The 1924 J. Henry Lancashire Mansion - 11 East 69th Street

 

image via friends-ues.org

Banker Jefferson Seligman and his wife, the former Julia Wormser, occupied a townhouse at 11 East 69th Street and a country home in Deal, New Jersey in the first years of the 20th century.  The couple shocked society in 1915 when Julia filed for divorce, her attorneys asserting, "her husband left her on May 31, 1913, and has never returned."  Julia retained possession of the homes in the divorce.  She died in the New Jersey residence on March 28, 1921, leaving an estate equal to more than $18 million in 2026.

When the East 69th Street property became available in December 1922, Edwin C. Jameson, who lived next door at 9 East 69th Street, purchased it "to protect his own home," according to The New York Times.  He resold it in February 1923 to James Henry Lancashire and his wife, the former Sarah Hale Wright.  The New York Times reported that they "will remove the present structure entirely and build a new fire-proof house for [their] own occupation from designs by Delano & Aldrich."  The article added, "This promises to be one of the most attractive modern residences on Lenox Hill."

Construction of the 32-foot-wide mansion was completed in 1924 at a cost of $200,000 (about $3.8 million today).  Faced in limestone, its sedate neo-French Classic design included a rusticated base where the double-doored entrance sat within an understated, molded frame.  At the second floor, or piano nobile, were floor-to-ceiling windows, the central of which was fronted by an iron balcony and capped with a triangular pediment.  The sixth floor sat discretely behind a stone parapet topped with Classical stone urns.  The New York Times remarked, "It is provided with two elevators and there is an attractive rear garden."

The Seligmans' house was a near match to No. 13, at the right.  photograph b y Wurts Bros. from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York.

Dr. James Henry Lancashire (who went by his first initial professionally), was born in Ontario, Canada on August 22, 1858.  Sarah Wright was born in Vermont on February 8, 1861 and the couple were married on October 4, 1883 in Saratoga Springs, New York.  They had three daughters: Harriet Wright, Helen and Lila.  (The others had died in childhood.)

Only Lila would live in the mansion.  Harriet had married Edward Lawrence White in 1911, and Helen, who married Vincent Umberto Coletti-Perucca in 1916, lived in Italy.  

The Lancashires filled the mansion with costly antiques and artwork.  The New York Times would later comment that Sarah's "collection of seventeenth and eighteen century English furniture" included "twelve William and Mary carved walnut tall-back side chairs."  They were executed by Daniel Marot in 1695.  Other items within the residence were a Chinese Chippendale mahogany card table and a Sheraton mahogany dining table.

This portrait of Sarah Lancashire was painted by Ignaz Marcel Gaugengigl in 1910.  from the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston

The family's country home, Graftonwood, was in Manchester, Massachusetts.  On June 12, 1925, The New York Times reported that Lancashire "and his daughter, Miss Lila Lancashire, have closed their home at 11 East Sixty-ninth Street and have gone to their Summer home at Manchester-by-the Sea."  The article explained, "Mrs. Lancashire, who is visiting her daughter, Mme. Colette-Perucca, in Florence Italy, is expected to return early in July."  In fact, Sarah was accompanied by Helen upon her return.  On July 2, The Saratogian reported, "Mrs. J. Henry Lancashire...and her daughter, Mme. Umberto Coletti-Perucca, arrived from Europe on the Giulio Cesare and are at the Ritz-Carlton.  They are leaving on Friday for Graftonwood."

On January 11, 1927, The New York Times reported that the Lancashires had announced Lila's engagement to Chicago banker Richard Southgate, noting, "Miss Lancashire attended the Spence School, and is a member of the Junior League and a director of the Navy Club."

Lila's marriage took place in the Church of the Resurrection on June 1, 1927.  The New York Times explained, "Relatives and a few close friends only have been asked to the ceremony owing to the limited capacity of the church, but the invitations to the reception at the home of the bride's parents, 11 East Sixty-ninth Street, are more general."  The next evening, the Lancashirers hosted a dinner and dance at the Park Lane for the wedding party.

Now empty nesters, Lancashires continued to appear in the society columns.  On January 31, 1928, for instance, The New York Times announced, "Dr. and Mrs. J. Henry Lancashire of 11 East Sixty-ninth Street, with a party of friends, will leave to day for Nassau, later going to Palm Beach for the remainder of the Winter."

