The Lost 1763 Beekman Mansion "Mount Pleasant" -- 50th Street and 1st Avenue

NYPL Collection

In 1763 Gerardus (James) Beekman’s country estate, Mount Pleasant, was completed. The house sat on a rise overlooking Turtle Bay on the East River. To the south was John Watt’s “Rose Hill” (where 29th Street and Park Avenue intersect today), and John Murray’s country seat “Inclenberg” (the block between 36th and 37th Streets on Park Avenue now). Further north were the mansions of the Schermerhorns, Lawrences, Rhinelanders and other wealthy New Yorkers.

Beekman was a dry goods merchant and a descendant of William Beekman who was highly involved in the governing of New Amsterdam, alongside Governor Peter Stuyvesant. His city house was at 240 Queen Street (now Pearl Street), but during the oppressive summer months the family escaped to the open countryside of Mount Pleasant.

Beekman had the exterior of the mansion designed to reflect the old Dutch colonial manses of a century earlier. It was constructed of thick wooden planks and brick, two stories tall with a basement and attic under a Dutch-style hipped roof. As The New York Times described it in 1872, “he chose to indulge the whim of uniting the homely Dutch cottage of his forefathers with all that the world then presented of luxury and comfort.” Formal gardens wrapped around the mansion which had the first greenhouse in America which contained orange trees and oleander among other scarce plants.

NYPL Collection

The elegant interiors were in stark contrast to the relative plainness of the exterior. A century later Schribners Monthly described spacious rooms “adorned with black marble mantels bearing elaborate carvings of scroll and foliage. The fireplaces were ornamented with Dutch tiles, representing Scriptural subjects.” Regarding the decorative elements, the article said “Nothing more costly could be found in the colony, and it bore the additional merit of having been imported across the ocean.”

Four of these 18th Century panels were removed from the house by the Beekman family before the demolition.

In the dining room, 17th century-style carved oak pediments surmounted the doors which were flanked by Tuscan columns, and the ornate carved oak fireplace rose to the ceiling.

D. T. Valentine's 1861 Manual depicted the "Blue Room" as the artist envisioned it around the time of the Revolution -- NYPL Collection

The carved railings of the staircase were capped with solid mahogany banisters and upstairs the sitting rooms and bedrooms were decorated with superb molded plaster of Paris ceilings and Dutch-tiled fireplaces.

Here the Beekmans entertained their neighbors. It was an elite and close-knit group. Historian Martha Joanna Lamb in her 1877 “History of the City of New York” pointed out “Drawing-rooms were not filled to suffocation by a promiscuous crowd unknown to each other and scarcely known to the host and hostess. The guests were all of one class, and personally acquainted. The majority of them were related by blood and marriage.”

James Beekman and his family traveled from their city house to Mount Pleasant in this carriage -- New York Historical Society

Although she described the social atmosphere of these gatherings as “genial and agreeable with great freedom of conversation,” she was equally quick to mention that there “were certain formalities, however, which were never ignored; and the etiquette of foreign courts was observed with a nicety which we, of this later and more democratic generation, can scarcely comprehend.”

Two years after the house was completed, Beekman added the attached kitchen. But within a decade the idyllic life at Mount Pleasant was shattered by the American Revolution. As Washington retreated from the disastrous Battle of Brooklyn in 1776, he stopped at the mansion for a few hours and, from here, issued orders for the Continental Army to take up positions at Harlem. The General warned the Beekman family of the impending danger and prompted them to flee.

Rushing to evacuate before the British arrived, the family gathered their valuable household goods like the silver plate and flatware and stashed them in a secret closet built into an upstairs room. As Washington left, so did the Beekmans; unsure if they would ever see Mount Pleasant again.

The mansion was taken over as headquarters of General William Howe. Here in an upstairs bedroom John Andre slept before sneaking off to meet Benedict Arnold; the mission that would cost him his life.

