The Henry and Isabella Cammann House - 7 Sutton Place

 

In April 1837 George Sutton acquired property on the east side of Manhattan where only a few years earlier were summer estates of New York’s wealthy.  Not long after the end of the Civil War, development reached the area.  In 1875 Effingham Brown Sutton erected a group of brownstone residences along the eastern section of Avenue A from 57^th to 58^th Street.  The area was far from the fashionable neighborhoods to the west, yet it enjoyed the breezes from the East River directly behind the homes.  In 1883 the two-block stretch of Avenue A from 57th to 59th Streets was renamed Sutton Place.

By 1920 the neighborhood had noticeably declined.  A brewery, a steam plant, and coal yards surrounded Sutton's brownstone row.  Yet, that year a group of wealthy New Yorkers headed by architect Eliot Cross and W. Seward Webb, Jr. had a vision for the u-shaped group of houses.  They proposed remodeling them into upscale residences, and removing the backyard fences to create a common garden overlooking the river.  Their scheme was described by the Architectural Record in 1922 as "a more or less co-operative plan."

The group as it appeared when Cross and Webb first saw it.  from the collection of the Library of Congress.

The group agreed, for uniformity, that “The brownstone stoops, the window ledges and other protrusions are to be cleaved off, leaving a straight front to the outside world.  Architecturally the façade will be of the American basement style, which has been popular in the Fifth Avenue district for the last decade."  The 18 properties were snapped up at an amazing rate, given their location in what The New York Times unceremoniously deemed "a slum."

No. 7 Sutton Place was purchased by Henry Lorillard Cammann and his wife, the former Margaret Willard Miner.  They hired architect William F. Dominick to remake the vintage brownstone.  He removed the stoop and lowered the entrance to one step above the sidewalk.  The colonial-style door with a leaded transom sat below a fanlight that matched the arched openings of the first floor.  Dominic achieved a tripartite effect with a full-width balcony at the second floor and an intermediate cornice at the third.

Architectural Record, February 1922 (copyright expired)

The Architectural Record noted that in order to enjoy the garden and the view, "the more important rooms are placed at the back of the house, and on the first or entrance floor the dining room opens out through glazed doors upon a balcony, where a few curved steps lead down to the garden."  Dominick had replaced the straight, Victorian staircase with a dramatic winding stairway with an iron railing.

Architectural Record, February 1922 (copyright expired)

On the second floor was the dual purpose living room-library.  "The book-case is recessed in the wall, above two built-in cabinets, the doors of which are designed to frame some old carved Gothic panels," said the article.  Adding to the Gothic motif were an imported marble mantle of the period, and "two Italian Gothic lanterns, which have had electric lights ingeniously introduced," which hung from the ceiling.  Two bedrooms were at the front of the second floor.

Architectural Record, February 1922 (copyright expired)

Born in Dublin, Ireland in 1864, Cammann graduated from Harvard College in 1886, and was now a woolens importer with Henry W. T. Mali & Co.

Henry Lorillard Cammann, 25th Anniversary Report of the Secretary of the Class of 1886 of Harvard College, 1911 (copyright expired)

He and Margaret married in Grace Church on December 4, 1917.  It was the second wedding for both.  Margaret was the widow of Worthington Miner.  Henry's first wife, Grace Huntington Churchill, had died in 1911, The New York Times saying at the time she left "a large fortune to her husband, including the Cammann home in Greenwich [Connecticut]."

The Architectural Record published two views of the living room-library in its February 1922 issue. (copyright expired)

The year they bought the Sutton Place house, the 19th Amendment was ratified, ending a long fight for Margaret.  She had been, as described by The New York Times, "a leader in the woman suffrage movement."  She was, as well, prominent in the Daughters of the American Revolution.

The Queensboro Bridge can be seen beyond the garden in the lower photograph.  Architectural Record, February 1922 (copyright expired)

Not very long after the couple moved in, on April 25, 1924, the house was the scene of the wedding reception of Margaret's niece, Mary Sargeant Spencer.  Her marriage in Grace Church to Kenneth Philips was described by The Buffalo Sunday Express as "a wedding of great interest."

Somewhat surprisingly, only six years after remodeling 7 Sutton Place, the Cammanns prepared to leave.  On November 17, 1926, The New York Times reported that the couple had purchased two adjoining apartments nearby at 430 East 57th Street.  Until the current leases were up and the apartments could be combined, said the article, the Cammanns would occupy a six-room apartment in the that building.  They leased 7 Sutton Place furnished to William V. Griffin and his wife.  

