The Thomas F. Byrne House - 146 East End Avenue

 

The entrance to 146 East End Avenue was recessed within a large arched, shared with the doorway of 144 East End Avenue.

The architectural firm of Lamb & Rich was given an ambitious project in 1880--the designing of 32 middle-class rowhouses for John C. Henderson on a one-half acre plot engulfing the East End Avenue blockfront from 86th to 87th Streets and wrapping both corners.  The charming collection of Queen Anne style houses was completed in 1882, their red brick and terra cotta facades splashed with bits of Elizabethan, Flemish and classic styles.

Among the most picturesque were the mirror image houses at 144 and 146 East end Avenue.  A split brownstone stoop rose to a yawning arch that embraced both entrances.   Two stories of brick trimmed in brownstone gave way to a steep, slate shingled mansard.  The upper portions of the windows were outlined with small, square panes, a hallmark of the Queen Anne style.

Henderson leased No. 146 to Thomas F. Byrne.  Born in New York City in 1856, he was a partner in the law firm of Byrne & Cowan.  He and his wife had seven children.

In 1898 Byrne was appointed "a four-thousand-dollar deputy," as worded by The New York Times, by District Attorney Asa Bird Gardiner.  The deputy assistant district attorney's salary would convert to about $145,000 in 2024.  The newspaper said he "had charge of the cases against the discretionary brokers and bucket-shop operators of the Wall Street district."  ( (A bucket shop was an illegal gambling operation that took bets on the rise and fall of stocks.) 

While Byrne fought crime in the financial district, his boss was profiting from it.  Gardiner accepted bribes from figures like saloonkeeper Frank J. Farrell, who reportedly operated 300 illegal gambling parlors in New York City, protecting them from prosecution.  Gardiner and his cronies became the target of reform Governor Theodore Roosevelt, who cleaned house in 1900.  

Gardiner was replaced by District Attorney Eugene A. Philbin, who initiated a purge.  On January 1, 1901, The New York Times ran a headline reading, "Philbin Lops Off Four More Official Heads."  The article also listed the attorneys who were not disgraced, but were instead promoted.  Thomas F. Byrne became a full assistant district attorney with a salary of $7,500 (about $266,000 today).  The article said he was now in charge of the indictment bureau.  He was quickly promoted to assistant corporation counsel and became a member of the Tammany Hall Law Committee.

On November 20, 1908, The New York Times reported that Byrne "died last night at his home, 146 East End Avenue, of anaemia, after about a month's illness."  Byrne was 52 years old.

On January 10, 1910, John C. Henderson's son, Ernest F. Henderson, sold 146 East End Avenue to Sarsfield J. Turley.  He and his wife Margaret had a son, William Burns Turley.

Turley was born in 1874 and began his career in the wholesale carpet and rug department of Arnold Constable & Co.  Nine years later, he left to become a carpet salesman with W. & J. Sloane.

William was a corporal with the Seventh Regiment in the pre-World War I years.  A close neighbor, Beatrice Ann Tagg, who lived around the corner at 548 East 87th Street stole his heart and the couple was married in the Church of St. Ignatius Loyola on July 26, 1917.  The Sun reported, "A squad from the Seventh Regiment in uniform acted as an escort of honor, and after the ceremony a wedding breakfast was served in the Hotel Majestic."

About the time of William's marriage, his father left W. & J. Sloane to partner with John Rodgers to form Turley & Rodgers, a carpet and rug concern.  He brought William into the firm.

After visiting a friend on the evening of October 9, 1921, Sarsfield Turley headed home at 8:30.  He darted into the street in an attempt to catch a bus that had just pulled away from the curb and was hit by an automobile.  Price's Carpet and Rug News said, "He was taken in the autocar to the hospital where his identity was not established until the next day."  Turley had suffered a fractured skull and several broken ribs.  A lodge card in his wallet identified the unconscious patient.  The lodge was called, which in turn notified the office of Turley & Rodgers.  "J. Samuel Ross, a member of the office staff of the firm, immediately went to the hospital and identified his employer," said the article.

Turley died in the hospital without regaining consciousness two days later.  He was 47 years old.  His funeral was held in the East End Avenue house on October 14.

In 1929, Westmore and Esther J. Willcox, who lived at 142 East End Avenue, purchased the house as a rental property.  (Not long afterward, they purchased 144 as well.)  Their initial tenant was Blake I. Lawrence.  In 1930, the house became home to newlyweds Henry Parish II and his wife, the former Dorothy May Kinnicutt whose nickname was Sister.  The couple was married on February 14 that year.

