The Lost James B. Clews Mansion -- 1039 Fifth Avenue

The Real Estate Record & Guide, November 28, 1908 (copyright expired)

In 1886, just as the first of the great residences began elbowing their way north of the Fifth Avenue mansion district below 57^thStreet, Robert McBride and his wife Josephine lived in the comfortable brownstone-fronted rowhouse at No. 1039 Fifth Avenue.  Sitting at the corner of 85^thStreet, across from Central Park, it and its neighbors had been built with financially-comfortable homeowners in mind.  Within a generation the townhouses would be razed to be replaced by the lavish palaces of Manhattan’s wealthiest citizens.

In 1908 the land on which the McBride home sat was owned by the New York and Harlem Railroad Company.   The railroad was liquidating its real estate in the area, including the large, now-vacant plot further down the block where the old Madison Avenue car stables had stood.  On April 23 that year The New York Times reported that “James B. Clews, nephew of Henry Clews” had purchased the corner lot at Fifth Avenue and 85^th Street.

Although James Blanchard Clews had millions of his own—serving as a director in several corporations and as the Chairman of the Board of the Standard Cordage Company--newspapers consistently followed his name with “nephew of Henry Clews.”  James had, by now, worked for several years in his uncle’s banking firm.

With the 44-year old bachelor’s wedding to Mrs. Meta Nicholas Livingston, the widow of Oscar Livingston, scheduled to take place on November 18, Clews set to work preparing a fitting home for his bride.  A month before the wedding, on October 18, 1908, The New York Times reported on the planned mansion.  Already the old McBride house had been demolished.

“What will undoubtedly be one of the handsomest of upper fifth Avenue’s many mansions is that to be built for James B. Clews…from plans by Horace Trumbauer of Philadelphia, who also designed the I. Townsend Burden residence at Fifth Avenue and Ninety-second Street and George Gould’s new house at Sixty-seventh Street.”

Clews had paid $100,000 for the land and Trumbauer projected the cost of the residence to be double that—an investment of over $7 million today.  The Real Estate Record and Guide noted one particularly interesting aspect of the design.

“In its planning, the edifice will show at least one departure from the ideas heretofore carried out in corner residences on upper 5^thav. in that it will have the entrance on the avenue front instead of on the street.”   Rather than center the entrance on the 100-foot long 85^th Street elevation; Trumbauer placed it in the 25-foot wide Fifth Avenue side.

The Record and Guide noted “The style of architecture will be the French Renaissance, with the exterior both on the avenue and street of Indiana limestone.”   The New-York Tribune disagreed on the architectural style.   “It will be of the modern Italian design, having a mansard and many windows, finished with decorative railings and large plaques, with a stone set below the sills.”

Trumbauer arranged the interiors to best make use of the long, deep floor plan.  “At each side of the main entrance on the first floor will be a small reception-room,” said the Real Estate Record and Guide.  A grand main hall stretched 34 feet from the foyer to the dining room at the rear.  “This hall will be of imposing proportions and will be elaborately finished in Caen stone and marble.”

The New York Times noted that the same materials “will be used lavishly throughout the interior of the house.”  A marble staircase in the center of the great hall rose to another spacious hall.  At the Fifth Avenue end of the second floor would be the Library and at the opposite end, “the salon.”

The third floor was reserved for the Clews living apartments; the fourth floor contained guest rooms (there were eight bedrooms in all within the house); and the entire fifth floor contained accommodations for the staff of 12.

Meta Nicholas Livingston was the daughter of Washington Romaine Nicols and a great-granddaughter of General  Benjamin Romaine, second Controller of New York City.   Her husband, Oscar Livingston,  had been dead for only about four years and her mother was recently deceased.  The wedding, therefore was quiet and understated.

It took place on November 18 at Cozy Nook, the Bernardsville, New Jersey summer estate of Meta’s brother.  Four days later The Sun reported that “Mr. and Mrs. James B. Clews will pass their honeymoon in Cuba.  On their return they will reside in a house which Mr. Clews is building on the northeast corner of Fifth avenue and Eighty-fifth street.”

In actuality, it would be quite some time before the newlyweds would reside in the house.  Construction of the massive mansion would take years.  The couple moved into the Plaza Hotel and spent the summer seasons, expectedly, out of town.

Living in a suite of rooms at the Plaza did not stifle Meta Clews’ entertaining.  Despite being four months pregnant, on February 25 she gave a dinner for Miss Catherine Hamersley followed by a jaunt to the Herald Square Theatre to see “The Yankee Girl.”  Among the Clews’ socially-prominent guests that night were Vincent Astor and John Jacob Astor. 

On July 29, 1910 while spending the summer at the Elberon, New Jersey cottage of Meta’s sister, a baby daughter was born. 

