The 1899 Chas. Hudson Mansion -- No. 3 East 76th Street

An electric street lamp sits across the street from the newly-completed mansion.  The J. J. Wysong mansion would rise on the vacant Fifth Avenue lot next door.  In the background another Fifth Avenue mansion is under construction.  photo by Wurts Bros from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult_VPage&VBID=24UAYWP9OVC1&SMLS=1&RW=1280&RH=915

As the 19^th century drew to an end, Charles I. Hudson was doing well for himself.  He had formed the brokerage firm of C. I. Hudson & Co. with partner Albert H. De Forest in 1885, had garnered a substantial fortune, and lived with his family in a handsome home at No. 36 West 52^nd Street.  In 1894 he was one of the millionaire founders of the Thousand Islands Club, a private summer community “which embraces in its membership a number of well-known New-Yorkers,” as described byThe New York Times.

Now, in 1898 like many other wealthy New Yorkers, Hudson looked to move uptown near Fifth Avenue and Central Park, away from the encroaching commerce.  He purchased the lot at No. 1 East 76^th Street and laid plans for a fine new mansion.  His choice of architects is a matter of contention.  The Real Estate Record & Builders’ Guide mentioned on April 13, 1918, “Hiss & Weekes were the architects.”  Generations later the Landmarks Preservation Commission would credit Brite & Bacon with the design.

Whoever was responsible, the result was striking.  In 1899 the five-story neo-Jacobean residence was completed.  The regal composition was distinguished by a two-story bay of leaded casements that supported a carved-stone balcony.  The brick and stone façade culminated in a decorative parapet that hid the fifth floor from the street.  Although the mansion was a commodious 30-feet wide, an areaway between it and the property at the Fifth Avenue corner allowed the luxury of windows in  the western wall.

Hudson and his wife, the former Sara Kierstede, had four sons:  Percy Kierstede, Hans Kierstede, Charles Alan, and Hendrick.  With no daughters in the house, Sara Hudson was relieved (or deprived) of debutante entertainments.  She was highly visible, however, in the charitable events and causes expected of Manhattan socialites.  The family spent the summer seasons at its country estate at East Norwich, Long Island.

The family was doubtlessly embarrassed when Charles Hudson’s name appeared in newspapers for a physical confrontation on the floor of the Stock Exchange on March 5, 1900.  When a “telephone boy,” Florence E. Finnegan, upbraided Hudson for selling sugar below the price he was given, trouble ensued.

“Mr. Hudson is a man of middle age, and Finnegan has just attained his majority,” said The New York Times the following day.  The millionaire was unaccustomed to back-talk from a boy and became enraged when Finnegan answered “That won’t do, Mr. Hudson.  The order was 98-1/2 and I don’t turn in not’in’ different, see?”

After what The Times described as a “lively discussion” Hudson reached his breaking point.  “Mr. Hudson swung and landed with his right on Finnegan’s right eye.  The telephone boy fell, and when he got up he was without his glasses, but he had blood in his eye, figuratively and literally.  A crowd had to keep them apart.”

Hudson was suspended from the Exchange for 30 days—the maximum penalty possible.

The wealthy family of Mr. and Mrs. Charles M. Lea lived in Philadelphia; but as their daughter Majorie Vaughan Lea approached marrying age, they spent more and more time in New York City.  Marjorie’s debut into society took place in New York the same year that Charles Hudson had his skirmish with the young Finnegan boy.

Marjorie and her parents spent the following winter season in New York; and by October 1902 she and Percy Kierstede Hudson were engaged.  That same month Charles Hudson purchased a new private carriage house at No. 178 East 73rd Street.

Less than eight years later the remaining Hudson boys would begin leaving home.  In May 1910 Hendrick was married to Helen Morgan Frith.  Five months later on October 14, the engagement of Hans to Ethel Le Roy De Koven was announced and Charles’ wedding to Eleanor Granville Brown would soon be in the planning stages.

 Perhaps it was their sons’ impending marriages that prompted Charles and Sara to sell their impressive mansion in May 1910--or it could have been the construction of the newly-completed J. J. Wysong mansion on the Fifth Avenue corner that prompted the sale.  As the Wysong house went up, the Hudsons lost their view “overlooking Fifth avenue” that the Record & Guide had noted.

Whatever the reason, on May 15, 1910 The New York Times reported that Hudson had sold the house for $300,000—a satisfying $7 million by today’s standards.  The purchaser was Robert Franklin Adams.

With the construction of the Wysong mansion, the house numbers along the 76th Street block changed.  Rather than take the prestigious Fifth Avenue address, the new mansion took No. 1 East 76th Street.  That meant that the Hudson house became No. 3 and so forth down the block.

Adams was Vice President of the Adams Manufacturing Company.  A member of the exclusive University, Lotos and New York Yacht Clubs; the motorcar enthusiast was also a member of the Automobile Club of America.  A year after purchasing the house, Adams’ shiny limousine would be the victim of a runaway horse and cart.

On April 8, 1911 a horse attached to an ash cart was spooked in front of No. 36 West 52nd Street.  The driver was thrown from the cart and the panicked horse galloped onto Fifth Avenue, “narrowly missing several carriages,” reported The New York Timesthe following day.

“As the runaway tore down the avenue there was a wild scampering of autos and other traffic,” said the newspaper.  As the horse tore down Fifth Avenue with the ash cart careening behind, it approached Robert Adams automobile parked at the curb at 46th Street.  “The horse tore the running board from its side and threw out the chauffeur, Charles Bender.”  The collision slowed the animal enough that mounted Patrolman Plagge was able to get the horse under control.

Adams and his wife, the former Lona O’Brien, had two children, Edith and Robert.   While Sara Hudson had no opportunity to throw debutante entertainments, Lona Adams would.  Edith’s coming out was celebrated in 1913 and the entertainments ended with a reception in the house on December 30.