Three years after Henry Lorillard Cammann's death on March 1, 1930, Margaret sold 7 Sutton Place to Marshall Rutgers Kernochan and his wife, the former Caroline Rigney Hatch.  The couple had a 14-year-old son, John Marshall Kernochan.  Their country home was in Tuxedo Park.

Before moving in, the Kernochans hired the architectural firm of Polhemus & Coffin to give William F. Dominick's 1920 design a new look.  On January 4, 1934 The New York Sun reported, "The work will consist of erecting new brick walls, new interior partitions, heating, plumbing and elevator work."  

The renovations were significant, costing the Kernochans the equivalent of more than half a million in 2023 dollars.  The entrance was moved to the opposite side, where the Cammann's service entrance had been.  It featured a colonial-style stone surround capped by a broken pediment.  Dominick's balcony and fourth floor cornice were removed and the second floor windows given prominent cornices and the those on the third floor received pediments that matched the entranceway.

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

Kernochan was a musician, publisher and composer.  He had studied music in Frankfurt, Germany under Ivan Knorr and at the Institute of Musical Art (today's Julliard School).

On March 13, 1941, the Evening Star commented, "With the announcement of the engagement of Miss Adelaide Chatfield-Taylor, daughter of the Undersecretary of Commerce and Mrs. Chatfield-Taylor, to Mr. John Marshall Kernochan, son of Mr. and Mrs. Marshall Kernochan of New York, there is promise of additional entertaining for prominent young couples."  John gave his father the honor of being his best man at the wedding.

John would go on to become a law professor, a composer and publisher like his father.  He would found Columbia Law School's Kernochan Center for Law, Media and the Arts.

By the time of John's wedding, Marshall Kernochan was the president of the Galaxy Music Corp., and he and Caroline had established their summer home in Edgartown, Massachusetts.  The couple was there on June 9, 1955, when the 74-year-old Marshall died.

The following year, in September 1956, Caroline sold 7 Sutton Place to the 33-year-old Robert G. Goelet.  The newspaper called the millionaire bachelor "the scion of a real estate dynasty."  The family's history in New York real estate closely paralleled that of the Astor family.  Goelet had service as a Navy flier in World War II and was president of the American Museum of Natural History, the New-York Historical Society, and the French Institute.

Robert G. Goelet, The East Hampton Star, October 17, 2019

Manhattan society may have surmised that Goelet would never marry.  He was 53 years old when, on September 11, 1976, The New York Times reported, "On Gardiner's Island, longtime barony of her mother's family, Alexandra Gardiner Creel was married quietly Thursday to Robert G. Goelet, heir to the real estate fortune of the Goelet family of Manhattan and Newport, R. I."  The newspaper would later add that their marriage "merged two families that date to the 17th-century New Amsterdam."

Upon the death of Alexandra's "idiosyncratic uncle Robert David Lion Gardiner," as worded by The New York Times, the Goelets took possession of the 3,300-acre Gardiner's Island, owned by Alexandra's family since 1639.  Calling it "a storied sanctuary off the tip of Long Island," The New York Times noted it had "27 miles of coastline, lush white pine and oak forests, colonial buildings, a 200-year-old windmill, a family cemetery and considerably more ospreys than people."  The couple maintained the island as a bird sanctuary, while restoring its colonial buildings and habitat.

Continuing the tradition of remodeling that every owner of 7 Sutton Place had done since 1920, The Goelets combined their home with 9 Sutton Place.  In its October 18, 1976 issue, The New Yorker noted they live "in a double house, 40 feet wide, that looks out on the East River across a lawn and garden."  Interestingly, their architect made no attempt to meld the facades.

Nos. 7 and 9 Sutton Place outwardly give no hint that they have been combined as a single residence.

Alexandra died on December 19, 1990.  Robert G. Goelet survived her until his death at the age of 96 on October 9, 2019.  Their double house looks for all the world like two separate residences.

photographs by the author

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Polhemus & Coffin's 1925 No. 232 Madison Avenue

photo http://www.loopnet.com/Listing/18712161/232-Madison-Avenue-New-York-NY/

By the early 1920s the Murray Hill section of Madison Avenue had been taken over by commerce.  Where mansions stood, tall business buildings loomed.  Among the last holdouts was the four-story brick residence of Helen Hartley Jenkins, at No. 232 Madison Avenue, across the avenue from the still-standing J. P. Morgan and De Lamar mansions.