The newly-completed house shared the Fifth Avenue block with still-surviving brownstone rowhouses of a generation earlier.  photo by from the collection of the New York Public Library

The house was completed the following year and James, Meta and Little Leta moved in.  The family continued to lease or borrow country estates—in 1913 they rented the summer home of W. Crittenden Adams and the following season occupied Ellencourt, the country home “in the Red Spring colony at Glen Cove, Long Island,” owned by Mrs. Spencer A. Jennings.

It was not a lack of money that prevented the Clews from purchasing their own country estate during those first few years.  Before long they would own what the New-York Tribune deemed an “English country estate at Brookville, Long Island,” which sprawled over 127 acres.  It included a “stone dwelling and numerous other buildings and cottages.”  The Tribune added “The residence consists of a collection of Eighteenth century English and Irish furniture.”

In the meantime, the Fifth Avenue mansion continued to be the scene of glittering entertainments; including the luncheon for Governor and Mrs. Whitman on the afternoon of January 14, 1917.  But Meta Clews’ days of staging social functions, dinners and receptions were coming to an end.

While the family was at the Long Island estate in August 1919, Meta Clews died.  James and his nine-year old daughter returned to the Fifth Avenue mansion alone.

In 1923 James Blanchard Clews succeeded his deceased uncle as head of the brokerage firm of Henry Clews & Co.  Three years later, on September 26, 1926, a headline in The New York Times announced “Betrothal of Mary Ann Payne to James B. Clews Is of Wide Interest.”   The newspaper said the engagement “is of interest to society in Europe as well as here.”

Mary Ann Payne came from what The Times called “distinguished ancestry.  Her family dates back several centuries to the noble houses of Pagnel and Hambie, whose members settled in Devonshire, England, at the time of William the Conqueror.”  The newspaper added, “Miss Payne is a direct descendant of Sir Robert Payne, one of the first settlers in Virginia.”  And, as always, it reminded its readers “Mr. Clews is a nephew of the late Henry Clews, of this city and Newport who founded the banking house of Henry Clews & Co.”

The nearly-private wedding was held in the White and Gold room of the Plaza Hotel the following month.  The New York Times reported that “After a motor trip, Mr. Clews and his bride will return to his home at 1,039 Fifth Avenue.” The bridegroom was now 62 years old.

The Clews would not stay much longer in the Fifth Avenue mansion, however.  In 1929 they moved to No. 1 East 62^nd Street.  By now the golden age of the grand private mansions was essentially over.  Wealthy New Yorkers now mostly preferred the convenience of lavish, modern apartment suites.

The James Blanchard Clews mansion was demolished; replaced in 1930 by the 17-story structure designed by eminent apartment building architect Rosario Candela.  The new building also took down the mansion of architect Whitney Warren.

Although Candela’s handsome apartment building is well regarded among architects today; the short-lived palace by Horace Trumbauer that it replaced is a significant loss.

http://www.cityrealty.com/nyc/carnegie-hill/1040-fifth-avenue/1412

Reborn -- No. 16 East 64th Street

In 1878, as the East Side blocks branching away from the new Central Park were being developed, Edward Kilpatrick set to work on four brownstone-clad houses at Nos. 8, 10, 12 and 16 East 64^thStreet.  He commissioned brothers John and David Jardine to design the residences—two architects who were busy creating rows of such houses in the area for speculative developers.

Four stories tall over a English basements, the dwellings were completed in 1879.  They were typical of D. & J. Jardine’s work with high stone stoops, regimented openings, and commodious interiors.

By the early years of the 1890s No. 16 East 64^thStreet was home to lawyer Austin Abbott and his wife.  The pair were interested in the conditions of Native Americans.  The 1894 Annual Report of the Board of Indian Commissioners noted that they were members of the Mohonk Conference; a group organized to work “for Indian Reform.”

Within four years the No. 16 was home to German-born author Carl Schurz.   Highly involved in American politics, Schurz’s first speech delivered in English was during the 1858 Douglas-Lincoln race for the United States Senate.  On January 29, 1898 a reporter from The New York Times described Schurz’s home on East 64^th:

“A visitor to Mr. Schurz’s literary workshop, at 16 East Sixty-fourth Street, finds nothing there that suggests Germany—except the distinctively German face of its master artisan and the Teutonic form of the dachshund that is always curled in a ball on the lounge within easy reach of caresses and kind words.”  The journalist noted that the library shelves were laden with books in a variety of languages; and said that the entrance hall “is a veritable portrait gallery of immortals.  No one enters this select company without having done something for the world.  Warriors, statesmen, musicians, artists, and authors are al represented, but a certain spirit of selection, you can see at once, has directed the formation of the gallery.  Men of thought rule here and not ‘men of destiny’ or of empire.”