Three years later on February 2, 1916 Edith was married to Jules Glaenzer in St. Thomas’s Church on Fifth Avenue.  The wedding would be followed by “a large reception,” according to The New York Press two weeks earlier.

The following March Edith was back in the 76^thStreet house for the birth of her baby.  In 1917 the wealthy were most often still seen by doctors in their private homes; rather than hospitals and clinics.  In May Robert Adams Glaenzer was born in his grandparents’ mansion.

Only a few days later the engagement of Robert to Jennie Frances Marston was announced.  As with the Hudson family, perhaps the childrens’ leaving the house was cause enough to sell.  Adams sold the house for $225,000. 

In 1929 No. 3 East 76^th Street was owned by Mrs. Dorothy G. Pagenstecher.  I. N. Phelps Stokes had recently purchased the ten-story apartment building at No. 952 Fifth Avenue, around the corner.  On April 28, 1929 the New York Times reported that he had bought the Pagenstecher mansion “to protect the light of the apartment house.”  He paid Dorothy Pagenstecher $200,000 for the property.

Isaac Newton Phelps Stokes was not merely the son of fabulously wealthy Anson Phelps Stokes; he was an architect and partner in the firm Howells & Stokes.  At the time of the purchase he had just completed the authoritative 6-volume work entitled The Iconography of Manhattan Island.  He had married Edith Minturn in 1895 and the couple was immortalized by one of their wedding gifts--a double portrait by John Singer Sargent.

The newly-weds were immortalized in their wedding gift portrait.  Unlike so many of Sargent's society portraits, the Stokes are wearing casual clothing -- http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/38.104

On December 27, 1931 Stokes transferred the title to No. 3 East 76^th Street to Edith.  The mansion was converted to apartments—two each on the first four floors and a penthouse on the fifth.  The upscale apartments were home to equally-upscale tenants for decades.

Somewhat unexpectedly in residential design, the date of construction was carved within the ornately-carved Jacobean-style cartouch.

Then in 2004 the Hudson mansion was purchased by the Hewitt School and converted to classrooms.  The private girls’ school uses the house as its “lower school” for grades kindergarten through 4.  Despite its current use and expected alterations—the wonderful bronze entrance doors are gone, the first floor window has been converted to a doorway, and the servants’ entrance now contains a rather commercial-looking door—the wonderful and unusual neo-Elizabethan house is greatly intact.

non-credited photographs taken by the author

The James Cox Brady Mansion - No. 10 East 76th Street

In 1881 construction began on a row of ten four-story brownstone-fronted houses on East 76^th Street off Central Park.  Stretching from No. 10 through 28, they were designed by architect John G. Prague for speculative developer William Noble.  Completed a year later, they reflected the high-tone flavor of the neighborhood where already the mansions of Manhattan’s wealthiest citizens were rising along nearby Fifth Avenue.

By the early 1890s No. 10 would be home to the Charles Cleveland Dodge family.  A member of the extended Phelps and Dodge families who had made their immense fortunes in copper mining, Charles had distinguished himself during the Civil War as one of the youngest Brigadier Generals in American military history.  Now he was a partner in the Phelps Dodge Co. and President of the New York and Boston Cape Cod Canal Co.

On February 23, 1892 the house was the scene of a significant society wedding.  Daughter Ethel Cleveland Dodge was married to William Cary Sanger of Brooklyn.  The large wedding party included some of society’s most prominent names—among the bridesmaids were Edith Morgan, Helen Stokes, Juliana Cutting, and Lelia Alexander. 

The New York Times reported on the event saying “The ceremony took place under a large bunch of Easter lilies suspended from the ceiling.  To reach this spot, the bride and groom walked between the fourteen bridesmaids who formed an aisle.  The seven on one side wore pink gowns and those on the other wore white.”

In January 1895 the house was sold for $48,000 (about $1.3 million today) to Michael Coleman.  Coleman almost immediately turned it over to the recently-widowed William S. Scarborough.  The 82-year old retired lawyer was living in Connecticut; yet upon the death of his wife that year he moved to New York City.   As a young lawyer in Cincinnati, Scarborough had given help to another young attorney, Rutherford B. Hayes.  Later, the New-York Tribune would remember “When Hayes became President, he offered Mr. Scarborough a mission to the Sandwich Islands.”

Scarborough lived here for just under five years.  The elderly man died in the house on East 76^thStreet in November 1900.  Private services were held in the parlor on November 28 before the funeral in Connecticut two days later. 

Among William Scarborough’s five sons was Charles, described by The Evening World as “a prominent clubman and paper merchant.”  Around the time his father moved into the house on East 76^th Street, Charles was being seen with Mrs. Anna V. Gibbs.  Now Mrs. Gibbs moved into the Scarborough house.

Charles R. Scarborough, himself, lived further south at No. 234 West 42^nd Street.  He was in business with his brother at No. 27 Beekman Street. And if friends and neighbors saw Charles come and go from No. 10 East 76^th Street, they thought little of it.  Mrs. Gibbs was a respectable widow and Charles had a reputation as a well-bred businessman. 

But since June 6, 1895 the pair had a close-held secret that only Anna’s two sisters and three of Charles’ brothers knew about.  

On October 16, 1902 The Evening World spilled the beans.  “To the doubter who thinks woman is not capable of keeping a secret reference can be made to Mrs. Charles R. Scarborough, who for seven years has given her friends the impression that her name was Mrs. Anna V. Gibbs.”

The newspaper hinted that the secret marriage had to do with the will of Anna’s former husband.  “The story most frequently told deals of a will in which it is stipulated that the beneficiary must not remarry.”  But if clarification was to be had, it was not coming from Charles nor Anna at the moment.  The wealthy paper merchant “has stepped out of the city until his friends recover from the shock of the announcement,” said The Evening World, adding “Mrs. Scarborough is a partial invalid and will not see visitors at her home, No. 10 East Seventy-sixth street.”