Nearly a century later, D. T. Valentine's 1861 Manual depicted Andre in his room at Mount Pleasant -- NYPL Collection

Later, Nathan Hale was arrested in Huntington, Long Island and brought to Mount Pleasant on September 21, 1776. General Howe dispensed with a court martial, telling Hale that he would be executed in the morning. Howe gave the revolutionist the opportunity to write letters to his mother and sister.

Hale spent the night in one of the bedrooms and in the morning was executed and he was hanged from a butternut tree on the property. The provost-marshal, Captain Cunningham, refused him the services of a clergyman, denied his the use of a Bible, and while Hale watched he destroyed the letters the doomed man had written to his family.

In 1780 the English Governor Sir Henry Clinton turned the house over to Baroness Reidesel, the wife of the Major General of the Hessians who was being held prisoner at Saratoga. The Baroness wrote extensively of the estate, describing the beauties of the farm with its peaches, grapes and apricots, and of the renowned gardens and the well-appointed interiors. The home, she said “left nothing for a tenant to desire.”

Finally, in November 1783, the Beekmans returned to Mount Pleasant. Despite the many people who had used it, it was perfectly intact. Beekman and his wife rushed to the hidden upstairs closet where, to their delight, all their costly treasures were still untouched.

The irritated Beekman sent a rent bill to the British Government for the use of both Mount Pleasant and the city house.

In 1840 the house was in danger. As the city’s grid plan of streets and avenues inched northward, Mount Pleasant sat squarely in the course of 51st Street. There were no exceptions made for historic structures sitting in the path of progress.

Unwilling to see the old family home destroyed, the Beekmans spent several thousand dollars moving it a block to the south. A new foundation was created on a high rocky outcropping twenty feet above the sidewalk at 50th Street and 1st Avenue and the house was carefully moved. The extensive formal gardens were gone as were the orchards and greenhouse; but the unique structure was preserved.

The tall lower level was removed when the house was moved to 50th Street -- NYPL Collection

By the end of the Civil War the Beekmans no longer used Mount Pleasant. It was leased to a dentist, Dr. Morey, and his wife who accepted their positions as caretakers and historians with gusto. The Moreys, rare examples of historic preservationists at the time, spent considerable amounts of their own money in architectural forensics. They had the walls carefully scraped down so the original colors could be reproduced – cream and chocolate colors in the hall and library, for instance.

But history and architecture in 1874 could not compete with land values. The house high above 50th Street with its deteriorating picket fence stood in the way of urban development.

As the wrecking crew began demolishing Mount Pleasant on April 20, 1874, The New York Times remarked “The encroachments of modern progress have decreed its destruction and people have failed to realize the propriety of a country seat at Fifty-first street…For years the old house has stood in its isolated position, marking the advances of that tide of progress which has at last surrounded and overwhelmed it. There is now no Beekman country seat; it is among the things of the past. The destroyer commenced the work of its demolition…and the relics of its existence are shapeless and unrecognizable.”

The Dutch tiles from some of the mantels were removed and the drawing room was dismantled to be preserved by the New York Historical Society. And then the house that played so an integral part in the American Revolution was smashed to the ground.

The Times reporter lamented the loss of yet another historic New York property. “But its vicissitudes are now over; its career is ended; and having been connected with some stirring events in the history of the country, it is at length blotted out for ever.”

The Lost 1759 Yellis Hopper House - 2nd Avenue and 83rd Street

In 1860 the area around the Hopper house was still, mainly, rural; however it was being rapidly developed. -- NYPL Collection

 In the early years of the 19th century, the land north of the city, in what would become the Upper East and Upper West Sides, was bucolic farmland where grand country estates of the wealthy coexisted with long-established farms.   The landed gentry like Archibald Gracie and Alexander Hamilton built elegant Federal-style mansions while the simple homes of the farmers were, for the most part, Dutch colonial.

When Benjamin Waldron married his wife, Elizabeth, in 1736 he purchased the two lower lots of Hoorn’s Hook farm on the west side of Manhattan in what was called New Harlem.  The tiny farm ran approximately from what is today 83^rd to 84^th Street, and from 2^nd Avenue to 1^st Avenue. 

