.  A renovation completed in 1951 resulted in classrooms and offices on each floor. 

Three years later, the school purchased the vintage house across the street at 44 East 75th Street for dormitory purposes.  It continued to expand its holdings in April 1964, when it purchased the adjoining house at 46 East 75th Street.

photo by Jim Henderson

By then, name of Miss Hewitt's Classes had been changed to The Hewitt School.  It remains a private girl's school for grades kindergarten through 12.  The exterior of the Stillman mansion has been respectfully preserved.

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The Jane Wasey Studio - 178 East 75th Street

 

In 1880 real estate developer Patrick McQuade completed a group of Italianate style houses on the south side of East 75th Street, between Third and Lexington Avenues.  Faced in brownstone, the 16-foot-wide, high-stooped homes rose three stories above an English basement.

On November 21, 1881, McQuade sold 178 East 75th Street to William A. Keeler for $13,000--about $355,000 in 2023 terms.  It was the first in a short series of rapid turnovers of the property.  Keeler sold it to Robert H. Racey in May 1885, who sold it to Dr. Sallo Callmann two years later.  Callmann paid $13,250 for the house, slightly more than Keeler had paid in 1881.  However, as pointed out by the Record & Guide on February 12, 1887, the sale included the "gas fixtures, mirrors, &c."

Dr. Callmann was born in Germany in 1832.  He studied medicine in his homeland, and immediately opened his office upon arriving in New York in 1864.  In addition to his medical practice, he opened the Kleindeustchland Lodge in the Lower East Side for German immigrants.  He and his wife had three sons, at least two of whom, William and Carl, lived with them in the East 75th Street house.

On November 23, 1888 Callmann attended to his patients and, according to The New York Times, "appeared in good health."  The newspaper said, "He was busy in his office at 4 o'clock in the afternoon.  A little later he was found dead in his chair."  The article presumed his death was "probably of apoplexy," or a stroke.  His funeral was held in the house three days later.

Within the year William Callmann became highly involved in the formation of a Naval Reserve.  With its proposed headquarters in New York City, the reserve would have branches in seaport towns.  Callmann informed the readers of The Sun, "Its members are to be boys from the ages of 14 to 17," and explained, "The object of the reserve is to instruct its members in the use of modern weapons of naval warfare so as to be of use to our country in times of need."  

Carl Callmann sold 178 East 75th Street to Louis Rosenberg on August 1, 1892 for $14,500.  Living with him and his wife were their sons, Isaac and Lawrence.  Rosenberg operated a pawn shop at 386 Eighth Avenue.

On the night of April 13, 1897, Rosenberg discovered a baby in the areaway in front of the house.  The New York Herald said he "gave the child to a policeman, who took it to Bellevue Hospital."  Abandoned infants were often left by indigent mothers, but this one, estimated to be about a year old, was different.  The article said:

The little girl was much better dressed than the ordinary foundling.  She wore a comfortable cloak of white flannel, trimmed with fur; a fine white lawn dress and white underclothing, all new.  It was well nourished and bore every evidence of careful attention.

The first hint of shady dealings in the Rosenberg pawn shop came on March 27, 1898.  The Sun reported on the arrest of Wally O'Conner, "a notorious bank thief," and Ella Reynolds for a burglary of silk from the Wanamaker Department Store in Philadelphia.  The article said, "They were caught this evening shipping the stolen silk over the Reading Railway to L. Rosenberg, 178 East Seventy-fifth street, New York."

Rosenberg seems to have explained his way out of that situation.  The following year, however, he had a more difficult time of it.  A gang of thieves was apprehended in the robberies of John Hoerley's shoe factory in Brooklyn, and stores in Brooklyn and Newark, New Jersey.  The haul of shoes, apparel, umbrellas and other goods was valued at the equivalent of more than $760,000 in today's money.  Under intense questioning, one of the gang members pointed his finger at Rosenberg.

Detectives raided the Eighth Avenue pawn shop and found a wealth of stolen goods.  The Sun said, "Two truckloads of prints, shears and shoes taken from Rosenberg's place were held at Police Headquarters."  Police knocked at the door of 178 East 75th Street and arrested Rosenberg who was charged with having acted as a "fence for the thieves."  Rosenberg insisted "he got [the items] at auction, and showed receipts for some of the goods," said the article.

It seems that once again Rosenberg wriggled out of the charges.  But the pawnbroker's name would appear in the newspapers for the wrong reasons again in 1905.  On December 6, The New York Times wrote that Louis Rosenberg had appeared in the Tombs Court the previous afternoon "to explain how he came into possession of a lot of magnificent pearls."  They were part of a $75,000 jewel heist in Paris nine months earlier.  The article noted, "The pearls found in possession of Rosenberg are estimated by the police to be worth $15,000."

Once again, Rosenberg had an explanation.  When a reporter visited the East 75th Street house that evening, Rosenberg stressed, "I came into the possession of the pearls.  There was nothing illegitimate about the affair, and it will have to be proved to my satisfaction that they are really the property of Glottauer-Freres before I will part with them."  He said he had purchased them from a woman who "wore fashionable clothes, and there was nothing about her to arouse my suspicions."

