The Virginia Fair Vanderbilt House - No. 60 East 93rd Street

photo Carltonhobbs.com

1930 in New York City was, for most, dark times. The Great Depression had fully set in. Bread lines snaked down sidewalks and ramshackle shanties had already begun appearing beneath the 59th Street Bridge on the East River. Once-successful businessmen sold pencils and apples on the street or simply begged for a handout.

Virginia Graham Fair Vanderbilt, however, was building a new house. Mrs. Vanderbilt had divorced William K. Vanderbilt three years earlier. A devout Roman Catholic, she had resisted divorce although the couple had not lived together for ten years.  But by 1927 William K. had decided to remarry.

William K. and Birdie enjoy Florida during happier marital times in 1907 -- photo vanderbiltcupraces.com

In 1929 she had engaged the services of architect John Russell Pope who would design a 50-room mansion. Birdie, as she was popularly known, was not dependant on the Vanderbilt money. Her father, James Graham Fair had made $200 million from the Nevada Comstock silver lode.

She purchased three houses on East 93rd Street in 1930 – Nos. 60 to 64 – as the site for her new home. She was no doubt encouraged in the choice of that block by nearly simultaneous construction of mansions by her friends, William and Florence Loew, and George Baker, Jr. (Florence's brother). Like the Loew house which was started the same year, Vanderbilt’s mansion would be both dignified and restrained.

Pope produced a Louis XV-style limestone palais entered through a lofty arched doorway, placed to the side above a small flight of steps. A steep slate mansard roof was protected by a stone balustrade and high, narrow stone chimneys thrust upward on one side. There was a 20-foot by 57-foot private garden in which to escape on warm afternoons or evenings.

In order to keep Birdie and her guests separate from the staff, Pope designed the house as two separate sections: the main house rose three stories with 15-foot ceilings in some areas.  The ceilings in the servants’ areas were significantly lower, allowing for seven stories within the same height. Doors between the two sections were padded and there were separate elevators and staircases so servants and gentry had no reason to meet unnecessarily.

photo Carltonhobbs.com

Four English and French 18th Century paneled rooms were installed, antique parquet flooring was imported for the third floor, and the gilt hardware for the doors was hand-made by Bricard in Paris. The limestone for the façade was imported from France from the same quarry used for the Loew house next door.  The stones were shipped finished, to be assembled on site.

Having entered the street doors, guests were led through an impressive stone entrance foyer to the main doors above the stairs to the left -- photo by Elissa DeSani

Only the finest materials were used.  The painted paneling in the reception hall, for instance, was of mahogany to withstand the torture of the New York climate in the days before temperature and humidity control.

Beneath the paint, the paneled walls of the staircase hall are solid mahagony -- photo by Elissa Desani

When not in Paris or her country seat, "Fairmont,” in Manhasset, Long Island; Birdie Vanderbilt entertained from the East 93rd Street house; often combining her many philanthropies with her social obligations. On Christmas night 1932, for instance, she hosted a “small dance” in the ballroom to benefit the Lisa Day Nursery.

The sole-existing original mantel is in the Marble Room which overlooks the 50' garden. -- photo by Elissa Desani

In 1933 while driving home from his father's Florida estate Birdie’s 26-year old son, William Kissam Vanderbilt III, was killed in an accident on a South Carolina highway. The socialite was thrust into profound grief from which she never totally recovered. Two years later she died in her home from pneumonia, leaving an estate of nearly $7 million.

Bryan C. Foy and his wife, Thelma, purchased No. 60.  Like Birdie, Thelma was independently wealthy, the daughter of Walter Chrysler.  Bryan became the Vice-President and, ultimately, a director of the Chrysler Corporation.

Thelma Foy was known for her elegant style -- photo newyorksocietydaily.com

Thelma Foy was widely recognized as a discriminating collector and filled the mansion with French furniture, bronzes and artwork. Her dining room table gleamed with an extensive set of antique Louis XV tableware. Thelma entertained lavishly, hosting dinners and receptions as well as the debutante dances of daughters Joan and Cynthia.

An enclosed back staircase with bronze banister tightly winds down the span of the three stories -- photo Elissa Desani

Cynthia’s debut was two days before Christmas in 1949. Thelma had flowering quince and camellia trees brought in to decorate the ballroom and the “supper room” was adorned with greenery ropes and wreaths. A tall Christmas tree in the entrance hall gave guests a “holiday note to the party,” according to The Times.

Despite her admiration for French antiques, it was apparently during Thelma's residency that the 18th Century paneling that Virginia Vanderbilt had installed in one particular room was removed, as well as all but one of the original fireplace mantels. 