By the time of Charles and Anna’s shocking revelation the neighborhood was quickly changing.  The brownstones, while only two decades old, were architecturally out of fashion.  Moneyed buyers snatched up the Victorian homes to either raze or transform into modern mansions.

Dora and Alfred Schiffer had lived next door at No. 12 since 1898.  Now, in 1903, they purchased No. 10 and three years later, on March 31, 1906, the Real Estate Record & Builders’ Guide announced their intentions of melding the two structures into one lavish mansion.  The periodical stated that architects Schwartz & Gross would design five-story “brick and stone front and rear extension” to the two buildings along with redesigning the floorplan at a cost of $100,000. 

Apparently the Schiffers rethought their grand scheme.  Scaling down, they focused on No. 10 and a year later remodeling along the designs of Schwartz & Gross began.  The old brownstone reemerged in 1908 as a grand Beaux Arts mansion that held its own with its exclusive neighbors.

Four floors of limestone rose to a slate-covered mansard.  French doors and multi-paned windows on the second through fourth floors created a refined presence on the block.  Tragically, Alfred Schiffer died without seeing his home completed.  And Dora never moved in.  She sold the completed mansion to financier James Cox Brady.

The young banker had graduated from Yale University just two years earlier, the same year he went into business with his well-known father, Anthony N. Brady.  In 1905 he had married Elizabeth Hamilton, daughter of Judge Andrew Hamilton. 

The young and wealthy newlyweds moved into the new mansion in 1908 and things for the couple seemed idyllic.  Then, on March 3, 1912 Elizabeth boarded a New York, New Haven & Hartford express train.  She would not return home.  The train crashed and Elizabeth Brady was among the fatalities.

Society was surprised two years later when, on October 15, 1914, Brady married Lady Victoria May Pery, daughter of the Earl and Countess of Limerick.  The New York Times remarked “Outside of the relatives and a few intimate friends of Mr. Brady and Lady Pery the couple’s engagement had been kept secret, and the announcement of the wedding…came as a surprise to most of their friends.”

They were married at Sea Verge, the summer estate of Brady’s brother, Nicholas in Monmouth Beach, New Jersey.  Because of the war, the original wedding plans which called for the ceremony to be held at the bride’s family’s Dromore Castle were scraped.  Newspapers made note of the difference in ages—Brady was 32 and his new wife was 20.

The Bradys divided their time between the East 76^thStreet house and what The New York Times called their “elaborate Summer home known as Hamilton Farms” near Gladstone, New Jersey. “It is one of the show places of the Somerset Hills,” the newspaper would later say.  Shortly after the wedding he purchased the yacht Atlantic and the late Alfred W. Vanderbilt’s stable of coach and harness horses.  He also purchased No. 12 East 76^thStreet, next door, from Dora Schiffer that same year.

As time passed, James Cox Brady was not only co-executor of his father’s $70 million estate; but was a trustee and director in nearly a dozen firms, including the Chrysler Corporation and Central Union Trust Company of New York.

But tragedy would also end Brady’s second marriage.  Just two years after the wedding Victoria contracted influenza and died.   A widower for the second time, James Cox Brady lived on in the 76^thStreet mansion with his children and staff.

Then on October 3, 1920 word was received from London that Brady had married again.  

In 1913 The Times had launched a contest to find “the typical American girl of today.”  Hundreds of photographs poured into the newspaper and a jury of seven artists selected one to publish on the front page of the December 7, 1913 edition.  The winner was 18-year old Helen McMahon from Long Island.

Now the former American Girl of Today had been married in Westminster Cathedral to one of America’s wealthiest men.  Unlike Brady’s former wives, she was neither titled nor rich.  “Her parents, Mr. and Mrs. J. T. McMahon, are both dead and she has been living with her brother, J. T. McMahon, and sister, Florence, in Twentieth Street, Flushing," reported The Times.

The newlyweds arrived in New York on November 14, 1920 on the Cunader Imperator.  The passenger list included Countess Jacques de Lesseps, sculptor Jo Davidson, and Theresa Oelrichs (who was sick throughout the voyage).  But it was Brady and his wife who had the Imperial Suite on the liner.  The New York Times noted “Mr. Brady and his bride had the biggest declaration of dutiable articles on the Imperator, amounting to nearly $17,000.”  The new Mrs. Brady was undoubtedly preparing for her new life in society—the dutiable purchases would amount to about $185,000 today.  And as she departed the ship reporters made note that she “wore a long fur coat with toque to match.”

Helen Brady took up the role as mother and socialite and in 1924 the debutante entertainments for Jane Hamilton Brady stretched on for months.  They climaxed on December 26 when the Bradys hosted “one of the largest of the holiday dances at Pierre’s.”  Prior to the dance a dinner for 50 guests was held in the mansion.

Three years later Jane’s marriage to Frederick Strong Moseley Jr. of Boston was one of the years prominent social events.  The wedding took place at the Hamilton Farms estate on June 23, 1927, and was conducted by the Bishop of Trenton.  Among the high-powered guests were Mr. and Mrs. Walter P. Chrysler, the Alexander Van Rensselaers and Mr. and Mrs. Charles E. Merrill, Jr.

Only five months later James Cox Brady was dead.  He had become ill the first week of November and his condition worsened to pneumonia.  He died in the 76th Street house at the age of 45 at around 2:00 in the afternoon of November 10.  “His passing was so sudden that one of the children, Miss Ruth Brady, who was visiting a relative in Albany, was able to reach the bedside only a few minutes before the end,” reported a newspaper.