At the time of this latest problem, Rosenberg was in the process of selling his house.  It was purchased by C. Folhmer who quickly made substantial renovations.

Three years earlier the houses at 168 through 176 East 75th Street had been converted to "automobile stables."  Now Folhmer followed suit.   The stoop of 178 East 75th Street was removed, a garage bay installed, and the cornice replaced with an Arts & Crafts style parapet.

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services

The upper floors became home to Albert E. Stacy and his wife by 1913.  He was the secretary and director of the Peck-Larter Amusement Co., the offices of which were now located in the ground floor.  Involved in the firm with him were Charles Widmer and Cyrus L. Scofield.

Peck-Larter Amusement Co. provided games and booths for carnivals and such.  The Billboard, April 11, 1914 (copyright expired)

In 1915 the building was purchased by millionaire Paul Warburg of Kuhn, Loeb & Co. as his private garage.  The banker and his family lived at 17 East 80th Street.   Following his death in 1932, The Daily News of Tarrytown, New York mentioned, "Mr. Warburg owned the property at 178 East 75th Street, New York City, valued at $40,000." 

The estate of Warburg's widow, Nina, sold the private garage in 1946 to the City Investing Company.  By 1952 it had become the home and studio of sculptor Jane Wasey.  

Born in Chicago in 1912, Wasey began her arts studies in Paris at the Academy Julian at the age of 17.  She became assistant to sculptor Paul Landowski and would work with him on the Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro.

Jane Wasey, Tulsa World, March 30, 1947

Wasey was a founder of the Sculptors Guild.  She executed her human and (mainly) animal sculptures in both abstract and realistic styles.  By 1964, when the artist purchased the 186-acre Cat Cay island in the Bahamas, she also had a studio in East Hampton, Long Island.

Listed with her at 178 East 75th Street was her widowed mother, Rae Gager Wasey.  She died on March 20, 1968 at the age of 86.  Jane Wasey moved permanently to Lincolnville, Maine by the early 1970s.  She died there in November 1992 at the age of 80.  Her works are in the permanent collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art and the William A. Farnsworth Art Museum of Rockland, Maine.

In 1978 a renovation to 178 East 75th Street was completed that resulted in a fine arts studio and garage on the ground floor and a single family home above.  A veneer of red brick was applied and a fifth floor added (which copied the 1906 parapet).  Large bulbous nubs created architectural talking points, as did the fearsome looking gargoyles that hover above the ground floor entrances.

photographs by Ted Leather

many thanks to Ted Leather for suggesting this post

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The Arpad Gerster House - 34 East 75th Street

 

Born on December 22, 1848 in Kassa, Hungary (now part of Slovakia), Arpad Geyza Charles Gerster earned his medical degree from the University of Vienna in 1872.  A year later he arrived in New York, settling in Brooklyn.  During the long ocean voyage he met Anna Barnard Wynne of Cincinnati, and before the ship docked romance had bloomed.  Three years later, in December 1875, they were married.

Gerster was a Renaissance man.  He limited his practice to surgery and was appointed attending surgeon to the German Hospital (later Lenox Hill Hospital) and the Mount Sinai Hospital.  As a professor of surgery in the New York Polyclinic, he stressed the new antibiotic techniques developed by Lord Lister.  He wrote the first textbook on the subject, Rules of Aseptic and Antiseptic Surgery, published in 1888.

Dr. Arpad Gerster, from the collection of The Museum of Blue Mountain Lake

But his talents went beyond medicine.  He was a accomplished sketch artist, author, and sportsman, as well.  A music lover, Gersted taught himself Italian so he could better understand opera.

In May 1895 Gerster purchased the 25-foot-wide vacant lot at 34 East 75th Street, just east Madison Avenue, from Julia E. Cameron.  The price of the plot, $22,500, reflected the increasingly fashionable tenor of the neighborhood.  The equivalent amount in 2022 would be about $715,000.  

Architect John B. Brazier filed plans for a four-story residence the following month.  He projected construction costs at $24,000--more than doubling Gerster's outlay.  The completed house would be fitted with upscale details.  On June 1, 1895 the Real Estate Record & Guide listed:

...light-colored brick front, with limestone trimmings, and all modern improvements, including hard-wood trim, cabinet mantels, nickel-plated exposed plumbing, bath and laundry fixtures, marble, parquet and pine floors, tiled bath-room and operating room, stained glass, electric wiring, ranges, refrigerators, hot-air heating, electric bells, etc.

Notable were the inclusion of an operating room, for Gerster's practice, and the electric bells used to call servants from any part of the house.

While many of the homes in the neighborhood were being designed in the popular Beaux Arts style, Brazier turned to a more sedate neo-Classical design for the Gerster residence.  The off-center double-doored entrance sat within a limestone base.  It was flanked by fluted, Ionic pilasters that reappeared between the grouped windows of the upper floors.  The upper floors were clad in brick.  Brazier's asymmetrical design continued at the second and third floors.  At the fourth, the windows were grouped within a stone frame, each separated by a pilaster.  Oddly enough, the strict neo-Classical design gave way to Romanesque Revival for the cornice, where brackets in the form of "green men" upheld either end, and intermediate modillions took the form of fearsome creatures.