Helen was the only daughter of multi-millionaire Marcellus Hartley (who died in 1902 leaving an estate of approximately $11 million) and the widow of George Walker Jenkins. The Madison Avenue house was the scene of brilliant entertainments during the winter season.  Summers found Helen in either of her two sprawling estates in Norfolk, Connecticut or Morristown, New Jersey.

Eventually, however, Helen gave in.  On September 12, 1924 The New York Times reported "another of the old Murray Hill residences will make way for the advance on that section of business building construction.”  Real estate operator Arthur Greenbaum and Nathan Wilson, had leased the property stretching back through Nos. 15 and 17 East 37^th Street from Helen Hartley Jenkins for $2 million.

The newspaper advised that “The lessees are to erect a fourteen-story store, office and showroom building to be completed by January, 1926.”

The Jenkins mansion was demolished and construction begun on a modern structure to house firms related to the silk industry which was rapidly centering itself in the neighborhood.  Greenbaum and Wilson had commissioned the architectural firm of Polhemus & Coffin to design their building.  Largely overlooked today, Henry M. Polhemus and Lewis Augustus Coffin, Jr. had been in partnership for five years.   They would not only design other impressive office buildings; but the summer estates of Mrs. Daniel Guggenheim and Lucy Drexel Dalgren.

Their design was a successful marriage of Gothic and Art Deco—two seemingly disparate architectural styles.   The two-story stone base featured vast show windows separated by faceted engaged columns with medieval capitals.  Each was connected to the other by robust stone voussoires which created the illusion of pointed Gothic arches.

Little has changed to the facade since this shot was taken in October 1926 -- from the collection of the New York Public Library

Crouching figures groaned under the weight of the hefty Art Deco buttresses that broke through the second floor cornice.  Above, angled brick piers rose uninterrupted for eight floors, emphasizing the verticality of the skyscraper.   The cream colored brick was highlighted by darker brick in the spandrels; laid to further accentuate the upward design.  At the 15^th floor setback the architects returned to the Gothic motif, adding quatrafoils that coexisted with beefy Art Deco angles.

The building was not yet completed when silk firms lined up to lease space.  On August 1, 1925 Arthur Greebaum announced that Johnson-Cowdin-Emmerich, Inc., one of the country’s largest and oldest manufacturers of silk ribbons, had signed a lease for the four top floors.  The New York Times called it “added impetus to the uptown movement of silk manufacturers which has been in progress for many months past.” 

The choice of the top floors turned a new page in the thinking of silk concerns.  The company’s president, General Disque, said “The move on the part of this company marks an epoch in the silk industry in having decided to lease space on the upper floors of a high building, inasmuch as the silk trade manufacturers and jobbers have always heretofore believed it necessary to be located in a ground floor store.”  Silk companies had come to the realization that the natural light available on high floors was “essential for the proper displaying of silks.”

photo http://www.newyorkitecture.com/doors-of-manhattan-ii/

The highly-visible ground floor space was taken by Hemmingway Silks; and among the other tenants in the upper floors were the Benrose Silk Manufacturing Co., the Tirrell Bros. Silk Corporation; and Weill & Callihan Silks. 

Not all of the original tenants were in the silk industry, of course.  The National Democratic Club leased space for its “new clubhouse” before the building was completed.  Other diverse tenants included the Literary Commodies, Ltd., the offices of the French Opera Comique Company; and several architects including Arthur C. Holden and the structure’s designers, Polhemus & Coffin.  They would be joined here shortly by architects Pliny Rogers and G. G. Miller.

The ground floor location of the Hemmingway Silk Company was not only convenient for clients; but for shadier types as well.  In February 1926 a fireman walked into the office wearing his full uniform and a badge “No. 74” on his hat.   He asked Harry M. Archer if he would be willing to buy tickets to a benefit for firemen.   Archer, however, was not duped by the convincing costume and reported the impostor.

The incident prompted Fire Chief John Kenlon to issue a public warning.   He warned “To catch public sympathy, the fraudulent tickets contain a picture of the Fire Department’s ambulance.”