Sister Parish's parents, G. Hermann Kinnicutt and May Appleton Tuckerman, not only leased the house for them, but had it professionally decorated.  Sister Parish is quoted in her biography, Sister Parish, The Life of the Legendary American Interior Designer by Apple Parish Bartlett and Susan Bartlett Crater, saying:

My parents provided our beautiful house, which had been done entirely by Mrs. Brown of McMillen--with Mother's help and suggestions, of course.  Wedding presents provided almost all of the furnishings.  We had to buy one upholstered chair, at Macy's, and I was appalled at having to spend forty dollars.

Sister Parish recalled, "Our house was a dream of beauty; 146 East End Avenue--the street was then cobblestone, every window had a flower box, and we looked across to Carl Schurz Park."  The couple appeared in society columns for their entertaining.  On December 11, 1931, for instance, the New York Evening Post reported, "Mr. and Mrs. Henry Parish 2d are giving a small dinner at their home, 146 East End Avenue next Monday night."

In 1933, the 23-year-old Sister Parish opened a decorating business, "Mrs Henry Parish II, Interiors."  She would go on to help Jacqueline Kennedy decorate her Georgetown house.  After John F. Kennedy's election to President in 1960, the First Lady hired Sister Parish to help in the redecorating of the White House.

The year she opened her business, the Parishes left East End Avenue.  On May 26, 1933, the New York Evening Post reported that Westmore Willcox had leased "his modern three-story house at 146 East End Avenue to Dr. R. Townley Paton of Baltimore."  The article noted, "Dr. Paton will use the house for his New York residence."

Born in 1902, Robert Townley Paton was an ophthalmologist who pioneered corneal transplants.  He and his wife, the former Helen Meserve, had two children, Joan and David.  Paton would found the Eye-Bank for Sight Restoration in 1944.  The facility would eventually have around 100 branches throughout the country and provide 1,200 corneas for transplant operations in the New York area.

David Paton was three years old when the family moved into 146 East End Avenue.  Following in his father's professional footsteps, he would become a renowned ophthalmologist, a founder of Project Orbis, and its first medical director.

The Willcoxes had painted 144 and 146 East End Avenue white by 1941.  image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

In 1943, Westmore and Esther Jenkins Willcox moved into the house they had owned since 1929.  A few years earlier they had painted the brick white.  A banker and financial consultant, Willcox had led American economic missions to other countries during and after World War II.  A graduate of Harvard College, he was for many years a partner in the investment banking firm of Dillon, Read & Co.  When the couple moved into 146 East End Avenue, he had been retired from Jackson & Curtis for two years.

The Willcoxes appeared occasionally in society pages.  On November 21, 1946, for instance, The New York Sun reported, "Mr. and Mrs. Westmore Willcox of 146 East End Avenue gave a dinner in the St. Regis Maisonette last night in honor of Miss Mary Ellen Plant and Algernon Sidney Roberts, whose wedding will take place on Saturday."

By the early 1960s, 146 East End Avenue was home to the William A. Read family.  Still a single-family home, it recently received a renovation that included removing the paint from the façade.

photographs by the author

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The Otto Hahn House - 552 East 87th Street

 

552 East 87th Street (right) is a mirror image of its next door neighbor.

In 1880, the once bucolic district around the hamlet of Yorkville, about five miles north of the city, was seeing rapid development.  John C. Henderson, a fur, hat, and strawgoods merchant, joined the trend in 1881 by acquiring the blockfront along East End Avenue, wrapping the corners of East 86th and East 87th Streets.  He commissioned the architectural firm of Lamb & Rich to design 32 brick-faced houses.  They would comprise the first of his residential enclaves "for persons of moderate means."  The plans, filed in October 1881, placed the cost of each house at $6,500, or about $192,000 in 2024.

Lamb & Rich's Queen Anne group brought individual designs together into a charming streetscape of arches, towers and gables.  Starting with a charming mews called Henderson Place that opened onto East 86th Street, the assemblage would be called "the new Henderson Place residence colony."  It ended with 552 East 87th Street.