Moving into the the new home with Arpad and Anna was their 14-year-old son, John Carl Arpad Gerster.  While most of their wealthy neighbors summered at fashionable resorts like Newport and Bar Harbor, the Gersters preferred their rustic Camp Oteetiwi, on Big Island in Racquet Lake, New York.  Here in the Adirondack Mountains Gerster relaxed by fishing and sketching.  (In 1912 Gerster became a trustee of the Association for the Protection of the Adirondacks.)  

Dr. Gerster and John are at left in this photo taken around 1890.  Anna is on the steps.  from the collection of The Museum of Blue Mountain Lake

Back in New York, Arpad Gerster did not forget his European roots.  He was president of the National Slavonic Societies in 1902.  His reputation was such that his switching political parties in 1908 to vote for Republican Presidential nominee William H. Taft made headlines nationwide.  On October 28, the Honesdale, Pennsylvania newspaper The Citizen ran the headline, "New York's Leading Surgeon, A Stanch [sic] Democrat, Supports Taft," with the sub-headline, "Dr. Gerster, Famous Hungarian, in Swinging to Taft, Will Influence Thousands of Countrymen."

John Gerster followed in his father's professional footsteps, earning his medical degree from Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1905.  He focused on the treatment of cancer and in 1913 assembled a small group in the 75th Street house to form the American Society for the Control of Cancer.  (It would be renamed the American Cancer Society in 1922.)

John's engagement to Alice Fox was announced in 1917.  Their wedding plans were disrupted by America's entrance into World War I in April.  On June 7, the New York Herald reported that the ceremony, scheduled for June 26, had hastily taken place in the bride's home the previous day.  "The bridegroom, who is a member of the medical division of the Officers' Reserve Corps, has been ordered to report for duty at Fort Benjamin Harrison, Ind., at the end of this month."

Gerster sketched Camp Oteetiwi in September 1892. 

John Gerster's patriotic response to the war did not affect the Government's suspicious view of his father.  German- and Hungarian-born Americans were often clumped together as what was termed Alien Enemies.  Arpad Gerster's importance in the medical community may have saved him from worse ramifications, but nevertheless, on July 12, 1918 The Sun reported that A. Mitchell Palmer, Alien Property Custodian, had reorganized the Transatlantic Trust Company, of which Gerster was a director.  He and four other "alien enemies" were removed from the board.

After a short illness, Dr. Arpad Gerster died in the house on March 11, 1923 at the age of 74.   He left Anna "all his movable and immovable property."  His will contained surprising directions like, "To rebuke the foolish and to show a good example to all, an autopsy shall be held on my remains."  He directed that for his funeral, "no expenditures beyond satisfying plain decency shall be incurred" and "The music at the funeral shall contain the second movement of Johann Sebastian Bach's concerto for two violins and piano in D. minor."  He left explicit directions, including a map and photograph, to the location in the forest near Camp Kwenogaman, Long Lake, New York, for the interment of his cremated remains. 

By 1927 the American Cancer Society was using the first floor of the house as its headquarters, while John Gerster, who had moved his family to 18 East 78th Street, rented the upper three floors to Professor Eugene Hugh Byrne of Barnard College.  He would remain well into the 1930's.  The cancer organization would remain at least through 1934.

John and Alice Gerster's daughter, Dorothy Fox Gerster, was married to Thomas Kirby Schmuck, Jr. on August 24, 1938.  The New York Sun reported that the ceremony, "is taking place today in the home of her late grandparents, Dr. and Mrs. Arpad G. Gerster."

At some point John Gerster returned to the 75th Street house, where he died at the age of 92 on May 22, 1974.  After having been in the Gerster family for 79 years, the residence was sold soon afterward.  In 1975 an alteration was completed that resulted in ten apartments.  The configuration lasted until a subsequent remodeling, completed in 1997, created a triplex apartment above the ground floor.

Although the brick has been painted and the windows replaced, the Gerster house is otherwise little changed.

photographs by the author

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The Charles and Lydia Hickox House - 53 East 75th Street

 

On August 26, 1881 Margaret and Francis Crawford purchased two vacant plots on East 75th Street, just west of Park Avenue.  The Real Estate Record & Guide noted they intended to erect "new buildings."  A month later architect John G. Prague filed plans for two "four-story brown stone dwellings."  They were completed the following summer.

Thomas Henry Hall and his wife, the former Marie Louise Chanfrau, purchased 53 East 75th Street in September 1882.  The couple paid $42,000 for the residence, or around $1.1 million in today's money.

The couple had three children, Joseph, Pierre, and Adelaide.  Hall was the principal in Thomas H. Hall Tobacco, the cigarette factory of which was on East 37th Street.  His brand "Between the Acts," came with trade cards featuring popular actors and actresses, similar to the baseball cards in bubble gum that appeared in the 20th century.

The front and reverse of one a "Between the Acts" trade card.  from the collection of The Library of Trinity College Dublin

The Halls were visible in society, Marie Louise's name appearing in society columns regularly.  On December 30, 1887, for instance, The Evening World noted, "Mrs. T. H. Hall, of 53 East Seventy-fifth street, will entertain a number of friends on the evening of Jan. 3."  

