The Rev. George Wm. Douglas Mansion - 5 East 88th Street

 

On December 20, 1902, the Real Estate Record & Guide reported that George C. Edgar's Sons had sold the 27-foot-wide house at 5 East 88th Street to Edward McVickar.  It was one of a trio of sumptuous Beaux Arts homes designed by Turner & Kilian.  While each was individual, they formed a unified composition.  The house just sold was mere steps from Fifth Avenue.  Five stories tall, its Doric marble portico supported a balustraded balcony at the second floor.  The limestone-faced base upheld four floors of deep red brick trimmed in limestone and marble.  A three-story bowed midsection provided an iron-railed balcony at the fifth floor.  A dignified stone balustrade crowned the design.

The house was sold twice before Rev. George William Douglas purchased it in 1909.  Born on July 8, 1850, Douglas traced his American ancestry to Deacon William Douglas and his wife Ann Mattle, who arrived in New England in 1640.  Highly educated, after graduating from St. Paul's School in Concord, New Hampshire, Douglas studied at Trinity College, Hobart College, the University of the South, the General Theological Seminary, Oxford, and the University of Bonn.  

On September 3, 1884, he married Cornelia De Koven Dickey, who also had Colonial roots.  The couple maintained summer homes in Tuxedo, New York and Jekyll Island, Georgia.  

Five years before moving into the East 88th Street house, Douglas became Senior Canon Residentiary of the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine.  He did not accept a salary, The New York Herald explaining, "he is well to do in his own right, and Mrs. Douglas is wealthy."  His memberships in the exclusive Century, University, Union League, Grolier, and Tuxedo Clubs reflected his financial and social status.

On the literary side, Rev. Douglas had been associate editor of Youth's Companion since 1902.  In 1907, he published The Many Sided Roosevelt, and in 1912 wrote Essays in Appreciation.  He was also the author of Hints to Sunday School Teachers and Prayers for Children.

On May 1, 1914, the New York Herald reported, "The Rev. Dr. George William Douglas, noted clergyman and author, has severed his connection with the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, where he has been a canon since 1904...He has not officiated at a service at the cathedral for weeks and he never will again in an official capacity."

A journalist visited the East 88th Street house hoping for an explanation.  Douglas told him, "I have greatly enjoyed the work.  My work is now ended, and I am leaving the city for Europe next week to be gone until autumn."  Bishop David H. Greer was equally vague.  "There are no canons now.  Their terms have expired and no one has been re-elected.  Those who retain the title do so through courtesy."

The Douglases sold 5 East 88th Street in September 1925.  In the 1930s it was home to Arthur Hays Sulzberger and his wife, the former Iphigene Bertha Ochs.  Iphigene's father, Adolph Ochs, was the publisher of The New York Times.  A year after the couple married in 1917, Sulzberger began working at the newspaper.  By the time they moved into 5 East 88th Street, the couple's four children were young adults.

Arthur Hays Sulzberger from the collection of Columbia University

Adolph Ochs died in 1935.  Iphigene was made a trustee of The New York Times.  But, according to Susan E. Tifft in her 2000 The Trust: The Private and Powerful Family Behind the New York Times, she was deemed ineligible to inherit the newspaper because of her gender.  The following year her husband was elected publisher.

Iphigene Ochs, Barnard College Mortarboard 1914 (copyright expired)

Iphigene's substantial personal fortune was increased in 1937, following the death of her mother, Effie Wise Ochs, on May 6.  Seven days later, the Daily News of Tarrytown, New York reported, "Mrs. Sulzberger, wife of Arthur Hays Sulzberger, who inherited Mr. Ochs' interest in The New York Times, is the principal beneficiary, receiving the entire residuary estate." 

The Sulzbergers left sometime after 1940.  In 1944, the first and second floors of the mansion were converted to a school, while the upper floors continued to house a single family.  Just four years later, another renovation resulted in a doctor's office on the ground floor and upscale, cooperative apartments on the upper floors.

Living here in 1965 was stockbroker Joseph S. Clark, Jr. and his wife Felicia.  Clark was the son of Pennsylvania Senator Joseph Sill Clark.  He and Felicia started an unusual side business following a trip to Wyoming in July 1964--selling fish fossils.  "The fossils are op art," he told a reporter.  The Battle Creek [Michigan] Enquirer and News reported on August 2, 1965, "Clark sells the fossils from his apartment.  His wife, Felecia, handles the business end of the partnership."