At just 17-feet-wide, it was a mirror image of 554 East 87th Street.  The two houses shared a split brownstone stoop.  A complex terra cotta plaque sat between the single-doored entrance and the vast, arched parlor window.  A blind panel below the hall window at the second floor featured brick laid in a sideways herringbone pattern.  The third floor took the form of a mansard with slate fish scale shingles.  The symmetry of the two houses was enhanced by a shared dormer.

Henderson leased the houses.  His tenants in 552 East 87th Street at the turn of the century were the family of Otto Hahn.  Hahn and his wife, the former Eleonore Funk, had one daughter, E. Adelaide, born in 1893.  

The erudite Eleonore was a graduate of Hunter College.  She involved herself in various women's clubs, including the New York State Federation of Women's Clubs.  She home-schooled her precocious daughter through her elementary years.  

Interestingly, E. Adelaide always used her first initial, and it is uncertain whether it even stood for a name.  In November 1907, St. Nicholas Magazine: An Illustrated Magazine for Young Folks launched a children's contest in categories ranging from verse and prose to drawing and photography.  Thirteen-year-old E. Adelaide won the cash prize in "Puzzle-Making."

That was the same year she was enrolled in the Hunter Model School, the high school run by her mother's alma mater.  E. Adelaide Hahn graduated from Hunter College in 1915 with majors in Latin and French and a minor in Greek.  She earned her masters degree in 1917 from Columbia University, and in 1921 became a member of the classics faculty at Hunter College.

Eleonore continued her involvement in social issues.  On July 8, 1937, The New York Times reported that she would address the Chautauqua Women's Club on children's rights.  The article noted that she and her daughter had won the club's "first and second prizes, $10 and $5, respectively in the annual prize spelling match," adding, "Miss Hahn is head of the Latin and Greek Department at Hunter College."  

E. Adelaide Hahn had earned her Ph.D. at Columbia University in 1929.  She became chair of the classics department of Hunter College in 1936, remaining in that post until her retirement in 1963.

E. Adelaide Hahn, from the Database of Classical Scholars of Rutgers School of Arts and Sciences.

In the meantime, on December 18, 1921 (the year E. Adelaide Hahn joined the Hunter faculty), the New-York Tribune reported that the Henderson estate had sold "the three-story 17-foot dwelling at 552 East Eighty-seventh Street, in the new Henderson Place residence colony" to Dr. Thomas Kirby Davis.

A 1913 graduate of Johns Hopkins Medical School and a specialist in nervous and mental diseases, Davis was on the staff of Bellevue Hospital.  Like her predecessor in the house, his wife, the former Rosa Vedder Mabon, was well-educated, a 1913 graduate of Bryn Mawr College.  The couple had married in 1917 and had one son, William M. Davis, born in 1919.

Davis was Rosa's second husband.  She was formerly married to William Mabon.  Her American roots went deep and three of her ancestors had served in the American Revolution.

Shortly after moving into the East 87th Street house, Davis became director of neurology and psychiatry at the Lenox Hill Hospital, a post he would retain until 1952.  William followed his father's professional footsteps.  From 1944 to 1949 he was an intern and then a resident in medicine and pathology at St. Luke's Hospital, and in 1951 became Chief Resident at Bellevue Hospital.  

The Davises receive a delivery from a rug cleaning firm in 1941.  image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

The Davises moved to Danbury, Connecticut in 1961 following Dr. Davis's retirement.  The East 87th Street house became home to Bertram Clarke and his wife, the former Muriel Barudin.

Born in 1911, Clarke was a member of the Grolier Club, formed in 1884 by lovers of books.  He was described by The New York Times as "a prominent designer of art books and typography."  After serving in the Coast Guard during World War II, Clarke came to New York City in 1946, designing at the Limited Editions Club.  He did freelance work with David Jacques Way on the typography of the Frick Collection's 12-volume catalogue.  In 1953 the two formed Clarke & Way, Inc.

Upon Clarke's death at the age of 83 on February 19, 1994, The New York Times remarked, 

Mr. Clarke's talents were much in demand in the art world.  He designed catalogues for David Rockefeller, Paul Mellon, Jayne Wrightsman and Laughlin Phillips.  And he designed and printed the folio edition "Georgia O'Keefe" published by Viking.  He also designed the catalogue of "Georgia O'Keeffe, Arts and Letters," for the National Gallery of Art.