On April 21, 1931, the newspaper reported that the Lancashires had sold 11 East 69th Street to Mrs. Barend van Gerbig for "very close" to the asking price of $400,000 (about $8.5 million today).  

Mrs. Barend van Gerbig was the former Edith Olcott.  Her husband was born in the Netherlands in 1868 and arrived in American in 1890.  Educated at the University of Leyden, Barend van Gerbig was an investment broker and musician.  He was 32 years old when he and Edith were married on May 25, 1900.  The couple had a son, Howell.  (Their first son, Dudley, died in 1915.)  The family's country home was in New Canaan, Connecticut.

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

Edith Olcott van Gerbig began collecting Early American glass at the age of 13.  Displayed in the East 69th Street mansion was her collection of nearly 3,000 pieces.  She was recognized nationally as "an assiduous collector as well as a knowledgeable scholar of American glass," according to the Worcester Telegram.

Edith Olcott van Gerbig died at the age of 83 in the New Canaan residence on July 15, 1953.  Barend died there on December 3, 1957.  Three months earlier, he had donated Edith's entire glass collection to the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art in Hartford, Connecticut.  He, additionally, donated a $250,000 endowment "for the construction of an 'Edith Olcott van Gerbig Memorial Gallery of Glass' within the contemplated alterations of the Wadsworth Atheneum buildings," reported The Morning Union on September 1, 1957.

No. 11 East 69th Street became headquarters for the American Friends of the Hebrew University.  It was the scene of an exciting announcement on October 31, 1961.  Here Yigael Yadin, Professor of Archaeology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, announced the discovery of "First-century documents found in remote caves along the western shore of the Dead Sea."  He described their finding "as the most important discovery of the period next to the Dead Sea Scrolls."

Two years later, the American Friends of the Hebrew University presented its Woman of the Year Award to Golda Meir, Foreign Minister of Israel.  The large attendance at the luncheon made holding it in the former mansion impossible.  The award was presented to Mrs. Meir at the New York Hilton.

A poignant event took place here on March 11, 1976.  The New York Times reported, "The memory of the 11 Israelis murdered during the 1972 Olympics at Munich was revived...with the establishment of the first memorial to the athletes."  The memorial took the form of scholarships to the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. 

In 2004, real-estate operator David Levinson purchased 11 East 69th Street from the American Friends of the Hebrew University for $9.5 million.  According to The Real Deal, he spent $20 million in renovations to return it to a private mansion, with "six bedrooms, ten bathrooms, and a rooftop solarium."

image via streeteasy.com

Levinson sold the residence in June 2021 for $53.5 million.  The exterior is sheathed with scaffolding and netting at the time of this writing.

photographs by the author

The 1860 Joseph Murray House - 175 East 73rd Street

 

image via douglaselliman.com

In 1860, E. H. Robbins completed construction of six 20-foot-wide rowhouses on East 73rd Street between Lexington and Third Avenues.  Three stories tall above English basements, they were clad in red brick and trimmed in brownstone.  Although they were intended for middle-class families, Robbins splurged by giving the homes elaborate cast iron porches.  The parlor level featured floor-to-ceiling parlor windows and the scalloped fascia of the cornice echoed the segmentally arched windows of the third floor.

In 1862, Joseph Murray, who listed his profession as "machinery" at 126 Broadway, purchased 22 East 73rd Street (renumbered 175 in 1867).  The Murray family took in at least one boarder during their residency.  John Callaghan, possibly a relative, lived here in 1868.

On February 15, 1873, the New-York Tribune reported that Joseph Murray had sold 175 East 73rd Street for $15,500.  The price would translate to about $430,000 in 2026.  The buyers were Dr. Charles Smith Robert and his wife, the former Adelina Trudeau.  The couple was married on January 29, 1867 and had four children: Mary, who was six; five-year-old Lelia Adelina; Francis Berger, who was three; and Caroline Elizabeth, who was one year old.

Robert was born in Mastic, Long Island on March 5, 1839.  He entered Yale College in 1858, but left during his junior year to pursue medicine.  He graduated from the College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1864, just in time to serve in the Union Army as an assistant surgeon.  The New York Herald would later remark, "Mrs. Roberts [sic] is an unusually refined and accomplished woman of French extraction."