A colorful resident was Kirk Lemoyne Billings.  Born in Pittsburgh in 1916, he was the roommate of John Fitzgerald Kennedy at Choate Rosemary Hall and then at Princeton before Kennedy transferred to Harvard.  The two men would remain best friends for life.  Known as Lem to the Kennedys, The New York Times said, "Although Mr. Billings never served the President in an official capacity, he was a frequent guest at the White House."  The newspaper noted that he "was active in all of John Kennedy's campaigns as well as those of Senator Robert F. Kennedy."

Billings in his apartment at 5 East 88th Street.  original source unknown

Following Kennedy's assassination, Billings became close friends with Robert Kennedy, Jr.  David Michaelis, in his article "The President's Best Friend" in American Heritage in 1983, said, 

A visit to 5 East Eighty-eighth Street was itself like touring a museum.  Every room was crammed full of carefully preserved treasures, overlapping collections of art and antiquities and early American furniture and personal mementos--all reminders that men in history had actually been alive.

Kirk LeMoyne Billings died in his apartment on May 28, 1981 at the age of 65.  The New York Times reported, "Senator Edward M. Kennedy will speak at a memorial service tomorrow morning at 10 A.M. at the Church of the Heavenly Rest."  

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and his wife, Emily Ruth Black, moved into Billings's apartment.   The following year, on Thanksgiving night, Emilie was walking home at 11 p.m. when she was mugged by three teenagers on Fifth Avenue between 88th and 89th Streets.  The teens stole her purse and ran, pursued by Emilie Kennedy.  A cab driver joined in the chase and all three were caught (Emilie later revealed that she personally had captured one of them) and held until police arrived.

Emilie, who was a criminal defense lawyer, worked for the Legal Aid Society.  Newsday reported, "when Mrs. Kennedy's purse was recovered and returned to her, she told police she did not want to press charges and left."  The article said she refused "despite police appeals."  Two days later, however, she relented and pressed charges against the boys--two 15-year-olds and one 14-year-old.

A renovation completed in 2012 did away with the doctor's office.  There are now seven apartments--one on the first floor, two each on the second and third, one on the fourth floor, and a duplex on the fifth floor and new penthouse level, unseen from the street.

photographs by the author

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The 1902 James C. Carter Mansion - 7 East 88th Street

 

The high-stooped brownstone at 7 East 88th Street was occupied by the New York Magdalen Benevolent Home in February 1888 when it was visited by journalist Nellie Bly.  Her article in The World described it as, "an institution for unfortunate women," whom she called the victims of "the toboggan slide of sin."  At the time, the mansions of Manhattan's millionaires lined Fifth Avenue below 59th Street.

By the turn of the century, however, the northward migration of millionaires had reached 88th Street.  In 1901, developers George C. Edgar's Sons purchased the properties at 5 through 9 East 88th Street from Francis K. Pendleton and began construction of three lavish mansions on the site.  Designed by Turner & Kilian, their dignified Beaux Arts facades expressed wealth and breeding.  

Unlike its neighbors, the upper floors of which were faced in deep red brick, the center mansion was fully clad in limestone.  The paneled piers that flanked the entrance upheld a two-story oriel that provided a balustraded balcony to the fourth floor.  And while the top floors of its fraternal siblings on either side rose vertically to stone balustrades, the fifth floor of 7 East 88th Street was a slate shingled mansard, pierced by French style stone dormers.

On December 27, 1902, the Record & Guide reported, "George C. Edgar's Sons have sold No. 7 East 88th Street...This sale disposes of three houses erected by the sellers in 1901."  But then something went awry.  A week later the journal reported that the house had, in fact, not been sold.

It would not be until May 15, 1904 that the New York Herald reported, "James C. Carter, well known as a lawyer, has bought a new home for himself at No. 7 East Eighty-eighth street.  It is a handsome five story American basement brown stone [sic] structure and was only recently completed."  The Real Estate Record & Guide reported the selling price to be $140,000--about $4.9 million in 2024.

Society portraitist John Singer Sargent captured Carter on canvas in 1899.  from the collection of the Harvard Club of New York City.