Waldron built a stone farmhouse on the land and established a tannery and shoe factory.  Characteristic of the Dutch colonial style, it had a low-pitched gambrel roof, curved to swing over a full-length porch.  Here the couple reared their seven children, John, Jacobus, Benjamin, Catalina, Elizabeth, Cornelia and Eve.

In the meantime another Dutch family, the Hoppes, were living on the western side of the island.  Eventually the name Hoppe became Hopper and in 1752 John Hopper built a home on Hopper’s Lane, later to become West 53^rd Street.   The house and farm were noted landmarks and upon Hopper’s death in 1819 the property was divided among his sons, the youngest of which was Yellis.

Yellis, however, never resided on the family land.  In 1859 he had married Bejamin Waldron’s daughter, Elizabeth and when Waldron died in 1782 he left his farm to Yellis and “Amma,” as she was known.   The farm, according to historian James Riker a century later, “was thence known as the Hopper Place.”

The Hoppers had five daughters in the farmstead, Mary, Elizabeth, Ceary, Amma and Deborah.  Yellis, whose name was sometimes spelled in documents as Yallis, eked a living farming his modest land until his death in 1827.  A tidy picket fence divided the Hopper property from the adjoining farms.

Soon after Hopper’s death, Amma sold the property to Henry P. Robertson for $800.  The deed was signed on March 3, 1828.  Robertson, however, allowed the farm to decline.    Two decades later court papers described the land as “vacant and unfenced.”  In 1848 the land was sold for unpaid taxes.

George W. Matsell took a 25-year lease on the property.  By now urban pioneers were arriving this far north.  The New York and Harlem Railroad had established a station at 86th Street in 1837 making the area accessible to New Yorkers who longed for a less congested neighborhood.

Matsell built five homes on the property; preserving, however, the venerable Hopper Place that sat quaintly like a dusty antique in a changing landscape.

On November 15, 1861 the property was sold again for unpaid taxes, but Matsell managed to obtain another lease, this time for 15 years.  Once the lease expired, the charming little farmhouse lost its protector.

In the second half of the 19^th Century, colonial houses were viewed with the same disinterest that Victorian homes received in the 1950’s.  They were interesting and curious, but not necessarily worthy of preservation.  The land on which the Hopper homestead sat had become very valuable as speculative property.

In 2011 a gargantuan high rise apartment house rose on the site of Yellis Hopper's farmhouse, eliminating the 19th Century tenements that had replaced it originally.  photo by Alice Lum

By 1881 not only were Matsell’s houses demolished, but so was Benjamin Waldron’s farmhouse.  In their place rows of brick tenements rose and all memories of the farm and stone house were soon erased.  

But in ever-changing New York City, even these were gone by 2011 when an architecturally uninteresting highrise apartment building took their place.

The Picturesque 1874 Manor Chapel -- 348 West 26th Street

By the second decade of the 19th Century Clement Moore’s family estate, Chelsea, had been criss-crossed with streets and avenues and portioned into plots of building sites. Above 23rd Street the developing neighborhood was called Chelsea Manor; a refined name for a gritty area.

In 1854 Mr. R. G. Pardee deemed it "a destitute field, the most neglected of any upon the island.” Twenty years later The New York Times would reminisce “How many inducements were held out to seduce the young to sin and misery. Vice sought no rest, but adapted itself to the characters of those whose destruction was sought. There were low dance-houses, gambling dens, drinking saloons, and palaces of infamy in their midst, whose emissaries were to be found on almost every street corner.”

Pardee had already established a reputation for his work in Sunday schools (or "Sabbath schools") and in the winter of 1854 he appealed to the Madison Square Presbyterian Church to establish a mission in the forsaken Chelsea Manor area.

A committee report supported Pardee’s petition and the upper floor of an old building at 9th Avenue and 25th Street was acquired and given the lofty name “Manor Hall.”  Madison Square Presbyterian, with help from South Reformed Dutch Church, dedicated the new school on Sunday, April 8, 1855 with its first class of 14 students.