Like their neighbors, the Robert family maintained a domestic staff.  In 1875, they employed a laundress, a cook and a nurse.  The staff undoubtedly also included at least one maid, and likely two.  The Robert family's country home was in Westport, Connecticut.  

In April 1875, Robert listed the Westport estate for rent.  Simultaneously, three domestics advertised for new positions.  The moves suggested that the Robert family would be spending an extended period away, possibly in Europe.  (Families who were away for extended periods often dismissed their domestic staffs, other than the lady's maid and valet, to be replaced upon their return.)

A spectacular cast iron porch, like the surviving example at 171 East 73rd Street, once fronted the parlor of No. 175.  photograph by the author

While the Roberts were away, 175 East 73rd Street was occupied by the John S. Patterson family.  Patterson was a lawyer and he and his wife, Emily, would be here through 1877.  During their residency, they experienced a tragedy.  On May 4, 1876, their son William Fisher died at the age of 27.  His funeral was held in the parlor on May 6.

The Roberts continued to lease 175 East 73rd Street.  Following the Pattersons, Baptiste E. Wehner, who ran a storage warehouse on West 33rd Street, occupied the house.  And in May 1880, Charles Robert leased it to Jacob Thalman.  By the time the Robert family returned to 175 East 73rd Street in the mid-1880s, Robert had retired.  

On October 9, 1889, Leila Adelina was married to Charles H. Hallock.  The newlyweds moved to Moriches, Long Island, where they had a daughter. 

Leila's marriage would not survive.  According to Hallock in September 1893, "We were very happy until last January, although we had occasional 'spats.'  About the middle of that month I noticed that she had changed in her manner toward me."  Leila began spending time away from their home, traveling to Manhattan to visit her parents or to Brooklyn to see other relatives.  Hallock became suspicious that her frequent trips were not innocent when she talked in her sleep about "Bert."

The relationship continued to devolve.  Hallock said later, "She finally locked me out of our house on one occasion.  Then she blackened my eyes, and once said she wished our three-year-old child was dead."  Leila perceived an escape from her situation in the summer of 1893 when she received $1,800 from the estate of an aunt.  She told Charles that she was going to the Chicago World's Fair, packed her suitcases, and on September 2 he drove her to the train station.

Leila joined Berthold Popper, an usher in the Academy of Music, and the two went on to Chicago.  Leila's relationship with Popper was even shorter than that with her husband.  Once there, Popper abandoned her.  On September 6, 1893, just days after arriving in Chicago, Leila Robert Hallock "blew her brains out," as worded by the New York Press.  

Charles Hallock begrudgingly told the New York Herald, "She has dishonored my name, but I shall probably have her body brought here and buried in the graveyard at Center Moriches, where her father has a plot."  (Berthold Popper was convicted  of "illegally marrying Mrs. Leila Hallock" on March 22, 1894.)

Shortly after the tragedy, the Roberts sold 175 East 73rd Street to Daniel Healey.  Their decision was, no doubt, influenced by the many stables that were replacing the private homes along the block.  Healey was a blacksmith and on July 22, 1896, The New York Times reported that he was making $700 in alterations to the house.  The basement was now converted to a blacksmith shop, a convenience for the nearby carriage houses and stables.

Living above a commercial space did not deter Tracy and Frances Lyon.  Born in 1865 and 1866 respectively, the couple had four adult children.  The affluence and social standing of the family was evidenced in daughter Frances Tracy Lyon's wedding to Sidney E. Brewster on October 17, 1923.  The New York Times said the newlyweds were "socially prominent," noting that Frances was a member of the Junior League and Brewster was a descendant of Elder William Brewster of the Mayflower.

Like Leila Robert Hallock, Frances and her husband moved to Long Island.  And like Leila, Frances's marriage would end tragically.  At around 7:00 on the evening of June 22, 1926, Frances telephoned her parents.  The New York Times reported, "She told her mother that her husband had beaten her and that she was going to come home."  The servants told investigators later that "a quarrel had been going on all day."  Then, shortly after Frances called her parents, the servants heard shots.  They rushed to Frances's bedroom to find both of their employers dead.  Brewster had shot his wife in the chest then turned the gun onto himself.