James Coolidge Carter was, indeed, "well known as a lawyer."  Born in Lancaster, Massachusetts on October 14, 1827, he graduated from Harvard College in 1850 and from Harvard Law School in 1853.  The New York Times said, "He at once established himself in the practice of his profession, and soon won a place among the foremost lawyers in New York."

Carter's brilliant legal mind prompted President Benjamin Harrison to appoint him one of three counsels to "present the claims of the United States before the Bering Sea tribunal, which met in Paris in February, 1893," according to The New York Times.  When he purchased the 88th Street mansion, Carter was a member of the law firm Carter & Ledyard.

Never married, the eminent attorney lived here alone with his domestic staff.  But he would not enjoy the sumptuous home for long.  Nine months after moving in, he fell ill.  He died on February 14, 1905 at the age of 77.  The New York Times commented, "Although he had been ill only a few days, his advanced age balked the efforts of his physicians, who found that he had overtaxed his constitution by excessive devotion to his profession."

On February 17, a procession of distinguished jurists accompanied the casket from 7 East 88th Street to All Soul's Church on Fourth Avenue and 20th Street.  A second funeral was held in Cambridge, Massachusetts prior to his burial.

Carter's estate sold the house in December that year to banker Edward Charles Schaefer, president of the Germania Bank.  Born on December 16, 1850, he was the son of Frederick and Theresa Schaefer.  His father was one of the two brothers who founded the F. & M. Schaefer Brewing Company.  Edward Schaefer had been the president of that firm since 1884, as well, and was a managing director of the Schaefer Company, a realty firm.

On April 20, 1904, a year before purchasing 7 East 88th Street, Schaefer had married Emily Winifred Haag, a widow.  Living with them was Emily's daughter, Josephine Haag Toerge, and her two children from a previous marriage.

Like their neighbors, the Schaefers appeared regularly in the society columns.  On May 20, 1910, for instance, The New York Times reported, "Mr. and Mrs. Edward C. Schaefer of 7 East Eighty-eighth Street are leaving on the Kaiserin Auguste Victoria to-morrow for Kissingen, and later will make an automobile trip through Germany and France."

Two days before Christmas in 1917, the New-York Tribune reported, 'Edward C. Schaefer, president of the Germania Bank on the Bowery, has made his wife a present of their $200,000 home at 7 East Eighty-eighth Street as a Christmas gift."

Schaefer retired in 1918, the fiftieth anniversary of his employment with the bank.  American Biography later said, "But while the directors accepted the resignation of their president they would not allow him to retire from all connection with the institution he had served so long and so well, and at once elected him chairman of the board of directors."

The mansion was the scene of a society wedding on February 24, 1921.  Emily's niece, Gertrude W. Jetter, was married to Talman Bigelow that afternoon.  The ceremony was covered in society pages in newspapers as far away as Washington D.C.

Ten months later, on December 19, Edward Charles Schaefer died in the 88th Street mansion at the age of 71.

There would be a second wedding at 7 East 88th Street.  On January 9, 1925, The New York Times reported, "announcement was made yesterday of the marriage of Mrs. Josephine H. Toerge to Major Gen. I. Thord-Gray at the home of her mother, Mrs. Edward Charles Schaefer, of 7 East Eighty-eighth Street, on Wednesday.  The article noted, "General and Mrs. Thord-Gray have left on a wedding trip, and when they return early in February they plan to make their home at 7 East Eighty-eighth Street."

Josephine's husband, Ivor Thord-Gray, was a fascinating figure.  Born in Stockholm, Sweden in 1878, he had served in 13 wars on different continents between 1897 and 1919.  In addition to his distinguished military career, he was an ethnologist, a linguist, and adventurer.  In 1923 he wrote On the Antiquity of Mexico: Among the Ruins of Temples and Idols.  He moved to New York City in 1925 and founded the investment banking firm I. T. Gray & Co.

Major General Ivor Thord-Gray (original source unknown)

Josephine was not his first wife.  He had married Edith Kemper-Voss in 1904.  Before their divorce in 1908, a son was born.  Thord-Gray then lived with Isabel Barr from 1917 to 1921, fathering another son; and was briefly married to Belle Scott in 1922.

The Thord-Grays' summer home was Gray Court in Greenwich, Connecticut.  The Georgian Revival mansion had 38 rooms.