The old building, which had settled an alarming several inches, was in bad shape.  But because it was the only available space and the $6 per month rent was affordable, it had to suffice.

On the ground floor was a saloon, gambling house and bowling alley. One of the school officials would later remember that the proprietor, named Butter, was “a stalwart, black-haired, black-eyed, rough man” and “was also the keeper of a sort of house of refuge for all sorts of bad men – burglars, bank-robbers, counterfeiters, and thieves. Here they fled for protection from the officers of the law; besides, on week days and nights our hall was used for pugilistic performances, dog fights, rat baits, low dances, etc.”

Butter however, “finally became a fast friend of the mission.”

Somehow the righteous work of the Sunday school teachers and the lesser exploits of the men below coexisted for decades.

The school subsisted on contributions from individuals and various religious institutions; however it was generally agreed among the officials not to ally the school with any single church.

By 1866, however, the offers from the South Reformed Church to adopt the mission and take over its financial worries, as well as to build a new chapel, were too much for the little school to ignore. On November 25 of that year the Manor Mission became an arm of the Reformed Church.

In the meantime, the school and mission had grown. The first year there were 80 children attending, the second year it rose to 145, then to 180, and in the fourth year it reached 200. Starting in 1857 regular monthly concerts were held.

The growth of the mission and the dilapidated condition of Manor Hall prompted the church to erect a new facility.  In 1873 land was acquired at 348 West 26th Street and a year later, on November 8, 1874, the charming new chapel and mission were dedicated.

Drawing on its Dutch roots, the church had its new building designed in a Flemish Revival style with S scrolls and curved-stepped gables. Rich brown terra cotta set off the beige brick of the multi-purpose building. The chapel was 25 by 100 feet, there were two large classrooms, infant rooms, a library and an apartment for a janitor. The building, costing $25,000, was totally paid for when completed. $20,000 had come from the South Reformed Church with the balance being covered by a fund raising fair. The South Reformed Sabbath School children paid for the three chapel windows with their own donations.

A rather optimistic New York Times acclaimed “The ‘Chelsea Manor’ district, in which the mission is situated, is largely German, and in years past was known as the most wicked and abandoned in the City, and the dedication of a handsome chapel to the worship of God in its midst will be hailed with gratitude by all interested in the progress of evangelization.”

By 1880 there were 1000 pupils at the school and in 1891 Scribner’s Magazine noted “The Manor Chapel Boys’ Club, at No. 348 West Twenty-sixth Street, has an average attendance of about fifty boys a night, and would have as many more if its rooms were larger.”

In 1914 the South Reform Church disbanded and the Manor Chapel and Mission was taken over by the Classis of New York – the governing body of pastors and elders of the Reformed churches.  Two years later the Classis purchased the property for $35,000.

The chapel was renamed Manor Reformed Church by the time the building held its Diamond Jubilee in 1931.

In 1961 construction of an enormous apartment complex of 10 buildings was initiated by the International Ladies’ Garment Workers Union, designed by Herman Jessor. Blocks of Victorian-era buildings from 9th Avenue to 8th Avenue, from 24th Street to 30th Street were demolished for the new structures and parks.

Suddenly the little Flemish building, now known as the Manor Community Church, sat essentially alone in a much-changed setting.

Manor Community Church continues to survive, its charming and picturesque structure mostly overlooked as it sits quietly tucked away on West 26th Street.

photographs taken by the author

A Dutch Colonial Survivor at 18 West 37th Street

Despite the commercial storefront on the lower levels, the unique house is surprisingly intact above.

In the1890s a rush of Dutch Colonial Revival buildings began appearing in Manhattan as architects drew on the city’s historical roots. On West End Avenue in 1891 construction began on the West End Collegiate Church, modeled after a butcher’s guildhall in Haarlem and, concurrently, McKim, Mead & White designed a series of residences in a similar style on the Upper West Side.

The contemporary West Side College Church was built in a similar style.