In June 1928, architect Francis Livingston Pell purchased 174 East 73rd Street.  The Real Estate Record & Builders' Guide noted, "After extensive alterations the purchaser will use the property for his own occupancy."  That was partially true.  Pell's alterations resulting in a "store" in the basement level, one apartment each at the parlor and second floor, and a "non-housekeeping apartment" on the third.  (The term meant there was no kitchen.) 

The cast iron porch was removed in the renovations.  via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

The Pells moved into one of the apartments.  Born on September 23, 1873, Pell was a descendant of founding father James Duane.  He studied architecture in Rome and Paris after receiving his Ph.B. in architecture from the Columbia University School of Mines in 1895.  He married Ellen Van Buren Morris on October 9, 1899.  Her pedigree matched that of her husband.  The daughter of Stuyvesant Fish Morris and Ellen James Van Buren, she descended from the Fish, Morris and Stuyvesant families and was the great-granddaughter of President Martin Van Buren.  They had three sons, Francis Jr., Stuyvesant Morris, and Walden.  Their country home was in Lenox, Massachusetts.

The occupants of the "non-housekeeping" apartment were equally prominent.  Anna Giralt Farrar Goldsborough was born in New Orleans in 1882.  She married Richard Francis Goldsborough in 1904 and had four children.  She and her unmarried daughters, Lucinda Davis and Ellen Roy, moved into the top floor apartment following Richard Goldsborough death in 1929.  

When Anna Goldsborough announced Lucinda's engagement to William Fitz-Randolph Ballard on December 14, 1929, The New York Times remarked that Lucinda was a great-grandniece of Jefferson Davis and was "a direct descendant of Nicholas Goldsborough, who settled [in] Maryland in the middle of the seventeenth century" and of Colonel Tench Tilghman, "aide-de-camp to George Washington."

Five years later, on March 8, 1934, Anna Goldsborough announced Ellen Roy's engagement to Talbot Otis Freeman.  Almost simultaneously, the Pells announced Stuyvesant Morris Pell's engagement to Katherine Louise Weston.  As Stuyvesant's marriage in Dalton, Massachusetts neared on December 19, 1935, The New York Evening Post said, "there is much interest in the event among local fashionables and members of the exclusive little coterie that make up the Berkshires colony."

The Pell and Weston families were apparently already close.  Two years after the wedding, the bride's mother was a long-term houseguest here.  On October 29, 1936, The New York Sun reported that Clarissa Wardwell Hewlett "is now residing with Mr. and Mrs. F. Livingston Pell at 175 East Seventy-third street."

In 1940 Pell converted the basement into half of a duplex apartment with the parlor level.  At the same time, the third floor apartment received a kitchen.  The Pells remained here until April 1944, when they sold the property to Wooster Properties, Inc.  The firm resold it in May the following year to a investor.

The house was sold in 1978 for $170,000, according to Observer.  A renovation completed the following year resulted in four cooperative duplexes.  During the remodeling, the parlor and second-floor windows were shortened.  

An out-of-focus 1980 tax photo reveals the shortened parlor windows.  via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

In July 2006, fashion designer Steve Madden and his wife, Wendy Ballew, purchased the the rear, lower duplex for $3.6 million.  Three years later, they bought an upper apartment for $2.2 million.  In 2010 they purchased another, and in February 2011 bought the last apartment, now owning the entire property.  The Maddens returned 175 East 73rd Street to a single-family home.  They remained here until 2019, selling it for $9.1 million according to The New York Post on January 23.

Thom & Wilson's 1884 142 East 79th Street

 

James A. Frame was a prolific real estate developer in the later decades of the 19th century.  On December 1, 1883, the Real Estate Record & Builders' Guide reported that he would be erecting 18 houses on East 79th Street, 13 at the southeast corner of Fourth Avenue (today's Park Avenue) and five at the southwest corner of Lexington Avenue.  The architectural firm of Thom & Wilson would be designing the two projects.

Completed in 1884, the eastern-most structure, 142 East 79th Street, was clad in brownstone.  Its stone stoop was offset to the west.  Thom & Wilson's neo-Grec design included ornate window frames on the 79th Street side.  They sat on bracketed sills and wore molded cornices supported by corbeled piers.  Below the pressed metal terminal cornice was a frieze of rosette-decorated panels.