It is unclear how long Muriel Clarke remained in the house.  Always a single family home, little has changed outwardly after its more than 140 years existence.

photographs by the author

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The John Darling Terry House - 144 East End Avenue

 

144 East End Avenue (left) was a mirror image of 146.  

Having garnered a significant fortune in the hat, fur, straw goods and other businesses, John C. Henderson turned his attention to the conditions of others less affluent.  He would erect groups of charming homes specifically intended "for persons of moderate means," beginning in 1880 when he acquired approximately one-half acre of land between 86th Street and 87th Street along East End Avenue.  Henderson commissioned the architectural firm of Lamb and Rich to design his houses--32 in all--that would comprise a charming mini-village.  Completed in 1882, the architects produced a streetscape of Queen Anne houses of red brick and terra cotta that romantically mixed bits of Elizabethan, Flemish and classic styles.  

Among the most picturesque were the mirror image homes at 144 and 146 East End Avenue.  A split brownstone stoop rose to a shared landing, divided by an iron railing.  The side-by-side doorways were nestled within a yawning arch.  Two stories of red brick sat upon the rough-cut brownstone basement, while the third floor took the form of a slate-shingled mansard.

The paired parlor windows sat within a segmental arch.  Directly above was another set of paired openings, and a single stairhall window above the entranceway.  Three tall openings pierced the mansard.  The upper portions of the windows were outlined with small, square panes--a hallmark of the Queen Anne style.  (An alteration prior to 1941 changed the configuration of the second floor windows of 144 East End Avenue, resulting in three tall windows where the paired set had been.)

No. 144 became home to the John Darling Terry family.  Terry was an officer in the Custom House, assigned to the Impost Office of the Auditor's Office.  Born on September 3, 1845 in Montville, Maine, he married Emma Celia Brown on July 10, 1866.  When the couple moved into the East End Avenue house, they had seven children, John William, George Stanton, Emma Eliza, Charles Graham, Alexander Hadden, Jeanette Romer, and Celia Darling--the youngest of which, Celia, was a new-born.  Three more children would be born--Ethel in 1884, Eugenia in 1890, and Frederick Gregory in 1892.

Although their house was intended for a middle-class family, by the turn of the century the Terrys were enjoying an upscale lifestyle.  On July 17, 1901, for instance, the New York Evening Telegram reported, "Mrs. John D. Terry and her daughters, Miss Jeanette Terry, Miss Celia Terry, and Miss Ethel Terry, of No. 144 East End avenue, are spending the summer at the River View House, Sullivan county, New York."  And four days later, the New-York Tribune reported on the activities at Southampton, noting that tennis had overtaken golf as a favorite pastime among the men.  Among the list of those "most devoted to the sport," the article mentioned John D. Terry.  (Why he was vacationing apart from his wife and daughters is unclear.)  

Emma was replacing staff following the summer season of 1905.  On October 3 she advertised for a "General house-worker: small, private house; two adults, three school children; personal references necessary."  (The mention of three school children is interesting, since, while Eugenia and Frederick were 15 and 13 respectively, Ethel was 21 years old.)  Seven days later Emma advertised, "Wanted--A Protestant to cook and wash in small private house for small family."

By 1913, only Eugenia and Frederick were still at home.  That summer their mother took them to Falmouth, Massachusetts where, on July 6, The New York Sun said they had checked into the Griswold Hotel.

The family of Walter Graeme Eliot purchased 144 East End Avenue in June 1915.  He and his wife, the former Maud Stoutenburgh, had two sons, Amory Vivion and Van Cortlandt Stoutenburg; and a daughter Marion Elinor.

Walter Eliot could not have had a more diverse resume.  He graduated from the Columbia School of Mines in 1878, and within four years received three more degrees from Columbia--his C. E., Ph. B., and Ph. D.  He received his Doctor of Laws degree from St. Francis Xavier in 1892.  The New York Times would later say,

He was successively an inspector of tenements, a judge in competitions for model tenement houses and model public schools, a sanitary engineer with the Health Department, an assistant chemist and inspector of foods for the Health Department, an organizer of milk-distribution in the city, a technician in the Department of Taxes and Assessments, an assistant engineer in the Topographical Bureau of the Borough of Queens and engineer in charge of the bureau in 1910.  The next year Mayor Gaynor appointed him the first Park Commissioner of Queens.

Eliot had stepped down from his Park Commissioner position two years before he purchased 144 East End Avenue.  He was, as well, a major in the Coast Guard Artillery Corps of the State Militia, had been a part owner of The University Magazine, and was the author of Noted Physicians of New York City, College Presidents of the United States, and A History of the Stoutenburgh Family.