The Hall's summer home was at Great Neck, Long Island, where Thomas, who was a member of the Atlantic Yacht Club, docked his schooner, the Republic.  He and "his family party" took the Republic south January 31, 1889 to escape the winter weather.  Newspapers, kept informed by Hall, followed the progress of a voyage.  On February 17, the New-York Tribune reported that the vessel "with Thomas H. Hall and guests aboard, is at the Bermudas, bound for the West Indies."

On the same day of that article, the Hall schooner was weathering a storm--one which the society ladies had not anticipated.  Hall's notes from that day said in part:

the movement of the joiner work is slightly unpleasant to the ladies.  I am on my knees, braced up against the transom cushion to get a fairly steady position.  Some of the ladies feel inclined to return home from St. Thomas, but our run from Bermuda so far has been such as would suit any yachtsman.

Hall most likely had difficulty in persuading the women not to abandon the voyage.  The storm only worsened and the following day Hall's notes told of Captain Brown's being hurt by a lurch of the vessel.  They landed at San Jose, off St. Thomas, on February 19.  "Doctor on board here.  Captain better; no bones broken.  Will probably go to St. Croix next."

Around 1891, Thomas H. Hall began showing signs forgetfulness.  Although he was only 51 years old, the symptoms smacked of what today might be diagnosed as early dementia.  In the 1890's it was declared lunacy.  

In February 1895 Marie Louis and her children, now all grown, signed an affidavit questioning his sanity.  In the affidavit, Joseph Hall said in part that for two years his father "has been unable to remember things, and has been suffering from such a loss of memory as to render him incompetent to carry on the business."   The family wanted to sell Thomas H. Hall Tobacco and had a buyer, the American Tobacco Company, lined up.  The Sun explained, "The business is now in such a condition that it can be sold to advantage."  The Halls' application asked that Thomas be "adjudged insane" and that "Joseph Hall, his mother, Marie Louise Hall, and his brother, Pierre C. Hall, be appointed committee of his father's person and estate."

What reporters found extraordinary was that Thomas Hall seemed totally on board with the move.  On February 15, The New York Times wrote, "There is no other case on record, so far as known, where anybody, fearing he might be insane, has come into court asking for a commission in lunacy on his own account."  He told the court that he had suffered a serious illness a few years earlier.  "Since then I have gradually improved, except for my loss of memory."  While he felt himself "perfectly competent to comprehend any legal instrument," he recognized the necessity to turn his business affairs over to this family.

Thomas H. Hall died in the East 75th Street house on January 19, 1901 at the age of 59.  Living with Mary Louise were Pierre, his wife Minnie, and their 7-year old daughter, Maria Louisa.

The Hall name appeared in newspapers for the wrong reasons a year later.  On April 15, 1902 the New York Herald reported that Minnie had sued Pierre for divorce for carrying on an affair with Riena Lentine Abry.  Appearing in court to testify against Pierre was Riena herself--who apparently had been unaware he was married.  Shortly after the messy affair, Marie Louis gave up 53 East 75th Street.

It became home to Adolphus J. and Elizabeth Peyton Norton Outerbridge.  The couple had been married in October 1890.  Adolphus was associated with this his family's shipping firm, A. E. Outerbridge & Co.  The couple had a daughter, H. Gertrude, and their summer home was in Rye, New York.

In May 1916 the Outerbridges sold the house to Elizabeth A. Dortic.  The daughter of Alfred Schermerhorn, her husband, Henry Theodore Dortic, had died in 1901.  High-stooped brownstones were decidedly out of style by then, and on May 20, only days after she took title, Dortic's architect, Lewis Colt Albro, filed plans for a massive remodeling.  Costing the equivalent of $657,000 today, the overhaul included "entire new front and rear walls, partitions, elevator, interior alterations."

Unfortunately, we have no photographic evidence of the finished product.  Albro removed the stoop, and placed the entrance a few steps below the sidewalk, creating a fashionable American basement residence.

Elizabeth maintained homes in Paris, on the Champs Elysees; and in Bar Harbor.  She remained in the 75th Street house until September 1923 when she sold it to Charles Ralph and Lydia Bridge Hickox for $125,000.

As Elizabeth had done, the Hickoxes made changes.  They hired architect George E. Hornum to transform the residence into a modern, neo-Federal home that bore no resemblance to its high-stooped origins.  How much of Albro's design was utilized is unclear; although Hornum did not attempt to change the level of the entrance, which remained there the old English basement had been.

The dignified, beige brick facade featured French doors below a fanlight at the second floor, which opened onto a small balcony.  A limestone cartouche decorated the space above the third floor center window.

Hickox had received his law degree from Harvard in 1896 and joined the law firm of Convers & Kirlin in 1899.  He became a partner in 1908 when the firm was renamed Kirlin, Campbell, Hickox and Keating.  A specialist in admiralty law, he was president of the Maritime Law Association of the United States.

The couple remained in the house for 16 years, selling it to George J. and Mary Boht in 1939.  The Bohts initiated renovations which resulted in one apartment each in the basement and first floor, and furnished rooms in the upper floors.

Among the tenants in 1960 were Ted Israel and his wife.  Mrs. Israel was headed home to New York on December 16, 1960 on TWA Flight 266 from Ohio.  As the airplane descended on its approach to Idlewild Airport (today's John F. Kennedy International Airport), it collided in midair with United Airlines Flight 826.  All 134 passengers were killed.