Thelma Foy, whose obituary said was “noted for her elegance of wardrobe,” died in 1957 in her early 50s.

The mansion was purchased as the Romanian Mission to the United Nations.  During this period there was most likely little lost interior detailing. 

Neighbors remember when Nikita Kruschev stayed over.  As the Soviet Premier's motorcade approached the house, a recording of the American national anthem was played from a nearby balcony as residents of the block lined the sidewalk.

Premier Kruschev paused on the steps of No. 60, turned to the crowd as if directing the music with his fingers, then turned again to enter.

After two decades in the house, the Mission sold it to the Lycee Francaise de New York in 1978 for $680,000, making it one of five grand homes in the school's possession.  By August 2000, when the school decided to move to a new facility on York Avenue it owned six such residences.

London-based antiques dealer Carlton Hobbs bought the Vanderbilt home for $10.6 million in 2002. The prestigious dealer had founded his business in 1973, dealing in rare and historic furniture and other objects whose buyers are either museums or extremely discerning and wealthy collectors. Hobbs initiated a two-year restoration of the property which, upon completion, would become his firm’s headquarters.

According to Stefanie Rinza, Managing Director of the firm, the loving restoration was painstaking.  Each wall and window frame was scraped down to discern the original colors.  Approximately half of the Bricard door fixtures had to be replicated, and cracked limestone blocks in the facade were replicated with stone from the original French quarries.  Sixty workers toiled on the project.

"Nothing was lost," Rinza said, referring to suggestions that ceilings be dropped or walls altered to accommodate ductwork.  "We found old flues ... there were nine chimneys ... and used those to run the ducts."

Unfortunately, years of use as a school had taken a serious toll.  The floors on the lower levels, having endured years of unsympathetic use, had to be replaced with parquet replicas, hand treated on site by the Hobbs staff in a labor- and time-intensive project.  Sadly, all of Virginia Fair's original lighting fixtures had been lost over the years

The thorough restoration was at times like an archeological dig.  On the back of the carved paneling in the staircase hall were French inscriptions from the manufacturer.  Evidence of French doors that once looked out onto the side entrance hall were discovered, as was an unfinished door behind a wall in a French-paneled upstairs bath.

The exterior of the Virginia Graham Fair Vanderbilt House is remarkably unchanged since its completion in 1931. And as the Carlton Hobbs headquarters, its interiors are lovingly preserved as the backdrop of museum-quality antiques.

Many thanks to Stefanie Rinza for taking the time to show me throughout the house and for sharing her extensive knowledge of it.

John Russell Pope's Neo-Georgian 221 East 71st Street

The beautifully-proportioned colonial-style building on East 71^st Street, a little slice of Williamsburg in Manhattan, is a pleasant shock to those who are not expecting it.

At the turn of the 20^th Century, the social reform movement had caught the notice of some moneyed socialites.  Among these was the young Mary Harriman whose father, E. H. Harriman was a railroad tycoon.  Inspired by the “Settlement Movement” that was fueled by the likes of Jane Addams’ Hull House, Harriman set out to make a meaningful mark in New York.  With nine other debutantes she founded the The New York Junior League for the Promotion of Settlement Movements in 1901.  The ponderous name would later be shortened to The New York Junior League.

The League’s influence and membership grew until, in 1928, it was necessary to move its headquarters from a brownstone townhouse on East 61^st Street to a larger building with ample facilities.  A plot of land was purchased that year at 221 East 71^st Street and John Russell Pope was commissioned to design a clubhouse.

While Pope was responsible for other impressive structures – the 1912 Jacobean Revival DeKoven mansion on Park Avenue, for example – he would be remembered for his classically-inspired structures like the National Gallery of Art, the Jefferson Memorial, and Richmond, Virginia’s Union Station.  For the Junior League he turned to the Georgian period.

Situated well east of the center of social activity, the land was less expensive and perhaps made a statement by the wealthy young women whose expressed interest was in the underprivileged.

Construction was completed in 1929 and the inauguration was held on December 19 of that year.  The formal red brick building followed strict 18^th Century lines, including the many-paned windows, roof-top balustrade and scrolled broken pediment stone door frame.  Seven stories tall, it successfully pretended to be only four.

The $1.25 million building boasted a “great hall in Georgian Style,” which would be used for receptions, benefits, lectures and dances.   On the top floor was a swimming pool under a skylight.  There were two squash courts and guest rooms for members who stayed over.   But the facilities were not just intended for the use of the members – there was also a large nursery that could temporarily accommodate up to 25 infants rescued from unsavory home situations.