Schurz's impressive career included positions of Secretary of the Interior, Missouri Senator, and US Ambassador to Spain -- photograph Library of Congress

The portrait gallery continued up the stairs into the sitting room, two flights up.  Paintings of Voltaire, Napoleon, and Frederick the Great shared wall space with Abraham Lincoln.  Like all upscale late Victorian homes, Schurz’s rooms were crowded with bric-a-brac and mementos.   “There is also the inevitable collection of curiosities, knives and swords from the Malay Archipelago and articles of virtu picked up in all parts of the world.  Among the more precious things of the collection are the cuff buttons work by John Quincy Adams when he fell in the Senate Chamber in 1848.”

Of course No. 16 was occupied only during the winter season.  Like all wealthy New Yorkers, Schurz closed the house during the warm months to escape to his summer place.  His was in Lake George, New York.

The author sold No. 16 in 1900 to William R. H. Martin, the head on one of Manhattan’s most recognized men’s shops, Rogers, Peet & Co.  The haberdasher paid about $65,000 for the house—about $1.86 million in today’s dollars.

Martin and his family would stay in the Victorian house for just two years.  When Stephen Pell purchased it in March 1902, he had plans for the building that did not include his own occupancy.  Pell was one of the directors of the Real Estate Security Co. and he recognized that the location of the property was more valuable than the out-of-date house.  To maximize his investment, he needed to make the house marketable to the wealthy home buyers filling the neighborhood.

Pell commissioned architect S. E. Gage to update the structure.  The two-year make-over included removing the brownstone façade and redoing the interiors.  The result was an up-to-date Edwardian home in the recently-popular neo-Federal style.  The red brick was laid in Flemish bond and the headers burned to resemble aging.   Gage moved the entrance to sidewalk level, while  keeping the basement service entrance below ground.  A handsome columned portico served as a balcony to the second floor, where two sets of tall French windows were framed in limestone.  The third floor was a near-wall of small-paned openings, separated by engaged Doric columns and united by a stone entablature.  The Federal motif was emphasized at the fourth floor with dramatic splayed lintels; and the high mansard roof was accented by three hooded dormers and three copper oculi.

The house as it appeared in 1913 -- The Sun, March 23, 1913 (copyright expired)

On March 30, 1905 The New York Times reported that Stephen H. P. Pell had sold the renovated house to Dudley Olcott, Jr.   Olcott was a banker with the Central Trust Company of New York, and was recently married to Sarah C. Levick.  The couple had been living at No. 171 West 71^st Street and shortly after purchasing the house, The New York Times added that they “spend their Summers at Normandie Park, Morristown, N. J.”   Among the items to be brought into the 64^th Street house would be the newly-completed portrait of Mrs. Olcott by Maurice Fromkes.  

Wealthy and modern-thinking, Olcott was an early automobile enthusiast.  In 1911 he would be selected for the position of Treasurer of the Automobile Club of America.   A year earlier, he discovered first-hand the potential dangers of the expensive pursuit.

On November 6, 1910 attorney John Ellis Roosevelt, cousin for the former President, was one of a group of Metropolitan Club members enjoying a three-day excursion in the country.  In his big car were seven other “prominent New Yorkers” and a second chauffeur.   Dudley Olcott, Jr. was among Roosevelt’s guests.  “It was their purpose to make a leisurely pace and enjoy the beauties of the Autumn landscape,” explained The New York Times.

At one point Roosevelt decided to take the wheel and his chauffeur, Alexander Ehbel, moved to the front passenger seat.   Passengers later said there was no speeding that Roosevelt was “going at not more than an ordinary country-road pace.”   But at a bend in the road, the wheels on the passenger side slipped off the road into soft ground and skidded.  The strain broke the axle and the car “turned turtle” as described by the newspaper.

Roosevelt’s chauffeur was instantly killed and several of the passengers were injured.  Olcott escaped without serious injuries.

Three years later, in January 1913 Olcott sold the house to  the Buek Construction Co.  The Real Estate Record and Guide noted that Olcott’s asking price was $150,000 and “one of the features of this house is a large laundry on the roof.”

A month later the firm advertised No. 16 for sale, calling it a “beautiful, five story, American basement private dwelling.”   The operators had apparently hoped for a quick turn-around, for a few weeks later, on Sunday, March 23, a different advertisement appeared in The Sun along with a photograph.   The caption read “Above house for sale--$30,000 cash will purchase.”

No. 16 became home to Dr. George Emerson Brewer.  Among the most esteemed surgeons in New York, he was Professor of Surgery in Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons; the Surgical Director at Presbyterian Hospital; and Consulting Surgeon to no fewer than six other hospitals and institutes.