Benno de Terey, the chief interior designer for French & Company, lived here in the early 1970's.  Before immigrating to America in 1927, he had been art historian and director of the Budapest Museum of Fine Arts.  The New York Times described him as "a specialist in post Renaissance fine arts and collector of the decorative arts of the period."

A renovation completed in 1996 resulted in one apartment in the basement, and a triplex and duplex apartment on the upper floors.  The 4,000-square-foot "tony triplex," as described by a realtor, was offered for rent in 2015 for $35,000 per month.

photographs by the author

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The Frank J. Dupignac House - 40 East 75th Street

 

According to The Iron Age in 1904, Robert K. Carter "was born at Carter Hall, near Winchester, Va. March 12, 1839."  He graduated from what would become known as the Washington and Lee University Medical School, and during the Civil War served as a surgeon in the Confederate Army.  During  the Reconstruction period, Carter gave up his medical practice and relocated to New York City.

His new career could not have been more different--hardware.  After working with two firms, he struck out on his own in 1870, dealing in "Hardware, Iron, Steel, Mill, Mining and Railway supplies."  Eventually R. K. Carter & Co. would do business nation-wide.

In 1882 Carter and his wife, the former Hannah M. Youngs, purchased the newly-built rowhouse at 40 East 75th Street.  Erected by Terence Farley and designed by the prolific firm of Thom & Wilson, the four-story, high-stoop residence was faced in brownstone.  It's neo-Grec design included prominent window cornices on substantial brackets and a cast metal terminal cornice.  The Carters paid Farley $40,000 for the property, just over $1 million in today's money.

The couple had two children, Lena May and Clarence M.  Clarence graduated from the Columbia University School of Arts in 1893.  Two years later, the East 75th Street house was the scene of Lena's wedding reception.  She was married to Hewitt Coburn, Jr. in the Madison Avenue Methodist Episcopal Church at 8:30 on the evening of December 11.  

Robert Carter died in the house on December 2, 1904 at the age of 66.  Clarence, by now, was involved in R. K. Carter & Co.  He and his mother remained at 40 East 75th Street.  

Then, in April 1910 following Hannah's death, Clarence and Lena sold the house to Frank Jay Dupignac and his wife, Eleanor Van Alstan Gwyer.  Before moving in, they hired the architectural firm of Herts & Tallant to renovate the home.  On July 6, The New York Press reported, "The plans call for increasing the height of the main building to five stories and building a rear extension five stories high."  The interior layout was also redesigned, an elevator installed, and the outdated stoop removed.

Outside, Herts & Tallant focused on the basement and parlor levels and the new top floor, leaving Thom & Wilson's second through fourth floors intact.  A bowed bay at the former parlor floor--now the second--allowed the architects to recess the entrance behind free standing columns.  The new top floor took the form of a dormered mansard.

An attorney, Dupignac was born on January 10, 1848 as Frank John, but at some point, according to a descendent, "he  became known as Frank Jay Dupignac, probably adopting a nickname."  By the 1890's he had gained "considerable prominence," according to one newspaper, as a corporation lawyer.  He and Eleanor had three children, Dudley, Eleanor and Edith (who had married Mortimer Kennedy Flagg in 1900).

The Dupignac summer estate was at Orient Point in Mamaroneck, Long Island.  Their lifestyle was reflected in an article in the New York Herald society pages on December 10, 1916:

Mr. Frank J. Dupignac has closed his house, No. 40 East Seventy-fifth street, and taken a house at Santa Barbara and will be there during January, February and March with Mrs. Dupignac and their daughters, Miss Eleanor Dupignac and Mrs. Mortimer Kennedy Flagg, and their granddaughter, Eleanor Lee Flagg.  They will return to their Mamaroneck house in May.

Eleanor was married to Arthur Van Rensselaer Thompson in the Mamaroneck residence on June 29, 1918.  The Sun said, "The large living hall was made into a chapel of flowers," and estimated the number of guests at 125.

Five months later, on November 29, her mother died.  Eleanor Gwyer Dupignac's funeral was held in St. Thomas's Church on Fifth Avenue.

In the meantime, Edith's husband, Mortimer Kennedy Flagg, had died and she and her daughter had moved back into the East 75th Street house.  On September 13, 1919, Frank Dupignac announced her engagement to C. Douglass Green.  The Sun commented, "Mrs. Flagg is with her father at their country place in Mamaroneck, N. Y."  The wedding took place in the drawing room of 40 East 75th Street on November 24, 1919, "in the presence of a small gathering of relatives and friends," according to The Sun.

The Greens remained in the house with Frank.  Edith appeared in the society columns as she routinely entertained.  On February 11, 1921, for instance, The New York Times reported on the dinner she gave "for Mr. and Mrs. Clarence Phelps Dodge."  In November that year the society newspaper Gossip listed Eleanor Lee Flagg among the season's debutantes.

Frank Jay Dupignac died at the Mamaroneck estate on May 10, 1922 at the age of 74.  As had been the case with his wife, his funeral was held in St. Thomas's Church.  According to The New York Times, he left an estate "valued at about $1,000,000."   That amount would equal to about $15.4 today.