The last book detailed the history of Maud's ancestors.  While Eliot came from a colonial family himself, Maud was descended from Pieter Van Stoutenburg, the first treasurer of the colony of New Amsterdam.  He was born in Holland in 1613 and died in New Amsterdam on March 9, 1698.  Her ancestor Jacobus Stoutenburgh founded Stoutenburg, New York in 1741 (later renamed Hyde Park).  The Brooklyn Daily Eagle deemed Maud "an authority on the history of early New York families." 

Marion debuted during the winter social season of 1916-17.  Among the last (and most creative) entertainments came on March 21, 1917.  The New York Times reported, "Ex-Park Commissioner Walter G. Eliot and Mrs. Eliot gave a roller skating party last evening on the seawall in East River Park...and afterward supper was served at their residence, 144 East End Avenue.  The guests included several of this year's debutantes and some older girls."  There were also some eligible, well-heeled bachelors on the guest list.

Just six months later, on September 4, the Eliots announced Marion's engagement to Carleton James.  The troubled times were reflected in the New-York Tribune's mentioning, "Mr. James is a member of Company K, 7th Regiment, and spent last summer on the Mexican boarder with this regiment."

Five months before the announcement, America had entered World War I.  Amory left home to serve in the army.  The family received terrifying news in December 1918 when the War Department announced that he had been "wounded severely" in battle.  

Like most socialites, Maud did her part through benefit work.  On May 26, 1918, The Sun reported that she was on a committee arranging "a garden party for the benefit of the soldiers of the 307th Regiment and their families" in Gramercy Park.  The article noted that the private park "has not opened at any time in its history for such a purpose." 

Walter was more hands-on.  By the end of the conflict he had been promoted to the rank of colonel in the Coast Guard Artillery Corps.

At war's end, things returned to normal at 144 East End Avenue.  Marion and Carleton James moved in, and Amory was still officially listed at the address when he was commissioned a first lieutenant in September 1920.  Amory would be a life-long military man, eventually achieving the rank of colonel and seeing action in the Second World War.

In the meantime, Van Cortlandt's engagement to Effie Pearson Williams was announced on April 30, 1919.  He carried on the family's tradition of deep American roots in his choice of brides.  The Washington Post remarked, "The bride is a descendant on her mother's side of Capt. Sir John Pearson, of revolutionary fame...Mr. Eliot is a son of Col. Walter Graeme Eliot, and is a member of the family whose ancestors were among the early settlers of Manhattan Island."

Maud was a founder and the president of the Yorkville District Dispensary, established in July 1918 to provide free dental treatment to children between the ages of three and fifteen years old.  Through it she rubbed shoulders with some of society's most elite, including Mrs. Vincent Astor and Ogden Mills, (who, despite Maud's presidency, the New York Herald said were "at the head" of the institution).

She was still president on December 25, 1921 when the New York Herald reported, "Mr. and Mrs. Vincent Astor again will turn over their picture gallery at 840 Fifth avenue...for the benefit of the Yorkville District Dispensary."  On the list of patrons were elite names like Webb, Olcott, Cutting, and Dodge.

In 1931 Eliot traveled to Fort Sam Houston, Texas to visit Amory.  The 73-year-old died there on May 3.  In reporting his death, The New York Times reflected on his astounding career, saying he "was a former president of the Technical League of Engineers, a founder of the Society of Municipal Engineers of New York, a former president of the Yorkville Chamber of Commerce and a former vice president of the Society of American Officers."

Walter Graeme Eliot's will may have revealed tensions within the family.  At the time of his death, Maud was living with Marion and Carleton at 520 East 87th Street, around the corner from 144 East End Avenue.  Walter left half of his estate to institutions, including Columbia and Harvard Universities.  Amory received a $10,000 trust (about $192,000 in 2024), Van Cortlandt received $1,000, and Marion was bequeathed "personal effects, including a cane said to have belonged to Napoleon."  Maud was left out of the will altogether.  

The Daily Eagle reported, "Eliot said in his will that he made no provision for his wife because he had already turned $60,000 over to her.  He also said he had deposited money in banks in the name of his daughter."

Not unexpectedly, Maud and Marion went to court to overturn the will.  On June 9, 1931, The Brooklyn Daily Eagle said the women "contend that the reference to money turned over to them before Eliot's death was 'wholly untrue.'"  More shockingly, they asserted that Marion's name had been "stricken out" of the original document and Amory's name inserted.

