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

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

The 1919 Ector Orr Munn House -- No. 17 East 90th Street

photo by Alice Lum

After Andrew Carnegie erected his massive Georgian-style mansion on Fifth Avenue and 91^st Street, the neighborhood—considered rather far uptown a few years earlier—quickly drew other millionaires.  In order to choose his neighbors and protect his real estate values, Carnegie bought up surrounding land; selling is to whom he chose with the caveat that no building other than a high-class dwelling could be built within a term of 15 years.

In 1916 the lot at No. 17 East 90^th Street was purchased by Surrogate Robert Fowler, Jr. and his wife Charlotte.  As was customary, the deed was placed in Charlotte Winthrop Fowler’s name.  A year later American Architect and Architecture reported that “At a cost of $60,000 a five-story dwelling will be erected at 17 East Ninetieth Street for Mrs. R. L. Fowler.”  The architect, noted the publication, was F. Burrall Hoffman, Jr.

Even  before the foundation was laid, trouble arose.  Because the rear of the lot faced the Carnegie grounds the Department of Buildings deemed it a “corner lot.”  Architect Hoffman appealed the designation, pointing out that the Fowler plot was over 100 feet from Fifth Avenue.

“The lot, on which it is proposed to erect the building backs up against a portion of the premises on which Andrew Carnegie’s residence stands,” explained The Sun on June 17, 1917.  “The Carnegie plot, which contains two buildings but is mostly uncovered area, is at a corner and runs the full length of Fifth avenue from Ninetieth to Ninety-first street.”

The Department of Buildings reasoned that because most of the Carnegie land was garden, the Fowler plot could rationally be deemed a corner.  Luckily for the Fowlers, the Board of Appeals agreed with them, saying “that a lot extending, as this one does, for so great a distance along the street cannot properly be deemed to be a corner lot.”

As the house was nearing completion early in 1919, millionaire banker George Crawford Clark and his wife traveled to Aiken, South Carolina for the winter.  The Clarks lived at No. 1027 Fifth Avenue and were highly visible in Manhattan society.  George Clark was a member of Clark, Dodge & Co. at No. 51 Wall Street and was a member of the American Museum of Natural History, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the New England Society.  Along with his partnership in the banking firm, he held directorships in a number of companies and was President of the American Society for the Control of Cancer.

Ten days after the Clarks arrived at Aiken, the wealthy banker died suddenly on February 25.

Harriet S. Clark returned to New York and before long sold the Fifth Avenue mansion to Herbert L. Pratt.  Perhaps to everyone’s surprise, the Fowlers did not move into their completed mansion on 90th Street; but on August 7, 1919 sold it to Harriet Clark for $250,000 (about $3 million today).

The widowed socialite moved into a 29-foot wide, six story mansion of limestone and grey-tan brick.  Taking a page from Carnegie’s book, F. Burrall Hoffman, Jr. treated the upper floors with prim neo-Georgian details—most notably the splayed stone lintels. 

photo by Alice Lum

Below the iron balcony railing that stretched the length of the second floor, the rusticated stone first floor turned to Europe for inspiration.  Stone masks—one male and one female—decorated the voussoirs of the two arched openings of a deep entrance loggia.  Handsome double entrance doors were nestled six feet back from the façade.  Hoffman’s unexpected blending of two starkly dissimilar styles created an imposing and dignified design.

photo by Alice Lum

Entering through the double doors, guests found themselves in a double-height foyer with a grand curving staircase.  The gracious interiors included ten antique mantels and elaborately molded plaster and carved woodwork.  On the top floor were five servants’ rooms.

Within the decade the mansion would be home to Ector Orr Munn and his wife, the former Fernanda Wanamaker.  The granddaughter of John Wanamaker and the daughter of Rodman Wanamaker, Fernanda shared with her two siblings in the $32 million trust created by their father’s will.

The double entrance doors were nestled deeply within the loggia -- photo by Alice Lum

Her marriage to Ector Munn was her second; having married Arthuro Heeren in 1909.  The son of Count Heeren of Paris and Biarritz, Heeren was also a banker and a member of the Spanish diplomatic service.  It was this latter position that got Fernanda Wanamaker Heeren Munn in hot water the summer of 1929.

Fernanda had divorced Heeren in 1923 and married the wealthy Ector Orr Munn the following year.  Now, living at No. 17 East 90^th Street, things were going well.  But early in June 1929, as she arrived back in New York on the French liner Paris with her maid, trouble ensued.  Having been married to a diplomat, she was accustomed to barging past Customs officials without the annoying delay of declarations.

In her six trunks was “a quantity of new silk wearing apparel,” as well as a strongbox containing $450,000 of jewelry.  Fernanda Munn had not gotten very far before “there was some difficulty with Customs officials on the pier,” according to The New York Times a few days later.

Inspection of the trunks found newly-purchased apparel valued at $5,200 (a considerable $66,000 today) which the heiress had not bothered to declare.  The nearly half a million dollars in jewelry was proven to be family heirlooms.  Newspapers publicized the untidy affair, which ended in a hearing at the Custom House.  Mrs. Munn sent off a check for the $10,400 in duty and her trunks and jewelry were sent to the 90^th Street house.

The Munn mansion, scene of glittering receptions and dinners, turned to war relief efforts in the years prior to the United States entry into World War II.  In October 1939 The Trianon Committee was formed to send thousands of parcels to French soldiers on the front.  The packages included warm clothing and other items of comfort. 

Fernanda Munn was in Paris as the Duchess of Windsor accepted the title of presidency of the committee.  The New York Times reported on October 17 that “The Trianon Committee will be represented in New York by Mrs. Ector Munn of 17 East Ninetieth Street, who is to sail for the United States this weekend-end.”

Upon reaching home, Fernanda announced that her home “would be used as headquarters for the American project, and gatherings will be held there later, at which friends will be asked to knit sweaters, gloves, socks and passé-montaigne helmets.”

After nearly two decades together in the 90^th Street mansion and their Palm Beach estate, Fernanda and Ector Munn divorced in 1948.  Fernanda stayed on in the 90^th Street house, spending considerable time as well in Paris.  It was there, in the Continental Hotel, that she died at the age of 71 in September 1958.

The house was bequeathed to son Rodman de Heeren and his wife Aimee, whom he had married in 1941.  The couple maintained residences in Palm Beach, Paris and Biarritz, France, as well.  Deemed an “exotic beauty,” Aimee was from Brazil and quickly became “a fixture on the international social scene and a regular on the best-dressed lists,” according to The New York Times.

When she died in 2006 at the age of 103, Josh Barbanel of The New York Times said she “became one more lost link to an earlier age of social grace and high society.

“She was also the last link in a chain of ownership of a 29-foot-wide limestone and brick town house on East 90^th Street that had been in the same high society family since the 1920s,” he said.

The mansion was put on the market at $33 million and was purchased by the exclusive Spence School in September 2008 for $27.5 million.  The elite girls’ school already owned the five-story building directly behind at No. 22 East 91^st Street.  Its plan was to build a 20-foot wide, 30-foot tall glass atrium that would join the two structures—a proposal that ignited a Carnegie Hill feud.

Neighbors complained that the passage would “fundamentally change the character of the rear yard corridor,” and that “our privacy, our life is getting boxed in.”

photo by Alice Lum

Although F. Burrall Hoffman’s glorious interiors were converted to classrooms; his exterior mix of Continental and American styles survives as an imposing and handsome presence on the block.