Dupignac's will reflected tensions between him and his son.  A version signed on November 21, 1918 gave Dudley $60,000 with the rest divided between his sisters.  Dupignac revised it on December 9, 1920, reducing Dudley's inheritance to $15,000 "and two mortgages."  Dudley Dupignac was not happy.  He took his sisters to court in an unsuccessful attempt to overturn the will.  (Dudley Dupignac eventually committed suicide in 1943 in the garage of his home in Mount Kisco, New York.)

Edith and Eleanor sold the East 75th Street house to attorney Allen McCulloh in August 1922.  He retained possession for years.  It was converted to apartments in 1952-53.  Among the residents in the 1950's was Greek-American actor, screenwriter and director John Cassavetes.  In his 2019 book Shadows, Raymond Carter notes, "Cassavetes used the living room, studio and two bedrooms of his penthouse apartment at 40 East 75th Street between Fifth and Madison for scenes in the reshoot [of the 1959 film Shadows]."  He added, "The furniture in the living room scene reappears in Faces and Love Streams."

The configuration of apartments remains unchanged since 1953.  And overall, the outward appearance is much as it was when Frank and Eleanor Dupignac initiated its makeover in 1910.

photographs by the author

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The Charles Downer Hazen House - 42 East 75th Street

 

The original window treatment can be seen in the upper floors of the house to the right.

In 1881 the architectural firm of Thom & Wilson designed a row of four 19-foot wide, high-stooped brownstone houses at 38 through 44 East 75th Street for developer Terence Farley.  Completed the following year, the four-story dwellings were designed in the neo-Grec style, with prominent cornices above the openings and bracketed, cast metal terminal cornices.

The Seligman family moved into 42 East 75th Street.  Philip Seligman was a partner in Seligman Brothers & Co., makers of men's suits; and Joseph C. Seligman made his living as a clerk.  Their residency would be relatively short lived, and in 1886 Nathaniel Harsh moved in.

On the morning of September 11 that year Harsh was walking along East 76th Street with "a valuable little terrier in his arms," as reported by The New York Times.  He caught the attention of three corrupt dog catchers--John Kennedy, Joseph Walker, and John Hughes.  They were, it seems, paid according to the number of strays they rounded up.  And so, they set their sights on Harsh's dog.

When the dog catchers attempted to snatch the dog away, "He clung to the animal and was roughly handled," said the newspaper.  "The tussle attracted a large crowd."  Harsh steadfastly held on to his pet until a police officer arrived and arrested the dog catchers.  Harsh told a reporter he had had "a similar adventure with dog catchers" a year earlier.

The Harsh family's tenancy was even shorter than the Seligmans'.  By 1888 it was home to wealthy bachelor Jackson Goldman.  A grain dealer, he was a member of the New York Produce Exchange.  

Among Goldman's domestic staff in 1891 was Hannah Hynes.  She was a waitress, the 19th century term for a higher-level maid who served in the dining room and parlor.  She came to the rescue of another servant girl in August that year.

Kate Williamson, who worked in the Presbyterian Hospital, was walking along Madison Avenue near 75th Street when she was accosted by Thomas Lawson.  The Press said, "She repulsed him, when he attempted to grasp her by the throat, and she ran away."  But Lawson followed and, in a panic, she ran into the basement of 42 East 75th Street.

Recognizing Kate's peril, Hannah, whom The Press said, "is stalwart and bold," quickly armed herself with an umbrella and rushed to Kate's defense.  "Hannah laid the umbrella over Lawson's head and jabbed him with the point of it until he ran off, the two women following him and uttering the cries for help that attracted the policeman," said the article.  Lawson turned out to be a serial assaulter.  As Kate and Hannah told their story in the station house, fully a dozen other women appeared to file complaints.

On the evening of April 19, 1893, Jackson Goldman was married to Marion Mayer in the drawing room of her father's home on East 56th Street.  Soon afterward Goldman sold the East 75th Street house to Joseph C. Hatie and his wife, the former Amanda Hobson Heyl.  Hatie was president of the Mutual Fire Insurance Co.

Long-term owners finally came in 1896 when Leopold and Leonora B. Rossbach purchased 42 East 75th Street.  Rossbach was the principal in J. H. Rossbach & Brothers, dealers in "hides, leather and goatskins."  The couple had four children, H. Harry, Walter S., Lawrence B. and Helen R. Rossbach.

In 1900 the Rossbachs hired architect E. Lowenbein to make renovations to the house.  They were apparently minor, interior updates, costing about $16,000 in today's money.  The architect was called back three years later to do additional updates, also minor.

Wealthy Jewish families, not welcomed in resorts like Bar Harbor or Newport, created their own summer destination in the area around Long Branch and Elberon, New Jersey.  On April 1, 1909 the New-York Tribune reported, "Leopold Rossbach has bought the summer home of Colonel R. C. Clowry, president of the Western Union Telegraph Company, situated at Elberon, N. J., at the corner of Lincoln and Elberon avenues."