An advertisement described:

Southwest Corner of Lexington Ave.; handsome four story high-stoop, brown-stone dwelling, two-story extension, beautifully decorated, hard-wood trimmed; all improvements; on cable road, street 100 feet wide, size of lot 20x102.

James A. Frame sold 142 East 79th Street to John W. Haaren in April 1885 for $35,000 (about $1.2 million in 2026).  Haaren was a partner in the importing firm of Haaren & Meinken, founded in 1865 with Henry Meinken.  Both men dealt in real estate, as well.  Haaren and his wife, Marie, had four children, John William, Henry F., Mamy M., and Lena W.  

On the afternoon of March 11, 1891, John and Marie went for a drive.  The New York Herald reported, "He drove a spirited team hitched to a light side-bar buggy."  At around 6:30, they stopped at the house of a friend on 57th Street near Ninth Avenue.  John ran in "to speak to his friend," while Marie waited in the buggy.  Just as he was leaving, a Ninth Avenue elevated train passed.  The New York Herald reported, "The noise of the train frightened the horses, and they started on the run through Fifty-seventh street."  John ran after them, but fell.  Getting to his feet, he continued the chase.

The panicked horses crashed into a truck at 57th Street and Third avenue.  Two policeman caught the horses and calmed them.  Inside the buggy, Marie Haaren was unconscious.  By the time John arrived (no doubt breathless from his marathon), a neighborhood doctor had diagnosed Marie with "nervous shock."  Based on that, when the ambulance arrived John asked them to take her to their home, rather than a hospital.

It was an understandable decision, but a fatal one.  Marie regained consciousness on the way home, but fainted again.  The New York Herald reported, "On reaching her home she was taken to her room, and almost immediately died."  The 56-year-old had a history of heart problems and, according to the newspaper, "it is thought the fright caused by the runaway brought on an attack of the disease."

Marie's funeral was held in the parlor of 142 East 79th Street on March 15, followed by a service at Immanuel Lutheran Church on Lexington Avenue and 88th Street.

John Haaren sold 142 East 79th Street in 1896.  John L. Jordan converted the basement to a commercial space and the upper floors into three sprawling apartments, including one duplex.  

The store, with the address of 1140 Lexington Avenue, became home to S. Blumberg's drug store while the apartments were rented to well-to-do tenants.  A mysterious woman who moved into the building in June 1903 was Jane Leroy.  The "jewel-bedecked woman" was arrested for shoplifting in a Broadway department store on August 27, caught "stealing doilies worth $23.10," as reported by The Evening Post.  (The value of the lacy heist would translate to about $868 today.)

As it turned out, Jane Leroy was, in fact, the wife of jeweler Henry R. Levi.  They originally lived in Washington D.C., but according to The Evening World, now lived in a luxurious home at 315 East 46th Street.  The couple, it appears, were having domestic problems.  Levi arrived at the stationhouse that evening and furnished his wife's staggering $19,000 bail.

The next day, a lawyer's clerk told the magistrate that "the woman was too ill to appear."  Magistrate Ommen would not have it.  "That's no good.  I'll give you until 11 o'clock to produce the defendant, otherwise her bond will be forfeited," he demanded.  The New York Herald reported, "A little later Mrs. Levi came to court in a carriage.  She persisted in saying she was Jane Leroy, a housekeeper living at 142 East Seventy-ninth."  

As early as 1913, the store space was home to Frederick Bahr's grocery store.  It would become the Planodome Market within a decade.

"St. Peter's" magazine, September 1913 (copyright expired)

In the meantime, William J. Baird occupied an apartment here as early as 1919.  The bachelor was an "athletic instructor," according to the New-York Tribune.  On March 20, he took his  fiancé, Alice Whitman of Brooklyn, to the Palace Theatre.  The night ended badly.  William briefly excused himself during intermission.  When he returned to his seat, Alice told him that Dr. Albert L. Roth, who sat nearby, "had annoyed her during his absence."  The New-York Tribune reported that Baird left his seat "and punched the face of Dr. Albert L. Roth."  He and Alice then started out of the theater.  

Dr. Roth called out to a sailor nearby to stop him.  The sailor held Baird until a policeman responded and arrested him.  In night court, Baird explained his actions, saying, "I lost my temper, but I am willing to apologize."  The New-York Tribune reported, "Dr. Roth, who had lost a tooth, would have none of his apology, and Baird was fined $10, which he paid."