Prior to the funeral two days later dozens of friends and former associates paid their respects.  “Four rooms of the house were banked high with hundreds of floral designs,” reported The Times the following day.  Brady’s bronze coffin was transported to the Church of St. Ignatius Loyola on Park Avenue and 84^th Street where more than 2,500 mourners awaited.  Following the procession into the church, along with the family, were Governor Al Smith, Major General William N. Haskell, and 96 nuns from Villa Marie Convent in Trenton, founded by Brady.

The service was conducted by Cardinal Patrick Joseph Hayes, assisted by a delegation of fifty priests, including the Bishop of Trenton; Bishop John J. Dunn of the Diocese of New York; and clerics as far away as Boston.  “The funeral cortege consisted of more than a hundred automobiles and was headed by a motorcycle police escort en route to the Grand Central Station,” said The Times.  A special funeral train carrying 1,500 persons, including the Cardinal, took the body to Albany.  “Three truckloads of flowers were also taken on the train.”

Helen McMahon Brady shared the more-than $20 million estate with her husband’s three daughters and son.  Among the real estate he left Helen were the two houses on East 76^thStreet and Hamilton Farm.  She remained in No. 10 and a year later in November announced the engagement of Ruth Brady to the Hon. Michael Simon Scott, son of the Viscountess Encombe and brother of the Earl of Eldon.

In 1946 the Brady family sold the house.  It was the end of the line for the distinguished mansion as a private home.  Later that year it was converted to two apartments per floor, with a doctor’s office at ground level.  In the mid 1950s it housed an art gallery.

From the street, however, the Brady mansion is little changed—a handsome relic on a (mostly) beautifully preserved block.

photographs by the author

The Henry Block House -- No. 18 East 76th Street

In 1906 when Henry Block and his wife, Alice, laid plans to update their Victorian brownstone at No. 18 East 76^th Street, they were climbing on a renovation bandwagon that stretched from Murray Hill to the Upper East Side.  The streets of these upscale neighborhoods were lined with comfortable rowhouses mostly constructed during a building flurry following the Civil War.  Now wealthy homeowners hired the best architects to upgrade their homes into fashionable and modern Edwardian mansions.

The Blocks’ house had been designed by John G. Prague for speculative developer William Noble.  It was one of ten identical residences that stretched from No. 10 to 28.  Construction began in 1881 and was completed a year later.  No. 18 would sit unoccupied for a year and a half.  Then, on May 31, 1884 The Real Estate Record & Builders’ Guide reported that William Noble had sold “the four-story and basement brown stone house, No. 18 East Seventy-sixth street…with a three-story extension, to George C. Clausen, the brewer, for $65,000 cash.”

George Caspar Clausen’s cash outlay would amount to about $1.5 million today.  As The Guideintimated, Clausen was indeed a brewer; a member of Henry Clausen & Sons.  George’s father, Henry, had arrived in New York from Bremen, Germany and, after trying his hand at the mercantile business, turned his focus to brewing beer.

New York State’s Prominent and Progressive Men said, in 1902, that “seeing the vast opportunities in the rapidly increasing popularity of beer as a beverage, he founded in New York city the great brewing establishment of Henry Clausen & Sons.”  When young George graduated from a military college in Maryland and then returned home from studying in Germany, he was taken into his father’s brewery as a partner.

George was more than a brewer, however.  He was head of the insurance firm Clausen, Bayley, & Kearney, and on January 4, 1893 was appointed by Mayor Gilroy a Commissioner of the Department of Taxes and Assessments.  By the turn of the century he would be President of the Park Board, and a Park Commissioner.

The family would grow within the house to include a son and daughter.  George’s wife went about the routine expected of the wife of a wealthy businessman (The New York Herald mentioned that “An afternoon tea will be given by Mrs. G. C. Clausen at No. 18 East Seventy-sixth street on February 1” 1887); while her husband busied himself with his clubs.  Clausen was not only President of the New York Riding Club; he held memberships in the Democratic, New York Athletic, the Larchmont Yacht clubs, as well as the Liederkranz and Arion societies.  New York State’s Prominent and Progressive Men added, “He is also a member of the New York Driving Club, and is one of the best-known horsemen on the pleasure drives of New York.”

By 1901 the Clausen’s daughter was reaching her coming-out age, and their son was off at Princeton.  That year they sold the 76^th Street house to the Henry and Alice Block.  It would appear, though, that the new owners had second thoughts.  On April 18, 1902 the New-York Tribune reported “Alice A. Bloch [sic] is reported to have sold No. 18 East Seventy-sixth-st., a four story and basement dwelling house.”

If they intended to sell, the deal fell through and instead the house was leased to Mrs. Douglas’s School.  The exclusive girls school had been instructing the daughters of Manhattan’s wealthiest citizens for half a century.  Mrs. Douglas’s School accepted only 25 pupils at a time, charging their parents $1500.00 per year in 1905—just under $40,000 today.

But that same year the school moved to a new mansion at No. 42 Riverside Drive; leaving the Blocks with a decision to make.  They commissioned Herts Bros. to do over the outdated brownstone.  Renovations began in 1906 and would not be completed for a year. 

Somewhat surprisingly, and perhaps as a cost-saving move, the firm did not eliminate the stoop and move the entrance to street level.  At the time the “American basement” plan was all the rage and as one-by-one the rest of the brownstones on the block were revamped; only No. 18 would retain its stoop.  The result was that despite the limestone façade with its marriage of neo-Classic and Beaux Arts elements; the Block house still looked like a made-over Victorian.

Herts Bros. opted to retain the raised parlor, replacing the old brownstone stoop with a lavish one of limestone.

On April 22, 1908, a few months after the renovations were complete, The New York Times reported that Alice leased “for a long term to H. Carroll Brown, 18 East Seventy-sixth Street, a new five-story dwelling.”  At the time the Record & Guide called it “a new 5-sty low entrance modern residence.”