Around the same time the townhouse of Dr. John A. McCreery and his wife was built at No. 18 West 37th Street. Their five-story home was of the latest design. Clad in iron spot brick, it featured a tall stepped gable in front of a steep mansard roof. Terra cotta ornamentation included two panels of wreaths, tied with a bow, on either side of the fifth floor window, and a tall finial rising from the peak of the gable.

Intricate brickwork played out in courses at each floor and long, thin bricks fanned out on end to form pseudo-lintels over the windows as a thin, highly decorated terra cotta inset thrust up the center of each one.

On either side of the mansard, stepped gables finished off the roofline.

The eminent Dr. McCreery was a visiting doctor of Saint Vincent’s Hospital and a member of the University Club. Mrs. McCreery was active in both social and philanthropic endeavors; in 1895 offering the house as the “headquarters” of the Clothing Fund Association – a charity formed by well-to-do women to supply clothing to sick, poor children in the tenement districts.

While the 37th Street neighborhood remained exclusive, change was occurring a block away on Fifth Avenue. William Waldorf Astor’s brownstone mansion had been razed in 1890 to be replaced by the Waldorf Hotel; followed soon after by Caroline Astor’s famous residence next door. By 1897 the combined Waldorf and Astor Hotels spanned the entire block from 33rd to 34th Streets, initiating a gradual metamorphosis of the Avenue from one of millionaires’ mansions to commercial enterprise.

In 1898 the McCreery’s moved to 20 East 54th Street and rented the house to another physician, the wealthy Barnard MacKay and his family.

While living here the MacKays entertained sumptuously. On December 15, 1901 Mrs. Mackay gave a reception for debutante Mary Gansevoort Edwards. “The reception was a small one for debutantes and the young married set,” noted The Times.

The family included sons Archibald W. and Richard T., as well as the young Margaret Auchmuty Mackay, known in society as Meta. Later wealthy New York socialites would be shocked when George H. Morgan, the nephew of Pierpont Morgan, suddenly broke his engagement to Meta and married the daughter of a wealthy Japanese merchant.

In 1904 Dr. Mackay was killed when he was hit by a fire engine and a year later Mary Christina Mackay died.

By now the tone of the neighborhood had changed decidedly as business crept onto the side streets from the avenues. In August of 1908 August Miller owned the house when he granted a long term lease to William A. Pond & Co., a seller of music and musical instruments.

No. 18 West 37th Street would never again be the home of wealthy families and the site of glittering entertainments.

On May 15, 1922 the real estate firm of Price, Birkner & Johnston leased the entire building. In the meantime, the rowhouses along 37th Street gave way to massive loft and office buildings. Astonishingly, the house remained.

By the middle of the 20th Century a two-story commercial front had been slapped on the façade and the basement and parlor floors of the house were gutted for retail operations.

Today garish signs advertise a wholesale clothing store and where Mrs. McCreery once served tea from a silver tray a Korean barber shop does business.

But rising above, the upper three stories of the Dutch Colonial townhouse remain intact; a remarkable reminder of a gentile residential neighborhood on a now-gritty industrial street.

photographs taken by the author

The Quaint 1902 Bowdoin Stables -- 149 East 38th Street

In 1902 John W. Smyth sold the four-story house at 149 E. 38th Street to real estate developer and clothing executive William R. H. Martin. In announcing the sale, The New York Times mentioned that “The buyer will erect a private stable on the lot.”

And indeed he did.

In New York City at the turn of the century, it was not merely one’s good name that reflected his position. The social elite strove to outdo one another in the finest homes, the best entertainments, and even in the appearance of their carriage houses. Utilitarian structures like private stables made their own statements regarding the social status of their owners--resulting in mini chateaux and Renaissance palaces for horses.

Ralph Samuel Townsend received the commission for the proposed stable. The architect, who was best known for his apartment buildings and hotels, gave a whimsical nod to New York’s roots by designing a Flemish Revival brick structure with a stepped gable; each step supporting a swirling stone console bracket. Stone detailing stood out starkly from the brick façade. Townsend added two full-relief wreathed horses’ heads above the first floor cornice and a large sculpted bulldog’s head high above the street.