In 1929, architect Lafayette A. Goldstone was hired to renovate the building.  The stoop was removed and a triangular pediment placed over the new, sidewalk-level residential entrance.  There were now offices on the second floor, one apartment each on the third and fourth floors, and two "non-housekeeping" apartments on the fifth.  (The term meant that they had no kitchens.)

The ground-floor entrance to the apartments can be seen in this 1940 tax photo.  via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

The tenants continued to be well-to-do.  The widow of Dwight Morgan Platt and her daughter, Miriam Dwight, lived here in 1929 when Miriam was married to John Merrill Congdon in Sherry's on October 21 that year.  The engagement and the wedding were heavily covered in society pages for weeks.

Wealthy widow Eila Haggin McKee, daughter of millionaire James B. Haggin, moved into an apartment building next door in 1928.  The structures were owned by the same firm.  The New York Times reported, "she missed the flowers that were her hobby on her Summer estate, Blue Blinds, at Smithtown Branch, L. I., so she rented the roof space on the adjoining building at 142 East Seventy-ninth...at a cost of $800 annually."  The article said, "The roof was only a step down from her apartment next door, and she sealed the stairway in the apartment at No. 142 which led to the roof."

The last remnant of James A. Frame's ambitious row, 142 East 79th Street is dwarfed by its neighbors today.

Problems came in 1936 when Eila McKee died.  The New York Times explained that the executors canceled the lease on the apartment, "presuming that the cancellation agreement also covered the garden space."  It did not.  By then, the buildings were separately owned.  The estate was in court for at least three years trying to untangle the complicated issue, which not only dealt with the rent, but the restoration of the internal staircase and access to the roof in 142 East 79th Street.

As early as 1940, Ruth Forster's florist shop occupied the ground floor.  In 1955, it was known as Betty Forster, Inc., the name presumably that of Ruth's daughter.  In the late 1980s, a florist shop, now the Strakes Florists, still occupied the space.

During a renovation in 1974, the residential entrance was moved to the Lexington Avenue side (although retaining the East 79th Street address).  The 79th Street entrance now accessed the store.  The remodeling resulted in offices on the second floor and one apartment each on the upper stories.

photographs by the author

The 1929 240 East 79th Street

Frederick Godwin's upper floor design was created, mostly, by strategically placed small, medium and large-sized windows.

The Great Depression was one year away in 1928.  Raymond B. Fenner was the president of the newly formed 240 East 79th Street Corporation and that year the syndicate hired Godwin, Thompson & Patterson to design a 16-story-and-penthouse apartment building on the south side of East 79th Street between Second and Third Avenues.  Reportedly, Frederick Godwin was the lead architect on the project.  The plans, filed on December 10, 1928, projected the costs at $300,000, or about $5.6 million in 2026 terms.

For the most part, Godwin's Art Deco design was unexciting.  Faced in rough-faced variegated brown brick, its scheme relied greatly on the placement of fenestration and thin vertical lines of darker brick.  But the single-story base was another story altogether.

Godwin faced it with orange-hued tiles set off with vibrant mossy-green terra cotta.  At the corners were fluted pilasters topped with curved volutes that suggest that another half is hidden in the adjoining wall.  Similar pilasters flank two narrow windows, their caps fully formed and embracing an octagonal plaque of veined gray stone.  The tour-de-force is the entranceway.  Reeded gray stone pilasters on either side are topped with Empire State Building-like silhouettes.  Above the entrance, the address is announced in Art Deco lettering.  A sinuous hood, like a cresting wave or calla lily petal, sits above a large octagonal gray stone plaque.

On August 25, 1929 The New York Times reported that artist Ruth Carroll had been hired "to paint murals for the entrance hall of the new sixteen-story apartment house."  The article said, "Her paintings will depict the skyline, bridges and vistas of modern New York."  Two weeks earlier, the newspaper had reported that 240 East 79th Street "is rapidly nearing completion and is nearly 50 per cent leased."

An advertisement in Town & Country on September 15, 1929 offered three- or four-room apartments with one or two baths and "large living rooms, outside dining rooms."  Rents started at $1,350 a year, or about $2,100 a month in today's terms.  There were two "sky maisonettes" on the penthouse level.  An advertisement in The New Yorker noted that they included, "real kitchens."