The East End Avenue house was purchased by Esther J. Willcox, who also owned 142 and 146.  She operated them as rental properties, leasing the former Eliot house furnished in November 1937 to Kenneth Jewett.

It was no doubt Willcox who painted 144 and 146 white.  The second floor windows of 144 had already been reconfigured in 1941.  image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

By 1960, 144 East End Avenue was home (and presumably studio) to artist Stephen Olin Dows and his wife, the former Chilean Ambassador to the Netherlands, Carmen Vial Freire Señoret.  

Born in 1904 at Irvington-on-Hudson, New York, Dows studied at Harvard's Department of Fine Arts, and Yale's Student's League.  He had helped establish the Government's Public Works of Art Project in 1933, becoming director of the Treasury of Relief Art Projects.  His book, Mural Designs, was commissioned by the Section of Fine Arts.  Following America's entry into World War II, Dows enlisted in the U.S. Army in June 1942.  He went abroad as a war artist, the head of a group of three covering the European Theater of Operations.

Dows 1934 Loading typified Depression Era, WPA motifs.

The couple maintained two other homes--Glenburn in Rhinebeck, New York, and another residence in Georgetown, Washington, D.C.  They would remain in the East End Avenue house until around 1965, when Ernest George Benkert occupied it.

By 1969 Dr. Robert Emery Gould owned the house.  A member of the American Psychiatric Association, he was head of the New York Office of the National Coalition on TV Violence, which he operated from the address at least through 1997.

Still a single-family home, the interiors were relatively recently renovated, leaving no trace of Lamb and Rich's 1882 design. 

photographs by the author

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Henderson Place: Homes "For Persons of Moderate Means"

John C. Henderson was a successful businessman in 1880, having made his fortune in the hat, fur, “straw goods” and other businesses.  As the neighborhood known as Yorkville began developing he saw an opportunity to increase that fortune.

Yorkville was established in the first half of the 19th century by German immigrants, later joined by a substantial Hungarian population.  Approximately five miles north of the city, it was surrounded in 18th century by sprawling, bucolic country estates of wealthy New Yorkers like John Jacob Astor and Archibald Gracie.

By the second half of the century, the area was becoming increasingly developed as families sought to escape the congested city.  In response, Henderson acquired approximately one-half acre of land between 86th Street and 87th Street along East End Avenue where he planned a quaint assemblage of homes, including a mews off 86th Street “for persons of moderate means.”

He commissioned the firm of Lamb & Rich to design his houses--32 in all--that would comprise a charming mini-village.  Completed in 1882, the architects produced a streetscape of Queen Anne houses of red brick and terra cotta that romantically mix architectural bits of Elizabethan, Flemish and classic styles. Turrets and gables, towers and arches blend to create the feel of a unified, storybook enclave.  While each house shares similar details, like the fish-scale slate mansard roofs with dormers, each is distinctly individual.  The houses sat back from the sidewalk just enough to permit tiny yards for shrubs and flowers.

Despite The Real Estate Record & Guide's assertion that the little dead-end street would give residents "the disagreeable feeling of living in what the French call a bag's end," Henderson’s speculative project was a success.  His modest three-story houses were quickly sold or rented (yearly rent being about $650).  The quaint charm of Henderson Place, however, soon caused his plan to backfire.  The homes which he intended for families of “modest means” attracted those of far higher incomes.

from the collection of the New York Public Library

By the middle of the 20th century, well-to-do families populated Henderson Place.  Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Morse Lane lived at No. 6 in 1958 when their daughter, Pamela, made her social debut; while Mr. and Mrs. John Drayton Depew made their home at No. 16 in addition to their country home in Rye, New York.  Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne lived here, as did the Duchesse de Richelieu and renowned educator and early feminist, Mrs. Millicent McIntosh.

Tragically, eight of the houses were razed in the 1940s to make way for a high rise apartment building.  The surviving 24, however, are amazingly intact with very little alteration and an astounding state of preservation and maintenance.

One of the most charming hidden corners of Manhattan, Henderson Place was designated a New York City Landmark in 1969.  At that time the New York City Landmarks Commission called the enclave “an exceptionally attractive group of houses with individual front yard plantings and trees” and “they have remarkable charm and dignity for houses which were built for ‘persons of moderate means.’”