Gray Court.  image via ctgenweb.org

On November 12, 1925, the New York Evening Post reported, "Major General and Mrs. Ivor Thord Gray of 7 East Eighty-eighth Street, gave a dinner at the Plaza last night for twelve guests to celebrate General Gray's birthday."  

Perhaps not surprisingly, Josephine would not be Thord-Gray's last wife.  The couple was divorced in 1932 and he married Winnifred Ingersoll the following year.

Six years before her divorce, on April 15, 1926, the New York Sun had reported that Josephine had sold 7 East 88th Street "to a physician who will occupy it."  Dr. Orrin Sage Wightman was born in New York City in 1873 and married Purl Parker in 1905.  The couple had two children, Julia Parker and Orrin Jr.

The president of the Medical Society of the State of New York, Wightman was also editor in chief of the New York State Journal of Medicine and chairman of the New York State Medical Grievance Committee.  His hobby was photography, and he carefully documented his extensive travels on film.  It had begun with an 1895 bicycle trip through France and Spain, and continued with his Red Cross missions to Russia and the Far East during World War I and the Russian Revolution.  His vast photographic array also included Central Park and other Manhattan scenes.

Interestingly, on May 12, 1930, the New York Sun reported that the Wightmans had sold the 88th Street mansion to the H. T. M. Realty Corporation.  The following day, the New York Evening Post announced that Wightman "has taken a lease of the premises from the new owners for fifteen years."

The Wightmans remained here, now leasing the home they had owned, into the 1940s.  They would be the last occupants of 7 East 88th Street as a single-family home.  In 1948, it was converted to apartments, two on the first floor, one on the second, and two each on the upper floors.  Two years later a "doctor apartment" was installed on the ground floor.

photographs by the author

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The 1902 Patrick Calhoun Mansion - 9 East 88th Street

 

In 1902, real estate developer George Edgar's Sons broke ground for three opulent townhomes at 5 through 9 East 88th Street.  Designed by Turner & Kilian, they were completed before the end of the year.  The Beaux Arts design of No. 9, the easternmost house, harmoniously blended with its fraternal siblings.  Five stories tall, its Doric marble portico supported a balustraded balcony at the second floor.  The limestone-faced base upheld four floors of deep red brick trimmed in limestone and marble.  The bowed, three-story midsection featured a wrought-iron railed balcony that fronted round-arched French windows at the third floor.  The fifth floor sat back behind a stone-balustraded balcony.

An advertisement appeared in The New York Times on December 7, 1902, announcing the "just completed," 26-foot-wide residence for sale.  The $150,000 price would translate to about $5.25 million in 2024.  It was purchased by Judge Francis K. Pendleton who leased it to street railroad mogul Patrick Calhoun.

Patrick Calhoun, from History of Atlanta, Georgia, with Illustrations, 1889 (copyright expired)

Calhoun was born on the plantation of his grandfather, Fort Hill, near Pendleton, South Carolina in 1856.  He practiced law in Atlanta and was prominent in Southern politics until 1896, when he turned his focus to street railways.  He married Sarah Porter Williams (known to her friends as Sallie) in 1885, and the couple had eight children--four sons and four daughters.

By the time he purchased the East 88th Street mansion, he owned railroads throughout the country.  This would be just one of his residences.  On November 21, 1908, Harper's Weekly commented, "this man has many homes--his legal residence at Atlanta, Georgia; a spacious home in Charleston, South Carolina; another in Cleveland, Ohio; a fourth in San Francisco; and a delightful house at No. 9 East Eighty-eighth Street, New York city."

Harper's Weekly, November 21, 1908 (copyright expired)

Their many residences made keeping up with the Calhouns difficult for society journalists.  On December 11, 1905, for instance, the New York Herald announced, "Mr. Patrick Calhoun, of No. 9 East Eighty-eighth street, has returned to this city from a trip to California," and on April 22, 1907 the newspaper reported, "Mrs. Patrick Calhoun, of No. 9 East Eighty-eighth street, who has recently returned from a visit to her former home in Charleston, S.C., has as her guests this week Mr. and Mrs. Andrew Pickens Calhoun, of Texas."

Newspaper coverage of the family would soon turn from social events to a serious legal matter.  The New York Times ran a headline on May 25, 1907, "Patrick Calhoun Indicted," and reported that a San Francisco grand jury had delivered 14 indictments against him for "bribery in connection with the fixing of the gas company's rate and with receiving $50,000 in the United Railroad's franchise deal."