Among those who signed leases during construction were Percy O'Gorman, advertising manager of Durham Duplex Razor Company; Dr. Claude E. Heaton; Dr. Anthony Fugassi; and Charles E. Gautier, secretary of J. H. Gautier Company, a crucibles firm.  

Taking one of the penthouses was the 24-year-old Charles Cavendish.  Upon his moving in, The New York Sun remarked on June 17, 1930, "Lord Charles, who is the second son of the Duke of Devonshire, is engaged in the banking business in New York."  Cavendish worked for J. P. Morgan & Co. and was romantically involved with Adele Astaire, the sister of Fred Astaire and his dancing partner.  The two had met in London in 1927.  Cavendish's residency here would be relatively short.  On October 23, 1931, Reuters reported that Adele "confirmed her engagement to Lord Charles Cavendish."  The couple was married in Chatsworth House, Cavendish's ancestral home near Chesterfield, England, in 1932 and they remained there.

Newlyweds Gardner Hale and Dorothy A. Donovan were also initial residents.  Hale was born in Chicago in 1894 and educated at Yale.  He studied art in Rome and Paris and at the Art Students League in New York.  Hale was well-known as a muralist and, according to The New York Sun, was "generally credited with the revival in this country of fresco painting."  Gardner and Dorothy were married in 1929.  She was his second wife.  His first wife was author Marie Louise Gibson, who used the pseudonym Maryse Rutledge.  They were divorced in 1926.

In November 1931, Gardner and Dorothy Hale went to Long Beach, California for a six-month stay.  On December 28, Hale headed for San Francisco alone.  The next day, The New York Sun reported, "The body of Gardner Hale, young painter of murals and frescoes, was found yesterday at the bottom of a 500-foot precipice, forty miles from Santa Maris, where his automobile had plunged from a highway."  Hale was 37 years old.

Azel Farnsworth Hatch and Dorothy Doane were married in August 1932 and moved into one of the penthouses.  Hatch, who had served in World War I and decorated with the Croix de Guerre, was president of A. F. Hatch & Co., bankers.  

Four months later, on December 10, the Times Union reported that Dorothy "was found in their penthouse apartment...early today with a bullet wound over her heart.  The shot was fired from a Luger pistol, war souvenir of her husband."

Police found Dorothy in a negligee on the living room floor.  According to the Times Union, Dorothy muttered, "I did it myself," then lapsed into a coma.  Hatch told the police that Dorothy had discovered the firearm while "cleaning out a closet."  She "asked her husband what she was to do with it," recounted The New York Times.  "It was discharged and a bullet entered her chest."  The incident was deemed an accident; however, Hatch was charged with a violation of the Sullivan Law, an early gun control statute.

The boyish-looking Azel F. Hatch earned $100,000 a year, according to his wife (a comfortable $2.3 million today).  The Daily News, December 19, 1936.

The Hatches' marriage did not last and when Dorothy filed for separation on December 18, 1936, she told the court the truth of the incident four years earlier.  The Daily News reported, "It was attempted murder, and not an accident, she told the Manhattan Supreme Court."  The New York Post said in part:

Telling the Supreme Court about it, she said she was sitting on her husband's lap, weeping and pleading with him about something or other on the night of December 9, 1932.  Without warning, she said, her husband picked up a German Luger pistol, a little trinket he had taken from some German prisoner, and shot her.

Azel Hatch, not surprisingly, gave a different version of the incident (although this one, too, differed from the couple's original story).  He said that Dorothy had "snatched up the gun and fired it herself."  He added that he "didn't stop her when she grabbed the gun because he was amused.  Besides, he was sure the gun wasn't loaded."  Dorothy obtained her divorce and Azel was never charged with attempted murder.

Another titled resident, Josef Franz, Archduke of Austria and Prince of Hungary, and his wife, Princess Anna of Saxony, moved into 240 East 79th Street in 1937.  The couple was married in October 1924 and had five children.  (Three more would come later.)  Archduke Josef Franz was born in 1895 to the last Palatine of Hungary.

Archduke Joseph Franz and Princess Anna Monika Pia.  (original source unknown)

The Nazi annexation of Austria had made staying in Europe dangerous for the family.  The members of the imperial family discovered that they would quickly need to adapt to American rules and customs.  The same applied to the family's staff.  On January 7, 1938, The New York Times reported, "Archduke Franz Josef of Austria was fined a dollar for overtime parking."  The Archduke's chauffeur explained in traffic court, "the Archduke is unfamiliar with traffic regulations here," said the article.