H. Carroll Brown was a member of the banking firm H. C. Brown & Co. at No. 49 Wall Street.  He had married Mary Daly, the daughter of Marcus Daly (called by The New York Times “the multi-millionaire Western copper king”) in 1901.  The couple had two children, Margaret and Frances.

The Browns’ country estate, Brookland Wood, in Maryland had been in the family for generations.  It had once been the home of Richard Caton, son-in-law of Charles Carroll, signor of the Declaration of Independence.  The Times would later remark “Both Mr. Brown, Sr., and H. Carroll Brown were hosts at many notable social events held there, one of the most important annual occurrences being the steeplechase known as the Brooklandtown handicap.”

Mary's millionaire father, who died in 1900, had established his copper mines in Montana.  In early April 1911 Mary boarded a train to Anaconda, Montana with her mother and brother.  Once there, the high altitude affected Mary’s weak heart.  When her condition worsened, she was put on a special train to speed her back to New York and medical specialists.  On the train with her were her relatives, two physicians and several nurses.  “And the long race for sea level began,” reported The Sun on April 30.

H. Carroll Brown rushed in the opposite direction to intercept the special train, which he met and boarded in Chicago.  When the train arrived in New York, Mary was transported to her mother's mansion at No. 725 Fifth Avenue.  “On her arrival in town…the sick woman was taken in an automobile to her mother’s house,” said The Sun.  “Her heart was weak and toward midnight she had a relapse that resulted in her death.”

H. Carroll Brown would not stay on in the East 76^thStreet house.  In 1912 he leased it to John D. Ryan, and on November 13 the following year newspapers reported that Emmet Queens had leased the house.  In reporting on the lease, The Record & Guide deemed it “a very handsome interior 5-sty stoop house.”

The Queen family had not been in the house long before they purchased a French Bulldog puppy for son Morley.  The new pet was named Grisette III.

The family was still in the house in 1915 when daughter Philippa’s engagement to Robert Clement was announced; however the following year Henry Block leased it to George W. Peters.  It would become home to at least one other family, William E. Chambers and his wife Hazelle and their child, before wealthy shipbuilder James E. Shewan purchased it in 1924.

The  head of James E. Shewan & Sons, Inc., Shewan died in 1925, just months after moving in.  His 75-year old widow, Ellen, now lived in the East 76^th Street house alone with only her servants.  The grown Shewan children--son, Edward, and three daughters –all lived elsewhere.

On the evening of April 16, 1925, the elderly woman sat in the library of the house when suddenly a man appeared in the doorway.  His face was partially hidden behind a handkerchief.  The burglar demanded the two rings she was wearing; but when he attempted to snatch her diamond bar pin, Ellen screamed.

Before servants could respond, the man had fled.

A little over four weeks later 25-year old William Homan was behind bars.  The convicted robber had been released from Sing Sing prison just 15 days before terrifying and robbing Ellen Shewan.  The New York Times, on June 23, reported “Homan was arrested in a furnished rooming house yesterday morning and the police say they found a loaded revolver and several pieces of jewelry in the room.”

Ellen Shewan continued to maintain her summer home in Cold Spring on the Hudson, New York, and to travel to Europe.  On April 16, 1935 she died in Mentone, France; leaving an estate of more than $1.3 million.

Ellen’s three daughters retained possession of the property until January 1952, when they sold it to Mrs. Susanna Mathieu “for occupancy” according to The New York Times.  If Mrs. Charles Mathieu indeed intended to occupy to mansion, she soon changed her mind.  Within a year the house was converted to doctor’s offices in the basement and first floor, a duplex apartment on the second and third, and a single apartment on the fourth.

In 1964 the house was being used as the Missionary Society of St. Paul the Apostle and Paulist Fathers Instruction Center; and for several years in the late 1960s and early ‘70s housed Spencer A. Samuels and Co. Antiques.  In 1980 it was converted one more; this time to a single apartment per floor.

Despite its many owners and several uses over more than a century, Herts Bros. sweeping makeover of the Victorian brownstone is remarkably intact.

photographs by the author

The 1898 Clarence Whitman Mansion -- No. 7 East 76th Street

When constructed No. 7 bore the address of No.  5 East 76th St.  To the left is the mansion's fraternal twin, originally No. 3.

On October 24, 1897 The New York Times reported that the wealthy socialite Mrs. E. Schiefflin had purchased the lot at No. 3 East 76^th Street from Dr. E. Seybel.  By the following year Catherine Schiefflin would own the adjoining plot at No. 5 and set the architectural firm of Parish & Schroeder to work designing two grand limestone mansions.

Completed in 1898 Nos. 3 and 5 were harmoniously designed in the neo-Renaissance style.  The proportions and compositions of the sister homes left no doubt that they were built as a pair or that they were intended for wealthy owners.  The slightly lower stoop of No. 5 allowed for higher ceilings on the parlor level and therefore grander spaces.  The reserved Italian-inspired façade, highlighted by a delicate iron balcony at the second floor, rose to a rather unexpected clay-tiled mansard.

The house was purchased by Clarence Whitman who wasted little time in adapting the mansion to his personal tastes.  On June 10, 1899 architect Charles Alonzo Rich filed plans for alterations amounting to $10,000—over $275,000 today. 

Whitman was a wealthy importer of laces and embroidery.  He and his wife had three sons, Harold, Gerald and Clarence, and the family summered in their elaborate country estate in Katonah, New York.

The Whitman boys were nearly grown when the family moved in.  Clarence Morton Whitman graduated from Harvard in 1900 and, like his father, was a yachtsman and clubman.  He left the mansion following his November 19, 1903 wedding in St. Thomas’s Church to Eleanor Motley.

A society event, The New York Times remarked that “It was a white wedding, the decorations of church and house being white flowers and greens.”  The modern couple spent their honeymoon in Southern California rather than making the traditional European bridal tour.