Calhoun's trial in San Francisco began on January 12, 1909.  It ended with a hung jury on June 20.  The second trial dragged on for months.  A dramatic turn came the following summer when, on August 14, 1910, the New-York Tribune began an article saying, "The three leading counsel of Patrick Calhoun, president of the United Railroads, began jail sentences for contempt of court this week."

Blanche Barclay purchased 9 East 88th Street from Francis Pendleton in December that year and continued to lease it to the Calhouns.  They remained here until May 1912 when Blanche Barclay sold it to Herbert Adolph and Vivian Scheftel.

A stockbroker, Scheftel was a partner in J. S. Bache & Co.  Born on April 17, 1875, he graduated from Yale University in 1898 and married Vivian Straus on January 17, 1907.  The couple had two sons and maintained a summer home in East Williston, Long Island.  (A month before the Scheftels purchased 9 East 88th Street, Vivian's parents, Isidor and Ida Straus, were lost in the sinking of the RMS Titanic.)  

The Scheftels hired the architect John Russell Pope to make interior renovations and extend the mansion to the rear.  While construction was going on, the couple went to Europe.  On May 5, 1912, the New-York Tribune reported, "Mr. and Mrs. Herbert A. Scheftel and family, of New York, after stopping for a month at the Hotel Carlton, Cannes, have left for the Hotel Majestic, Paris."

The Scheftels had impressive house guests in the spring of 1913.  On March 29, The New York Times reported that Speaker of the House Champ Clark and his wife would be spending the weekend at the East 88th Street home.

Herbert Adolph Scheftel died at the country estate on September 12, 1914.  His funeral was held three days later.  It does not appear that Vivian ever returned to their townhouse.  She rented it furnished in December 1915 to Walter Douglas, and sold it the following year to Leopold Rossbach for $225,000 (about $6.2 million today).

Born in 1853 in Germany, Rossbach came to the United States in 1869.  The teenager joined his brother's leather and hide business, which became J. H. Rossbach & Bros.  (Joseph H. Rossbach had preceded his brother in traveling to America and started the business in 1865.)  Leopold and his wife, the former Leonora Bache, had three sons, J. Henry, Walter S. and Lawrence B.; and a daughter Helen.  Their country home was in Elberon, New Jersey.

Leopold Rossbach, Shoe and Leather Reporter, March 14, 1918 (copyright expired)

On January 19, 1917, The American Jewish Chronicle reported, "There were very gay doings in the new home of Mr. and Mrs. Leopold Rossbach, at 9 East 88th Street.  Miss Helen Rossbach, their daughter, gave a dance for quite a number of her friends on Sunday night, the fourteenth.  What a good time they all had!"

Three months later, on April 6, The American Jewish Chronicle reported on Helen's engagement to Dr. Arthur Lambert Cone.  "It is rumored that she will be married some time in August in the country estate of her parents at Elberon, N. J.," said the article.

On March 5, 1918, Leopold Rossbach suffered a fatal heart attack.  "His death came as a blow to his family and friends who had considered him in good health," said the Shoe and Leather Reporter.  His funeral was held in the East 88th Street house on March 8.  Rossbach left an estate appraised at $2,896,650--around $49 million in today's money.  Nearly the entire estate was left to Leonora.

Leonora Rossbach remained here for six more years, selling the mansion in May 1924 for $200,000 to Paul Baerward.  Born in Frankfort, Germany, he and his wife, the former Edith Jacobi, had four children, Herman F., Pauline, Jane, and Florence.  Like the Rossbachs, their country home was in Elberon, New Jersey.

Baerward was a partner in the investment banking firm Lazard Frères & Co., for which he had worked since 1898.  But he was best known for his philanthropic and relief work.  He helped found the Joint Distribution Committee during World War I and was "credited with having played a leading part in the great work of Jewish relief and rehabilitation in Europe during World War I and its aftermath," according to The New York Times.  In 1932 he was named chairman of the Allied Jewish Campaign and the Joint Distribution Committee.