America's entry to World War II resulted in several residents of 240 West 79th Street going off to the front.  Dr. Emil E. Napp, who lived here with his wife, the former Ruth Marschalk, was on the staff of the Flower-Fifth Avenue Hospital.  He became a commander with the Navy Medical Corps in the South Pacific.  Napp received the Navy and Marine Corps medal for his work on Guadalcanal in 1942, and was awarded the Silver Star on May 19, 1944.

Another resident doctor was Gurney Taylor.  He rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel with the American Seventh Army in France.  He was attached to the Ninth Evacuation Hospital in the Vosges Forest, which was, somewhat astonishingly, "manned by the veteran Roosevelt Hospital Unit from New York," as reported by The New York Times on October 29, 1944.

240 East 79th Street soared above the neighboring buildings in 1940.  via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

Two other residents returned from the war in 1945.  One was Captain Carel Van Heukelom, and the other Barbara Murphy, one of 280 volunteer workers of the American Red Cross who served in the European theatre of operations.  Barbara told a reporter that "she had driven a clubmobile during her eighteen months overseas," adding, "Oh, I made the Grand Tour."

A fascinating resident was Marjorie T. Bellows, here at midcentury.  Born in 1906, she earned her masters degree in statics at the Columbia School of Public Heath.  From 1928 to 1929 she was senior statistician at the New York State Health Department.  She joined the American Heart Association in 1946 and became its senior staff member.  While there she directed investigations into the statistical aspects of cardiovascular issues, like rheumatic fever.  Bellows, who never married, developed the technique of "case registers," that analyzed the nature and uses of recording systems in public health administration.

Among Marjorie Bellows's neighbors in the building at the time was actress Lili Darvas.  Born in Hungary in 1902, she made a name on the Budapest stage as a young woman, debuting in 1921 as the female lead in Romeo and Juliet.  She married playwright Ferenc Molnar in 1926.  Lili was appearing in Vienna in 1938 when the Nazi troops invaded.  She said later that "she simply packed her things, walked onto a train to Switzerland and departed" with her Hungarian passport.  

The couple arrived in New York and Lili Darvas first appeared on stage here in 1941 in The Criminals.  Molnar died in 1952, and Lili continued acting, appearing in roles that most often portrayed characters fitting her European background.  Such was the case when she played the domineering mother of Sigmund Freud in the Henry Denker drama A Far Country.

Lili Darvas and Billy Mumy in a 1961 Twilight Zone episode, "Long Distance Call."  CBS Television publicity shot.

The indefatigable actress did not restrict herself to the stage, film or television.  On June 13, 1963, The New York Times interviewed her regarding her upcoming catering stint.  She had been asked by another actress to prepare an after-theater dinner party for 50 guests.

Lili Darvas died in her apartment here on August 22, 1974 at the age of 72.  

In September 1984, The New York Times reported that 240 East 79th Street was undergoing a cooperative conversion.   Among the new apartment owners in 1989 was bond trader Jeffrey M. Stambovsky, who placed a down payment on a country house that August.  He got buyer's remorse when he picked up a 1977 Readers' Digest article titled, "Our Haunted House on the Hudson."  In it, Helen V. Ackley, from whom he was buying the 18-room Victorian residence in Nyack, wrote about its ghosts.  The New York Times reported on March 16, 1990, "She described one as a 'cheerful apple-cheeked man' who looked more like Santa Claus than Rex Harrison in 'The Ghost and Mrs. Muir.'"

Stambovsky sued to get his money back.  He claimed in court that publicity of the ghost stories "threatened the house's property value" and that Mrs. Ackley "never told him about the ghosts."  Unfortunately for Stambovsky, while the judge agreed that the stories might affect the property values, he said that Ackerly "was not required to tell Mr. Stambovsky of any ghosts."

Thankfully, little has changed outwardly to 290 East 79th Street in its nearly 100 years of existence.  And, although Ruth Carroll's Art Deco lobby murals have been painted over, outside Godwin, Thompson and Patterson's bold and striking ground floor elements are showstoppers to this day.

photographs by the author

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

photographs by the author