On November 23 the following year Clarence Whitman sold the house to Harold Farquhar Hadden.  Like Whitman, Hadden was an importer.  He was the head of Hadden & Co., which had been founded by his grandfather.  By now it was one of the oldest silk importing firms in the country. 

Hadden was educated at Cambridge University and, as expected of moneyed merchants, was a member of several clubs.  The spacious home was necessary for Hadden and his wife, the former Valerie Burkhardt--they had three daughters and three sons.  Their summer home was in Seabright, New Jersey.

In 1904, the same year that the family moved into the East 76^th, son William Aspinwall Hadden was admitted to the family firm.  A graduate of Harvard, he had spent two years learning the business and now stepped into the position of President.

Young, handsome and wealthy, William Hadden died in the mansion at the age of 27 -- The American Carpet and Upholstery Journal June 10, 1908 (copyright expired)

But in 1908 the 27-year old contracted typhoid fever.  According to The American Carpet and Upholstery Journal on June 10, “Mr. Hadden was stricken at just about the opening of the carpet season, after a hard Winter’s work, and for a time convalesced so rapidly that his friends were encouraged to believe he would soon be at his desk; but last week his condition took a turn for the worse.”  Tragically, on Saturday morning, June 6 the promising young businessman died in the mansion.

With the construction of the J. J. Wysong mansion at the corner of Fifth Avenue in 1910, the house numbers along the 76th Street block shifted.  Rather than take the prestigious Fifth Avenue address, the new mansion took No. 1 East 76th Street—an address already being used by Charles Hudson.   Now the Hudson house became No. 3, No 3 became No. 5 and so forth down the block.

That same year brought a flurry of social excitement to the Hadden household.  On March 30, 1910 Harold Farquhar Hadden, Jr. was married to Laura Emmet in what The New York Times called “the largest of the Easter week events.”  The newspaper said “St. James’s Church, at Seventy-fourth Street and Madison Avenue, was filled with a fashionable throng.”

Five months later, on August 18, the Haddens announced the engagement of daughter Valerie to Francis Behn Riggs of Seattle.  Valerie’s debut had been celebrated in the house just a few years earlier.

It would be a short engagement.  On October 6 the wedding took place in the same church where her brother had been married; with a reception following at the 76^th Street mansion.

Social events in the Hadden house were not all about weddings, debuts and engagements.  On February 4, 1913 Valerie Hadden hosted a musical for some of Manhattan’s most socially-elite.  The Times reported that “Those invited included Mrs. Vanderbilt, Mrs. H. Fairfield Osborn, Mrs. Hamilton Fish, Miss Beatrix Jones, Mr. and Mrs. Walter Damrosch, Miss Constance Wilkinson, Magistrate Barlow, Miss Olive Fremstad and M. Hellen.”

St. James’s Church had not seen the end of the Hadden children weddings.  In January 1914 son Gavin’s engagement to Rebecca Lloyd was announced and on February 16, a year later E. Kenneth Hadden married Frances Hawthorne Wyeth.  In reporting that ceremony, The Times said “The wedding…filled the edifice with a large and fashionable assemblage.”  The newspaper noted that following their honeymoon the newlyweds “will live at 7 East Seventy-sixth Street.”

Six months later on August 11, 1915 Harold Farquhar Hadden died in the Seabright home at the age of 60.  Valerie did not stay on in the mansion and within months the Yale Alumni Weekly announced that Herbert Parsons had changed his residence to 7 East 76^th Street.  It was possibly Parsons who installed a handball court on the roof in 1917.

While many of the Upper East Side mansions were either razed or converted to apartments in the 1920s and subsequent decades, No. 7 survived as a private residence.  By 1926 it was home to Colonel Thomas H. Birch.  The annual horse show was a major event for Manhattan society and on November 25 that year The New York Timesnoted that “The third night at the horse show was marked with an unusually brilliant showing of fashion.”  This was partially due to the attendance of the Spanish Ambassador, his wife, and a large entourage. 

On the afternoon before The Times article Colonel Birch hosted a luncheon in the house “for the Spanish team of officers who are participating in the international events at the show.”

Throughout the 1930s Mr. and Mrs. Albert J. Erdmann lived at No. 7.  Mrs. Erdmann was highly involved in charitable causes.  In 1932 she was a member of the committee arranging the Vassar Club’s benefit opera “Lucia di Lammermoor” and to benefit the college’s scholarship fund.  She would be a force behind the formation of the Junior Consultation Service that helped drop-outs find jobs with the help of psychologists and vocational counselors.

By the 1960s the mansion was home to Sam Salz, one of the world’s leading art dealers.  Salz dealt mainly in impressionist and post-impressionist paintings; but he was a collector as well.  On February 15, 1964 The Timesremarked “On walls in hallways, living rooms, and bedrooms are works of Renoir, Dufy, Utrillo, Brque, Pissarro, Degas, Monet, Cezanne, Rouault, Manet, Sisley and Toulouse-Lautrec.  There are also many pieces of sculpture.”

The Austrian-born dealer lived in the mansion with his wife, Marina, and their two sons.  “On the walls of the bedrooms hang small Vuilllards, Bonnards, Renoirs and Pissaros,” reported The Times’ Milton Esterow.

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The mansion survives essentially unchanged today; a remarkably handsome private home.

 photographs by the author

The Moncure Robinson Mansion -- No. 16 East 76th Street

With the completion of Central Park the blocks off Fifth Avenue saw rapid development.  In 1881 William Noble began construction on 10 speculative rowhouses stretching from No. 10 through 28 East 76^th Street.  Completed a year later they were designed by John G. Prague and were described by The New York Times as “four-story brownstone-front” dwellings.

When M. L. Sire purchased No. 16 with “the similar dwelling 28 East Seventy-sixth Street" in 1897, the three wealthy Robinson siblings were living in their family mansion at No. 23 North Washington Square.  Their father, Edmund Randolph Robinson had died the year before and their mother had died earlier.  The young adults were wealthy, prominent, and on their own. 