Baerward retired in 1930 "to devote himself to philanthropy," according to The New York Times.  That year, on May 30, the newspaper reported that he had contributed $100,000 to the New York Allied Jewish Campaign.  The article noted, "An additional $5,000 was contributed by Mrs. Baerwald."  In the letter accompanying his donation, Paul Baerward said that during the troubling economic times, people should be willing "to extend a helping hand to those who are passing through a period of increased misery."

The following year, in October, President Franklin D. Roosevelt named Baerward to "the unofficial committee to report on the feasibility of reorganizing the Bank of United States," as reported by The New York Times.  He was also Roosevelt's first Jewish representative on the President's Advisory Committee on Political Refugees.

The mansion abutted a vacant lot in 1941. from the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

On October 17, 1941, The New York Times reported on Baerwald's receiving an honorary degree of Doctor of Hebrew Letters from the Hebrew Union College.  The article said it came as "recognition of his leadership in American Jewish life and his service of almost half a century for the relief of the needy and oppressed throughout the world."

Another significant honor came eight years later when the Joint Distribution Committee opened the Paul Baerwald School of Social Work in France.  The New York Times described it as a "unique school to train Jewish social workers from Europe and North Africa for service in their native communities."  The name honored Baerwald's decades of work "during the First World War and its aftermath, during the Hitler era and during the difficult period following the Second World War."

Paul Baerwald became ill in 1961 and died "after a short illness," according to The New York Times, in Monmouth Memorial Hospital on July 3, 1961.  He was 89 years old.  

The following year the family of Dr. Henry Doubilet occupied the East 88th Street mansion.  They, too, had a summer home in Elberon, New Jersey.  An expert on the biliary and pancreatic systems, Doubilet was an internationally known surgeon.  The family moved to 1040 Park Avenue in 1964, at which time 9 East 88th Street became home to Dr. Arthur and Madeleine Chalette Lejwa.

Born in Poland, Lejwa held two Ph.D. degrees--one in chemical engineering from the University of Toulouse and the other in chemistry from the Sorbonne.  His entire family had been murdered in a Nazi gas chamber during World War II.  In 1950 he drastically changed course when he and his wife opened the Galerie Chalette on Madison Avenue, which specialized in 20th century art.

Upon purchasing 9 East 88th Street, they moved the gallery into the mansion.  The New York Times described it as "emphasizing abstract art and the work of such European masters as Picasso, Marc Chagall and Joan Arp."

Arthur Lejwa died on October 27, 1972 at the age of 77.  Madeleine Chalette Lejwa closed the gallery that year.  She died in 1996 at the age of 81.

The Calhoun mansion remains a single family home.  It was placed on the market recently for $38 million.

photographs by the author

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The Lost Charles S. Philips Mansion - 1082 Fifth Avenue

1082 Fifth Avenue is the center house.  To the left is the Archer Huntington mansion, and the house at right is the home to Elizabeth W. Van Ingen.  Past the vacant lot at left, the back of the Andrew Carnegie mansion can be glimpsed.  from the collection of the New York Public Library

On February 2, 1901, the Real Estate Record & Builders' Guide reported that George C. Edgar's Sons had purchased the 75-foot-wide, mid-block plot on Fifth Avenue between 89th and 90th Streets.  The article said the firm, "will erect three 5-story and basement American basement stone front dwellings."  The mansions would vary in width--one 22 feet, another 25 feet, and the third 28 feet wide.  The journal added that they "are expected to sell at from $225,000 to $350,000 each."  (The highest price would equal about $11.5 million in 2023.)

Designed by Turner & Kilian, each of the Beaux Arts style residences would be different, while maintaining architectural continuity.  Unlike its brick-faced siblings, 1082 Fifth Avenue was faced in limestone, its entrance centered below a projecting three-story bay.  The fifth floor enjoyed a stone balustraded balcony, while the sixth took the form of a full-height mansard.

As the mansions neared completion in April 1902, the Record & Guide reported that millionaire Archer M. Huntington had purchased two of them.  He bought 1083 Fifth Avenue for his own occupancy, and 1082 as an investment.

Huntington leased 1082 Fifth Avenue for six years, then sold it in August 1908 to Charles S. Phillips, an executive in the brokerage firm C. D. Barney & Co.  Before moving in, Phillips and his wife hired architect Alfred H. Taylor to completely remodel the interiors.  On July 23, 1910, the Record & Guide reported that he "enjoyed during the work the appreciation of a sympathetic client, whose wife was fond of the decorative work of France."