By the early years of the Great Depression the advertising and publishing industries were pushing the silk district out.  Edwin Alendelson Advertising was among the first to move into No. 232, leasing space in 1931.  It was followed by Farrar & Rinehart, publishers in 1933 which took the entire 14^th floor.  United University Presses, Inc., which changed its name to University Books, Inc. in 1936, also took space about this time.

photograph by Wurts Bros. from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York http://collections.mcny.org/Collection/232%20Madison%20Avenue.%20Commercial%20building-24UFQE76WNB.html

In 1937 the changing face of the neighborhood was evident in the list of tenants.  Gone were the silk firms; while apparel concerns like the Tyson Shirt Company and Ades Brothers, manufacturers of linens and lingerie moved in that year.  Other leasers that year were the Novelty Handkerchief Manufacturing Co., the Gage Publishing Co., and architect Magill Smith.  Meanwhile, the ground floor space had been renovated for Frank Rodriquez’s “luncheonette and store.”

Publishers and advertising agencies continued to be visible at No. 232; but it was a far different occupant that grabbed newspaper attention.  The war in Europe had created uneasy allies of the United States and the Soviet Union.  A common wartime goal was not enough to erase the underlying ideological differences between the two countries.   In response, the National Council of American-Soviet Friendship was formed as a successor to the National Council on Soviet Relations.  The organization took space in the Madison Avenue building for its headquarters.

The Council was perceptibly sympathetic to socialism and communism.  In June 1943 it opened the American-Soviet War Exhibit in Rockefeller Center.   The New York Times reported on June 25  “daily American food wastage of two-thirds of a pound of food a person contrasted with the Russian diet during the siege of Leningrad of four slices of black bread and one glass of water was demonstrated yesterday.”  Visitors to the exhibition were informed “In Russia, it is considered a crime to waste so much as a crumb.”

Two weeks later, the National Council of American-Soviet Friendship railed against criticism of the pro-Russian film Mission to Moscow.   Condemning any criticism as “a distinct disservice to the cause of American-Soviet unity during the war and afterward,” the group added “such criticism must have given great satisfaction to Hitler and his Axis colleagues.”

Intolerance of critics of the Soviet Union was again evident when, in 1945, the National Council issued a 32-page pamphlet “designed to refute criticisms of Russia” contained in W. L. White’s book Report on Russia.

By now No. 232 was filled almost entirely by publishing and advertising offices.  In 1950 the ground floor, until recently a luncheonette, was leased by the First Church of Christ, Scientists “for a reading room.”

Among the publishers here in 1971 was Herder and Herder, described by Henry Raymont of The New York Times as “long noted for prestigious, high-quality books on Roman Catholic theology and philosophy.”  But in May that year the Catholic Church and the publisher would go head-to-head.

Executive vice president Werner N. Linz explained the changing tenor of the company’s philosophy on May 26.  “Our concept of publishing is to be a pioneering house in an area where radical change is overdue.”  And the firm’s first step in that direction was the publication of The Sex Book, described as “a highly controversial encyclopedia for young people with candid explanations and photographs of sexual behavior.”

Translated and edited from a West German sex-education book, it “has aroused the curiosity and concern of Federal and ecclesiastical authorities,” said The Times.  Nevertheless, although the manuscript and photographs were seized by Customs when they arrived in the U.S., Linz stressed “the Justice Department quickly ordered them released, apparently agreeing with us that the text and illustrations conform to the guidelines of the report of the Presidential Commission on Obscenity and Pornography.”

The Justice Department’s decision was not enough to satisfy either the Roman Catholic Church or the Federal Bureau of Investigation.  A few days before Linz’s announcement, an FBI agent visited the publisher’s office to buy an advance copy.  The same week Terence Cardinal Cooke arrived at No. 232 Madison Avenue for the same purpose.

The German-born publisher insisted that his firm would continue to produce religious texts such as the six-volume Sacramentum Mundia; “but it seems to us that the social sciences, with their concern for man and his relationship to the world, are the next logical area for religion to align itself.”  Cardinal Cooke was most likely not inclined to agree.

Facade restoration is underway in 2015.

Despite interior modernization little has changed to the face of Polhemus & Coffin’s handsome Deco-Gothic blend.  Even the ground floor—normally the first element to be lost to remodeling—is intact.  It represents physical testimony to the transitional period of Madison Avenue from a high-end residential neighborhood to one of bustling commercial interests.

photographs by the author