After the expected period of mourning, they Robinsons resumed their upscale social lives.  Eleanor hosted a reception for the introduction of her sister, Augusta, into society on December 10, 1898 in the home.  And their attorney brother, Moncure Robinson, would be well-known in the highest social circles.

The Robinson children had not only large personal fortunes, but an outstanding pedigree.  Their mother was the daughter of John Jay and was related to the Chapmans and McVickars.  The Times would later note “The Robinson family is one of the old families of Virginia.”

Their social standing was glaringly obvious on April 4, 1900 when Augusta was married in the parlor of the Washington Square house, given away by her brother.  Among those assembled were Mrs. Stuyvesant Fish, Mr. and Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt, Jr., the Schieffelin family, the Abraham Hewitts, Mrs. William Morgan and her daughter, the W. Bayard Cuttings and other high-ranking society figures.

A month later Moncure would earn attention at the “artists’ revel” in Boston when he “personated a Doge of Venice.”  Later he and Eleanor took a cottage in fashionable Bar Harbor. 

By the time they returned for the winter season, things had drastically changed in the East 76^th Street neighborhood.  The neighborhood had increasingly lured Manhattan’s wealthiest citizens and the addresses of the brownstone residences of a generation earlier were suddenly highly valued.  On September 29, 1901 The New York Timesremarked that “The good demand for dwellings of moderate value has continued to be the mainstay of the market…This demand has been principally for houses near Fifth Avenue, north of Fiftieth Street.”  Among the houses sold that week was No. 16 East 76^th Street.

The rapidly increasing value of the property was noted by the Real Estate Record & Builders’ Guide on March 15, 1902.  The house was purchased by the City Real Property Investing Co.  “The house changed hands twice last year; the first time at $60,000, the present sellers paying $67,000.”

Within a few weeks it would be sold again—this time to Moncure Robinson.  The purchase was made public on May 3 and was possibly sparked by Augusta’s impending engagement to Commander Louis Wentworth Packington Chetwynd of the Royal Navy.  As preparations for the wedding in Fifth Avenue’s St. Thomas’s Church were laid out; Moncure set architects Hoppin & Koen to work remodeling the old brownstone uptown into a fashionable, modern mansion.

Augusta’s January 17, 1903 wedding was a star-studded event in terms of society names.  The church was filled with names like Fish, Vanderbilt, Belmont, Harrison, Beekman and Townsend.  But The New York Times was careful to print at the top of the list “Mrs. Astor.”

The following week Moncure was a guest of Mr. and Mrs. Robert J. Collier in the mansion on Gramercy Park.  It was in honor of Mrs. Collier’s grandmother, Caroline Schermerhorn Astor and his inclusion on the guest list of only 16 was a social coup.  But Robinson was eager to begin entertaining on his own in his new house.

The East 76^th Street project was finished by now.  Hoppin & Koen had produced a striking five-story neo-Georgian home of red brick with limestone trim.  The entrance in the rusticated stone base was a few steps below the sidewalk; and the architects drew on a variety of 18^thcentury elements to produce the refined and elegant home—fanlights above the second story French doors; radiating stone lintels over the upper openings, and finely detailed dormers behind a stone balustrade.

On February 23, 1903 Moncure Robinson formally opened his new house with a “Colonial dinner.”  It would be the first of many elaborate entertainments in the house.  A week later, on March 1, The New York Timessociety page gossiped about the young attorney.  Calling him “a member of several of the fashionable clubs,” the newspaper said “He is simply a young man who has a good fortune and who is fond of entertaining.  He has, like so many of the young bachelors of to-day, moved into a house of his own, and he is an excellent host.  In appearance he is quite youthful, and is about thirty years of age.  He is a member of the Knickerbocker, and was graduated from Harvard in 1896.”

The Times called Robinson’s new home “a bijou of a house, which is charmingly furnished, where he will entertain a great deal next Winter.”  The newspaper may have predicted extensive entertainment because it was about time for the wealthy 30-year old to marry.  On May 10 the newspaper hinted at romance.

“Moncure Robinson, who will sail shortly for Europe, has put the finishing touches to his new home in East Seventy-sixth Street.  He has taken such pains in furnishing this house that rumors are again started as to his matrimonial intentions.  Both he and Mrs. Moses Taylor Campbell have denied these reports several times.”  The denials were undeniably true.

By now Robinson had given up Bar Harbor for Tuxedo Park and Newport.  It was in Newport on September 2, 1906 that he was the unwilling party in an episode that enraged Mrs. Stuyvesant Fish.  Mamie Fish invited Moncure along for an automobile ride with her and her daughter, Marion.  As the car cruised along the country road about four miles outside of Newport, chauffeur George Effyeara was pulled over for exceeding the speed limit of 18 miles per hour.

Effyeara insisted he was traveling at 14 miles per hour; but the constable climbed into the limousine and ordered it driven back to Newport.  After a heated exchanged between Mrs. Fish and Judge Franklin, the socialite begrudgingly paid the $23.60 fine.  “Mrs. Fish paid it,” reported The Times, “but she was not in a very pleasant mood, remarking as she paid the money, ‘This is highway robbery.’”

Another well-to-do bachelor who often appeared on the same guest lists with Moncure Robinson was Francis Otis.  Although both men had ample fortunes, The New York Times noted in 1908 that the two would be sharing an apartment in Paris for the summer season.

Back in New York, Moncure’s lavish entertainments were sometimes too large for his 76^th Street house to handle.  On these occasions he turned to the St. Regis Hotel.  On December 13, 1911 he hosted a dinner here in honor of Princess di San Faustino and Comtesse De Gontaut-Biron.  “The guests, numbering sixty, were asked for dinner at 8 o’clock, following which specialties and tableaux vivants were given on a miniature stage erected at one end of the marble ballroom,” recounted The Times.  An evening of entertainments included performances by some of the socially-elite guests.