The renovated entrance hall.  Real Estate Record & Guide July 23, 1910 (copyright expired)

The comprehensive make-over was reflected in the journal's description of the dining room:

The dining-room is the result of a desire on the part of madame for a marble room.  Here the only wood in evidence is the table and chairs; and the mantel, wainscot, trims, wall-framing and even the sideboard are richly figured red Numidian marble with two window conservatories of Alps green marble with white stone fountains.  The walls are hung with green velvet, over which are suspended exquisite examples of rare tapestries.

  

The dining room walls were covered in deep green velvet.  Real Estate Record & Guide July 23, 1910 (copyright expired)

The dining room ceiling.  photo by Wurts Bros. from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

The dining room was floored in green marble, and gilded plasterwork created a frame for "the vigorous painted ceiling panel by a noted French artist," said the article.  The critic said the room reflected "the palatial work at Fontainebleau."

Taylor paneled the library in mahogany and gave it a black marble mantel and antique Renaissance furniture.  The dark tones were relieved, said the Record & Guide, by bright yellows and blues in the Chinese rugs and cut velvet wall coverings.  "Touches of bright color are given by the precious Chinese vases and the iridescent Assyrian pottery."

Rare Chinese vases are displayed in the library.  Real Estate Record & Guide July 23, 1910 (copyright expired)

Charles Phillips was a recognized authority on antique furniture and tapestries, and the mansion was filled with costly items.  Examples of Louis XIV, XV, XVI, and Empire period furniture were placed throughout the house, along with valuable artworks.

Somewhat shockingly, after the couple's substantial financial outlay, the Phillipses relocated to Paris just three years later.  Everything in the mansion was sold during a three-day auction in December.  The catalogue used adjectives like "choicest," "sumptuously toned," "rare," and "splendid" in describing the furniture, tapestries, and artworks.

Eight months before the auction, Jay Gould II had married Anne Douglass Graham.  The son of George Jay Gould and Edith Kingdon, he had grown up in the lavish mansion at 857 Fifth Avenue.  In September, Charles S. Phillips sold him 1082 Fifth Avenue.  The New York Times called the sale "of more than ordinary interest."

Jay Gould II, from the collection of the Library of Congress.

Gould was the grandson of railroad mogul Jay Gould.  His bride had exotic relatives.  Anne was a cousin of Hawaiian Princess Abigail Campbell Kawānanakoa, wife of Prince David Kawānanakoa.  

Although educated at Columbia College, Gould would not follow the career paths of his grandfather and father.  By the time he entered Columbia, he was already a national and world class tennis champion.  As a teen, his father had constructed a tennis court for him at the family's country estate.  Three years before he and Anne moved into 1082 Fifth Avenue he had earned an Olympic gold medal in London.  (Interestingly, another wealthy tennis champion, Malcolm D. Whitman, lived two doors away at 1080 Fifth Avenue.)

On February 1, 1912, The Newark Daily Star reported, "Mr. and Mrs. Jay Gould are receiving congratulations on the birth of a daughter yesterday afternoon at their new home, 1082 Fifth avenue."  Baby Eleanor would be the first of three children.  Anne Douglass was born the following year, on March 5, and Jay Gould III arrived on May 13, 1920.

Two views of the drawing room during the Phillips residency.  photo by Wurts Bros. from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York 

In the meantime, their father continued to amaze on the tennis courts.  He won every U. S. Amateur Championship from 1906 to 1925, never losing a set.  

When America entered World War I, the tournaments were cancelled for the duration of the conflict.  Gould enlisted in the United States Army on October 6, 1917, achieving the rank of Junior Grade Lieutenant.

With things back to normal following the war, the Goulds resumed their enviable lifestyle.  On September 4, 1919, for instance, The Evening Post reported, "Mr. and Mrs. Jay Gould of 1082 Fifth Avenue have left Newport, where they were the guests of Mr. and Mrs. Hubert Vos, for their camp in the Catskills."

Anne Gould and Jay Gould III, The San Francisco Examiner, December 31, 1921 (copyright expired)

On December 30, 1921, Gould was away, possibly competing in a tennis match.  That morning Anne smelled smoke in her third floor bedroom.  The Philadelphia Inquirer reported, "she immediately informed her secretary.  They traced it to a chimney and then calmly phoned to fire headquarters to bring up an extinguisher before it could get headway."  When firefighters arrived, Anne and her secretary had already extinguished the small "soot fire."  Newspapers nationwide ran with the story.