In 1916 the Rossbachs moved to 9 East 88th Street.  They leased the 75th Street house to Charles Downer Hazen and his wife, Sarah Duryea.  Born in Barnet, Vermont on March 17, 1868, Hazen came from an old New England family.  His first ancestors arrived in Massachusetts in the 17th century.  After graduating from Dartmouth College, he studied at Johns Hopkins University, and in Europe.  He was teaching history at Smith College in June 1901 when he married Susan, a 1896 graduate of the school.

The Hazens had moved to New York City in 1915, a year before leasing the Rossbach house.  He had been offered a position at Columbia University.  While living here he would write prodigiously.  Among the 15 academic works published after 1917 were Fifty Years of Europe, 1870-1919; French Revolution and Napoleon; Modern European History; Contemporary American Opinion of The French Revolution; and The Letters of William Roscoe Thayer.

Leopold Rossbach died at the age of 65 on March 5, 1918.  He left an estate valued at around $49 million in today's money.  The following year, in February, Leonora Rossbach sold 42 East 75th Street to the Hazens.

Somewhat surprisingly, Charles and Sarah soon leased the house to Edward Robbins Wharton.  Living with him was his unmarried sister, Nancy.  Wharton was the divorced husband of socialite and author Edith Wharton.  Edward and Nancy summered at Pine Acre, the estate purchased by their mother, Nancy C. Wharton, in 1892.

Interestingly, society journalists followed the movements of the Whartons separately.  On September 23, 1920, for instance, The Evening Telegram noted, "Miss Nancy C. Wharton, who spent the summer in Lenox, Mass., will be at No. 42 East Seventy-fifth street for the winter."  

Edward Robbins Wharton (original source unknown)

It was, perhaps, at the instigation of the Whartons that in 1923 the Hazens hired architect James E. Casale to modernize the 75th Street house.  The neo-Grec elements of the upper floors were shaved off, the stoop removed, and the entrance lowered to the former basement level.  Casale transformed the two lower floors with romantic neo-Gothic details and leaded glass French windows at the second floor.

On February 8, 1928 Edward Robbins Wharton died at 42 East 75th Street at the age of 78.  On February 11 The New York Times reported, "The will of Edward Robbins Wharton of 42 East Seventy-fifth Street, New York City, divorced husband of Edith Wharton, the novelist, was filed here this afternoon."  Among his bequests were two months' pay for his domestic staff, and "expenses from New York to Lenox for the burial."

Charles and Sarah Hazen moved back to 42 East 75th Street.  Charles died on September 18, 1941 at the age of 73.  Sarah sold the house now long afterward and in 1945 it was converted to apartments.  There were now a duplex in the basement and first floors, one apartment and a furnished room each on the second and third, and one apartment on the fourth floor.

The configuration lasted until 1988 when a doctor's office was installed in the ground floor, and the upper section was converted to two duplex residences.

photographs by the author

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The R. Horace Gallatin House - 36 East 75th Street

 

Born in Baden, Germany, Jonas Weil arrived in New York City in 1860 and, initially, engaged in the live stock business.  He then turned to Manhattan real estate, establishing the firm of Weil & Mayer.  By the last decade of the 19th century he had amassed a fortune.  He and his wife, Therese, had four children, Benjamin, Louis V., Sarah and Bella.

In March 1892, architect George F. Pelham filed plans for the family's new 25-foot-wide home at 36 East 75th Street.  The construction cost of the four-story, high-stooped house, just over $1 million in today's money, reflected the high-tone character of the developing area a block east of Central Park.

Weil downplayed his involvement in Jewish philanthropies, most often keeping his gifts private.  He contributed, for instance, $10,000 cash towards the founding of Lebanon Hospital and donated a plot of land valued at $$15,000 as the site of its training school for nurses.  He erected Zichron Ephraim Temple on East 67th Street to commemorate his father, Ephraim Weil; founded and was president of Mount Zion Cemetery; was a founder of the Jewish Theological Seminary and the Federation of Jewish Philanthropic Societies.  He would eventually give away the equivalent of $20 million today, not including bequests left in his will.

The 75th Street house was well-populated.  Living with their parents after the turn of the century were Benjamin and Lewis, as well as Sarah and her husband, the Rev. Dr. Bernard Drachman (rabbi of Zichron Ephraim), and the Drachmans' daughter Madelaine.

In February 1911, Weil sold 36 East 75th Street to Gherardi Davis.  The Real Estate Record & Guide pointed out that the house had been listed at $120,000--more than $3.3 million today.  An attorney, author and politician, Davis had served in the New York State Assembly from 1899 through 1903, when he was appointed Third Deputy New York City Police Commissioner.

It appears that Davis and his wife, the former Alice King, never intended to live in the house.  Instead, they immediately leased it to Dr. Joseph A. Blake as a home for his wife, Catharine Ketchum Blake.  Things were not going well within the Blake household.

The couple had been married on December 17, 1890 and lived happily, according to Catharine, for four years.  Trouble began when Blake, a well respected surgeon, became the personal physician of millionaire Charles H. Mackay.  Blake operated on Mackay twice, and his close contact with the couple resulted in an illicit romance developing between the doctor and Katherine Duer Mackay, a well-known socialite and suffragist.