The newspapers routinely reported on Moncure’s entertainments at home and at the St. Regis.  On February 3, 1914 his dinner required the entire second floor of the hotel, “including the marble ballroom,” said The Times the following day.

The following year, in August 1915, Robinson leased the 76th Street house "to a client for occupancy," according to The New York Times.  It became home to Edward N. Breitung and his socially prominent wife.  Breitung was a banker, mining engineer and ship owner.  During the war she had donated an x-ray ambulance to General Pershing and their daughter, Juliet, had been active in war work as well.

Delicate carved panels are set into the brick facade.

In July 1918 Mrs. Breitung arranged “a big athletic carnival” for the Sailors and Marines Club which she founded.  The details of the event were finalized in a meeting in the 76^th Street house on July 12 and they included 50-men teams for tug-of-war, running events, tennis, baseball, swmming races and other events.  Professional athletes signed up to appear.

But the Breitungs tended to attract negative attention despite their philanthropic deeds and good intentions.  Juliet eloped with Max F. Kleist, the gardener of the mansion adjoining the Breitung’s country estate in Marquette, Michigan.  “Owing to the prominence of the Breitung family, the marriage and its subsequent developments attracted considerable attention,” said The New York Times later.

The “subsequent developments” were that Juliet soon realized the Kleist had married here only for the money and after she left him, he sued her father for $250,000 “for alienation of affections.”  The suit was eventually dismissed and in December 1918 Juliet became engaged again.  The Times ran the headline “Juliet Breitung to Marry Again” and rehashed the ugly affair, including the Reno divorce.

A year later the household was terrified by a series of letters that arrived threatening to blow up Breitung’s office at No. 11 Pine Street.  Then, on September 6, a letter arrived “containing a threat to blow up his home at 16 East Seventy-sixth street.”  Investigators were able to track down the extortionist, John N. Redmond.  The 38-year old was committed to the psychopathic ward of Bellevue Hospital for observation.  He explained that he believed to have been “defrauded of millions” by the banker.

Mrs. Breitung continued on with her social calendar of dinners and charitable events.  On March 25, 1921 she entertained her guests at dinner in the house, then took them to the opera.  A similar affair two weeks earlier had ended most uncomfortably for the socialite.  Society had been rocked by a series of burglaries during supper and card parties.  In each case it was the expensive belongings of guests that were stolen.

On March 25, 1921 The New York Times reported that Mrs. Charles M. MacNeill, “after attending the opera about two weeks ago…drove in her car to the home of Mrs. Breitung, where there was a supper party.  The next day she missed her [opera] glasses, which were worth $3,000, and telephoned to Mrs. Breitung.  Search was made, but the glasses could not be found, and Mrs. Breitung believed that Mrs. MacNeill had lost them before or after leaving the party.”

But the awkward theft of a guest’s valuable opera glasses was nothing compared to the embarrassing press the Breitung’s got later that year.  On September 7, 1921 the New-York Tribune reported that Edward had been arrested in a raid on a brothel.

Mrs. Nellie Kift, of No. 640 Madison Avenue, was charged “with having let two rooms to women for questionable purposes” and Breitung was arrested for vagrancy.  As the trial neared, Breitung proclaimed his innocence and told reporters “My wife knows all about this case and has absolute confidence in me.  She and my family are sticking by me.”

Testimony by detectives was lurid.  The New-York Tribune reported that Detectives Raihl and Massie said they found “the banker in one of the rooms of her apartment with Edna Clark and Jean Whitney.”  Edward Breitung had an excuse to be at the brothel, however.  He said he “had called at the apartment to discuss a mining project.”

In 1923 Moncure Robinson sold the house.  It was owned by Maurice Goodman on September 29, 1927 when John Packwood Tilden died in his house near by.  Tilden was President of John P. Tilden, Inc., a liability insurance firm, and a proud member of the Society of Mayfower Descendents.  He  had lived with his wife, Mabel Simmons Tilden, at No. 58 East 73^rd Street.

Mabel quickly sold the 73^rd Street house and purchased the mansion at No. 16 East 76^th Street in July 1928.  Like the previous residents of the house, she would lavishly entertain.  Summers were spent at the Briarcliff Lodge and winters were given over to musicales, dinners and receptions.  Society pages routinely reported on her entertainments, as was the case on February 12, 1937 when The Times reported “Mrs. John Packwood Tilden will give another in a series of luncheons today at her home, 16 East Seventy-sixth Street, for Mrs. Robert A. C. Smith.”

The following month, just before Mabel left for the Briarwood, she received a most unexpected delivery.  “A healthy seven-pound baby girl only six hours old was found abandoned at 10 o’clock last night wrapped in a brown blanket and sheltered in an opened black suitcase on the doorstep of the townhouse of Mrs. John P. Tilden,” reported The New York Times on March 28.  The little girl was discovered by a private patrolman, Horace Victor, and was in good health despite her exposure to the March air.

If the infant’s mother thought that, perhaps, Mrs. Tilden would take the baby in, she was mistaken.  “Later she was taken to the New York Foundling Hospital.”

Mabel Simmons Tilden’s routine of Summers at Briarcliff Lodge and winters on East 76^th Street would continue into the 1950s.  The house became home to Calvin Klein in 1988.  Having paid $6.8 million for it; the fashion designer sold the 10,000 square foot mansion to the Italian Government for just $4.8 million in1991 during a depressed real estate market.  The house was purchased as the home to the Italian Consul General.

The handsome residence has survived as a private home for over 130 years.  Little has changed since its remarkable makeover in 1903 when the it became the renovated bachelor pad of the socially-visible Moncure Robinson.

photographs by the author