Even before the formal opening the clubhouse was already in demand.  A week prior to the inauguration (during which Eleanor Holm, an Olympic swimmer, showed off her talents), a debutante luncheon was hosted by Mrs. Henry Slack and daughter Rosalie Hick Slack for Miss Alice Vanderbilt Morris, II.

Of all the distinguished speakers in the Great Hall, perhaps none appeared so frequently as Eleanor Roosevelt.  She was here no fewer than three times from 1935 to 1943, speaking on topics from “the supreme importance…of personal moral standards and ethics” to World War II.

The Great Depression and World War II significantly distressed the League’s financial situation and in 1947 the grand Georgia building which The New York Times deemed the League's “swank clubhouse” was offered for sale.   The Junior League found temporary quarters elsewhere while awaiting the newly-acquired Vincent Astor house at No. 130 East 80^th Street to be readied.  (When they finally moved in during May of 1949, The Times remarked “The Junior League of the City of New York once more is dwelling in marble halls…after ‘roughing it’ for nearly a year in a storage warehouse.’)

The building on East 71^st Street was purchased by Marymount College and on September 15, 1948, Cardinal Spellman dedicated the building.  The AIA Guide to New York City later applauded the move, saying that the staid Georgian style of the building was “a comforting image for those Catholic young women.”

Nearly a century after its construction, Pope’s dignified Georgia building on East 71^st Street has changed little.  Although some of the spaces – such as the nursery and the squash courts – have been renovated into classrooms, most of the interior design remains.  Even the pink-tiled swimming pool is there.

photographs taken by the author

The 1912 DeKoven Mansion - No. 1025 Park Avenue

photo by Alice Lum

John Russell Pope is often remembered for his monumental, classically-inspired structures like the National Gallery of Art, the Jefferson Memorial and Richmond, Virginia's Union Station.  But the Jacobean Revival mansion he designed in 1911 for Reginald DeKoven and his wife on Park Avenue survives as one of his most striking accomplishments.

DeKoven was a prominent composer of light opera and popular songs. His “O, Promise Me,” became a staple at weddings, resulting in many tear-dampened hankies. Anna DeKoven was an author, among her works being “The Life and Letters of John Paul Jones,” and the pair was renowned in New York artistic and social circles.

When the train tracks to Grand Central in the deep channel down the center of Park Avenue were covered over in 1902, mansions began lining the broad boulevard. The DeKovens purchased the 60-foot wide plot at No. 1025 and consulted with Pope on designs for a new residence.

Anna DeKoven had an expressed fondness for 16th Century English architecture, as evidenced by the couple’s first home they had built in Chicago with its diamond-paned heraldic glass windows and paneled rooms. For the Park Avenue house she would request the same.

While the neighboring mansions would be Italian Renaissance, English Regency or French-inspired, the DeKovan house would be unique, or according to some opinions, “out of place.” An English country estate on Park Avenue, it featured a double-height room at the front for large social gatherings. The plaster ceiling of the music room (which doubled as a ballroom) was a copy of that in Haddon Hall. Pope used the magnificent Hatfield House in Hertfordshire as inspiration for the minstrel gallery, the stone doorways and the great carved stone mantle. Two-story bays small-paned windows with stained glass coats-of-arms visually dominated the exterior, contrasting starkly with the rusticated stone base.

The house was completed late in 1912 and on New Years Eve of that year the couple hosted a musical gathering, inviting some of the most prominent musical artists in New York. Later that season, the 17th Century-style main room was thrown open for an Elizabethan-period costume ball.

photo by Alice Lum

Eight years after moving in, Reginald DeKoven died in 1920. On January 11, 1945 the residence was sold and The New York Times reported that the composer’s mansion, known for the gala parties and dinners hosted there, was to become an apartment house.

George Beldock purchased the building on April 30 of the following year and the home was tenderly subdivided into 11 apartments. Wealthy socialites moved in, including Mr. and Mrs. John Bell Huhn who lived here in 1950 and Mr. and Mrs. Eric Moses Javits in 1956.

photo by Alice Lum

One by one, as the 20th Century progressed, Park Avenue’s grand mansions fell, to be replaced by glass-curtain offices and modern apartment buildings. No. 1025, somehow, managed to survive – delightfully even more “out of place” today than it was in 1912. The AIA Guide to New York City called it “A charming Tudor Revival town house that was opportunely overlooked in the serial redevelopment of Park Avenue.”