Brewer’s high standing among the medical community was evidenced on the morning of November 15, 1915 when Mayor John Purroy Mitchel was stricken with appendicitis at his Riverside Drive home.  After making a preliminary diagnosis, the mayor’s physician summoned Dr. Brewer.  “They decided that an operation was necessary,” reported the New-York Tribune the following day. 

Brewer, who made time also to hold the rank of Colonel in the Medical Section of the US Army Reserve Corps, stayed on in the 64^thStreet house until 1921.  On January 25 that year the New-York Tribune ran a headline reading “Dr. G. E. Brewer Sells House in East 64^th Street.  Parts with Costly Dwelling Between 5^th and Madison Aves.”

At the time architect Frederick Junius Sterner had made a name for himself in New York by transforming outdated brownstone rowhouses into unrecognizable neo-Tudor, Mediterranean or Gothic fantasies.  It was Sterner who now bought Brewer’s house for what the Tribune said was about $130,000.

Although the house was still perfectly in fashion; Sterner did what he was best known for: renovate.   He replaced the second floor French windows with four grouped, small paned openings.  The two in the center formed a fanlight within their rectangular frames.  The portico and balcony were removed and two columns, surmounted by lion figures, acted as an entrance.  Above it all, the dormers were replaced with a single, broad studio dormer, nearly the width of the structure, that flooded the interior in light.

Sterner replaced the second floor windows and removed the portico.  A single long dormer replaced the original three.  from the collection of the New York Public Library.

Inside Sterner rearranged Gage’s first and second story floor plans, and installed new stairs.   The completed renovation resulted in a 22-room house with six baths and an elevator.   When Sterner offered it for sale in October 1922, the New-York Tribune deemed it a “fine house.”

Apparently Richard Delafield agreed.  The 69-year old banker purchased the house for $110,000.  He had just been elevated to the position of Chairman of the Board of the National Park Bank of New York.   In reporting the sale the Real Estate Record & Builders’ Guide noted “Mr. Delafield, whose country home is at Tuxedo, will occupy the residence.”

Richard Delafield two months after the purchase of No. 16 -- The Banker's Magazine, December 1922 (copyright expired)

Following Delafield, in 1925, Richard Croker, Jr. moved in.  Croker was the son of the notorious Tammany Hall leader who garnered millions; much of it through bribe money received from proprietors of saloons, brothels and gambling dens.  Upon his death in 1922, the senior Croker left his second wife his entire estate, totalling upwards of $5 million.  His children, including Richard Jr., received nothing.

Richard Croker, Jr. would stay in the house until 1934, during which time he was indicted for failing to pay $7,612 in 1925 New York State income taxes.   He sold it to Miguel J. Ossorio who had made his fortune in the Philippine and Puerto Rican sugar industry.

Like almost all of the owners of the mansion, Don Miguel Ossorio would not stay long.  When he sold the house six years later, The New York Times reported on July 23, 1941 that “the building has an electric elevator and many modern improvements, but the purchaser prior to making the place his town house, will make extensive alterations.”  The newspaper made note of the elite neighborhood.  “The homes of Mrs. J. Sargent Cram, Roy Howard, Mrs. Orme Wilson Jr. and Adolph Pavenstedt are near by.”

Although the alterations preserved the structure as a single family house; that status would last only eleven more years.  In 1952 the Smith College Club of New York commissioned architects Rosario Candela and Paul Resnick to convert the interiors as a social club.   The renovations, completed in December 1953, provided for a lounge and private dining room on both the first and second floors; a bedroom, card room and library on the third; three bedrooms on the fourth floor and offices on the fifth.

Then, in 1990 Linda and Stuart Schlesinger purchased No. 16 for $3 million and began a four year restoration that returned it to a single family home.   “Restoration” meant undoing Frederick Sterner’s 1921 remake of the second floor.  The two arched French windows reappeared, as if they were never gone.

By 2005 the arched openings of the second floor had reappeared; however the portico and service entrance remained changed.  photo New York Observer October 24, 2015.

The period touches that they did not bring back were the warm red brick (it was hidden beneath a slathering of white paint or stucco) and the below-sidewalk level service entrance (it had been moved up to what had previously been a ground floor window).  Their hard work resulted in a $21.5 million sale in 2005.

Only the studio dormer remains of Sterner's changes.  photo by the author

The new owners picked up where the Schlesinger’s left off.  The portico was closely restored, the façade cleaned, and the basement entrance lowered.  The result is as near a match to S. E. Gage’s 1904 remake of the old Victorian rowhouse as could ever be expected.  (The interiors--well, not so much.)