Now, Catharine Blake was forced out of her home on Madison Avenue with her sons, 19-year old Joseph, Jr., and 9-year old Francis H.  According to her, when she moved into 36 East 75th Street, "it was on the assurance that her allowance was to continued to be $1,000 per month."  That amount would translate to more than $335,000 per year today.  It eventually became an obligation her husband was unwilling to honor.  He first reduced her monthly allowance "against her protest" to $600, and then in July 1913 stopped payment altogether.

Catharine took Joseph to court in October 13 where she aired the deliciously dirty details of the situation.  She sued for separation, asking for an allowance of $1,500 per month as temporary alimony, as well as $3,000 to cover the bills she had incurred since he cut her off.  She charged her husband with "coldness and indifference" and "at times with harshness."  Separately she sued Katharine Mackay for $1 million "for the alienation of her husband's affections."

The untidy and public situation resulted in the Mackays divorcing in February 1914, and in Katharine Duer Mackay giving up her American citizenship and custody of their three children, and moving permanently to Paris.  A month later, Dr. Blake sailed for Europe.  "Before leaving New York he withdrew from many clubs and hospitals, and it was believed that he had no intention of returning to this country, except for occasional business trips," said The New York Times.

The Blake divorce was granted on November 27, 1914.  The following day Dr. Blake and Katharine Mackay were married in Paris.

The Davises sold 36 East 75th Street three months later, on March 26, 1915, to Rolaz Horace Gallatin and his wife, the former Emily Lorillard Morris.  On June 4 that year, The Sun reported: 

R. Horace Gallatin is to have his residence at 36 East Seventy-fifth street extensively altered.  Plans for the changes filed yesterday called for the building of a new façade, of the American basement type, installing of an automobile elevator and a number of fireplaces and a three story extension to the rear of the house, which is four stories high.

The changes, designed by architect F. Burrall Hoffman, Jr. would do away with the stoop and give the outdated residence a striking neo-Georgian make-over.  The massive renovations would cost the Gallatins the equivalent of just under $800,000 in today's money.

The scope of the ongoing gut renovation is evident in this photograph.  photo by Wurts Bros. from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York.

The resultant patrician residence, completed before the year's end, was clad in red brick with contrasting limestone trim.  The centered entrance sat below the balcony of the second floor, or piano nobile, its stately window graced with a swan's neck pediment and stylized pineapple--the symbol of hospitality.  The openings wore layered, splayed keystones, while a solid brick parapet partially disguised the fifth floor.

The childless couple came from old, prestigious families.  Gallatin was the great-grandson of Albert Gallatin, Secretary of the Treasury from 1802 through 1814, and of Elbridge Gerry, a signer of the Declaration of Independence.  Emily descended from the socially eminent Lorillard and Morris families, her grandfather being Lewis Gouveneur Morris of Morrisania.

The solid shutters, intact until recently, added to the Georgian flavor of the residence.  photo by Wurts Bros. from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York.

Although Gallatin had studied law at the New York Law School and was a member of the bar, he never practiced professionally.  Instead, he sat on the boards of several hospitals and firms, and was a member of multiple social clubs like the Knickerbocker, Tuxedo and Regency Clubs.  Living with him and Emily were five servants: the cook, a chambermaid, Emily's personal maid, a footman (who no doubt doubled as valet), and a "kitchen maid."  

The couple's Newport estate had been built by Edmund Schermerhorn, first cousin to Caroline Schermerhorn Astor, in 1860.  They purchased it in 1911 and Emily renamed it Chepstow, the town in Wales from which the Morris family came.

photo by Kenneth C. Zirkel

R. Horace Gallatin was a trustee, treasurer and vice-president of the New York Historical Society.  He and Emily filled 36 East 75th Street with an impressive art collection.  Among the works that hung on its walls were Théodore Rousseau's Landscape with Boatman, John-François Millet's The Bather, Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot's River View, sketches by John Singer Sargent, five by Rembrandt van Rijn, and numerous works by Albrecht Durer.

Charles-Francois Daubigny's 1865 Washerwomen at the Oise River near Valmondois was among the artworks displayed in the 75th Street house.  from the collection of the National Gallery of Art

On May 18, 1942 The New York Sun reported, "After rounding out twenty-six years of occupancy, R. H. Gallatin has sold his five-story American basement house at 36 East 75th Street...to the 36 East 75th Street Corporation."  The article noted that architect Alfred A. Tearle had already submitted plans "to convert the dwelling to apartments."

The renovations resulted in a duplex in the first and second floors, and two apartments each on the upper stories.  The house had a brush with another renovation in 1970.  On September 26 that year the Buffalo Courier-Express reported that the Museum of American Folk Art "has set its sights on a permanent home."  The article explained, "A building already has been located, a former town house at 36 East 75th Street, within a few steps of the Whitney Museum of American Art."  The museum had allotted $650,00 for the purchase of the building and $200,000 to renovate it.  But the plans never came to fruition.

Instead, the lower floors became home to the Xavier Fourcade Gallery, where masterful pieces by artists like Le Corbusier, Willem de Kooning, and Joan Mitchell were exhibited and sold for years.  Following Fourcade's death in 1987, the space became home to Geneva-based fine art auctioneers Habsburg, Feldman, Inc.

A renovation completed in 1996 returned 36 East 75th Street to a single-family home.  

photos by the author

many thanks to NYC Sights Sounds for requesting this post

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