The Philadelphia Inquirer said the fire "threatened the safety of her three children," and The San Francisco Examiner ran the headline, "Social Leader Saves Babies."  That article began, "Mrs. Annie Graham Gould, wife of Jay Gould, was a heroine in a fire which threatened her home at 1082 Fifth avenue."  The Evening World was more grounded, saying that the fire was extinguished "without difficulty" and "no damage was done."

Eleanor and Ann Gould on their mounts, Patches and Sport, in Central Park, across from their Fifth Avenue mansion.  The Spur, May 1, 1922 (copyright expired)

On June 17, 1925, The Sun reported that Frank George Doelger had purchased the Gould mansion.  Doelger was the son of the massively wealthy brewer Peter Doelger, and had grown up in the family's handsome mansion on Riverside Drive at 100th Street.  

"It is reported that Mr. Doelger will occupy 1082 as his residence," said the article.  That was and was not true.  Initially, Doelger hired architect Harry Allen Jacobs to replace the house with a modern mansion, also six-stories in height.  Jacobs's plans, filed the month after Doelger's purchase of the property, projected the cost at $40,000--or just under $620,000 in 2023.  But, for whatever reason, the 39-year-old bachelor millionaire did not go forward with the plan.

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

Society most likely presumed that Doelger would never marry.  If so, he surprised everyone when The York Dispatch reported on March 27, 1928, "Edna Wallace Leedom, musical comedy star, was married in Philadelphia on March 9, to Frank Doelger, wealthy New Yorker, who gave his occupation on the marriage application as 'brewer,' it became known today."  It was not a lavish, society wedding.  The couple was married by a police magistrate.  The groom was now 42, and his bride, a Ziegfeld Follies star, was 31.  The article noted that before taking to the vaudeville stage, Edna "sang in the choir of the Memorial Baptist church" in York, Pennsylvania.

Edna Leedom Doelger, National Vaudeville Artists Souvenir, 1924.

Doegler was Edna's fourth husband.  Newspapers were not sympathetic to her active marital history.  The Tulsa World asked in a headline, "Why Do They All Marry Edna Leedom?"  She had divorced her first husband, Billy Edmunds, and married actor Harry Tighe.  That marriage also ended in divorce, and in 1926 Edna married Ziegfeld Follies composer Dave Stamper.  In January 1927, the year before marrying Frank Doelger, she divorced him, as well.  The Tulsa World predicted this, too, would be a short marriage.  "Probably it won't be long before she finds that wealth isn't all she wants, either."

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

In 1929 the Doelgers welcomed a son, Frank Jr.  It was possibly baby Frank's arrival that prompted their moving to Queens, New York.  Despite their newborn baby, Edna still had a wandering eye.

The couple would endure humiliating press coverage that same year in December when Edna was sued by the wife of night club proprietor Chic Endor.  Doris Endor sought $400,000 reparations for alienation of affection.  The Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported (somewhat flippantly) on December 13, "With their prize already belonging to someone else, Mrs. Doris Endor and Edna Leedom Doelger, both actresses, will go to the legal mat at Mays Landing, N. J., next month over the affections of a man who vetoed them both and married someone else."

As it turned out, The Tulsa World's prediction that there would be other husbands fell flat.  Edna Leedom Doelger died at the age  of 41 on October 15, 1937.

In the meantime, 1082 Fifth Avenue was home to stockbroker Elliott Anderson and his wife Evelyn.  They, too, had domestic problems.  The couple separated in 1930, with Elliott continuing to live in the mansion.  Evelyn was awarded $15,000 per year in alimony (just short of $245,000 today).  She did not seem to be eager to obtain a divorce, however.  Evelyn appeared in court in June 1931 to extend her alimony payments under the separation agreement.  The New York Sun noted, "Mrs. Anderson won her separation suit on the ground of cruelty and intoxication."

In 1959 developer Markus Mizne purchased and demolished 1080 through 1082 Fifth Avenue.  He replaced the sumptuous mansions with a white brick apartment building designed by Wechsler & Schimenti.

Of the 1902 row, only the Archer Huntington mansion survives.  image via streeteasy.com

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