An ornate carved stone frame surrounded an oval window directly below the dog’s head, and behind the gable rose a tiled mansard roof.

Financier George S. Bowdoin, who lived nearby on Park Avenue near 36th Street, purchased the building in 1907 at a time when little-by-little motorcars were replacing horse-drawn vehicles. Bowdoin’s horses lived on the first floor while his coachmen lived upstairs. The banker’s elegant carriages lined up along one side.

A carved cherub peeks over the street number while above a stone cartouche announces the date of construction

Edith Bowdoin inherited the property when her father died in 1913. By now, however, it would seem that it was no longer being used as a carriage house. The 1909 Directory of the Breeders and Exhibitors of Dogs in the United States and Canada listed W. Cox as running his fox terrier breeding business from here.

In 1918 Edith Bowdoin had the horse paddocks removed and converted the lower portion of the building into a garage. After her death the property was sold to George Nichols who stored his four private vehicles in the garage portion while renting out the single family residence above.

In 1939 the building was tightly shuttered -- even the decorative oval window -- photo City University of New York

The unique, ornate building lived a hum-drum existence through most of the 20th century until it was gutted around 1984. The new owner, who paid $2 million for the structure, installed multiple skylights and created soaring spaces – some 20 feet high.  But after the renovation and just before he could move in, he married and moved to California. The 6,000 square foot residence with its sleek spiral staircase and open spaces was rented to Jane Nichols Page, the granddaughter of John Pierpont Morgan, Jr.

Then in 1997 Donald and Ruth Saff purchased the property for about $3.4 million. Where horses once munched hay the Saffs now hung artwork by Lichtenstein, Raschenberg and Nancy Graves.

The Saffs used No. 149 as their personal gallery/home/office until 2002 when it became The Gabarron Foundation’s Carriage House Center for the Arts. The non-profit association was founded that same year to promote “the cultural wealth and identify of both Spain and America,” and hosted exhibitions and lectures from the space.

The first floor where Bowdoin's horses once were stabled -- photo streeteasy.com

When the Carriage House Center for the Arts moved out in May 2011, the astounding building was on the market again, this time for $14 million.

photo streeteasy.com

Townsend’s flamboyant Dutch Renaissance carriage house, landmarked on June 17, 1997, is today a unique single-family home.

non-credited photographs taken by the author

West End Collegiate Church - West End Avenue and 77th Street

photo Alice Lum

In 1880 the Upper West Side was still sparsely-settled farmland. A decade later, however, the area was alive with new construction, pioneered by the 1884 Dakota Apartment building on Central Park West.

Most residents had to travel back downtown to attend church services while the neighborhoods were developing. In response, on October 16, 1890, the Consistory of the Collegiate Church formed a committee to search out a site for a new church and school. Three months later the committee had purchased, for $89,000, four residential-sized lots on West End Avenue and three adjoining lots on 77th Street.

Architect Robert W. Gibson, who was given the commission, veered far from the customary Gothic Revival or Romanesque churches expected on New York streets. Drawing from the city’s early heritage, the firm designed a charming Dutch Colonial structure with a stepped gable and Baroque finials.

The cornerstone of West End Collegiate Church was laid on October 24, 1891, at which time The New York Times predicted that “The new church and school will be one of the finest religious edifices in the city.” Designed to accommodate 750 worshippers, the newspaper went on to say that “The entrances will be by porches and vestibules, so arranged as to exclude draughts without making necessary the use of storm doors….The windows are large, with mullions suitable for stained glass. The roofs are steep, with gables and dormers much as in the Gothic style.”

Based on the 17th Century Vleeshal, a butcher’s guildhall, in Haarlem, it used “long, thin brick of a Roman pattern and brown in color, trimmed freely with quoins and blockings of buff terra-cotta,” as described in the church’s yearbook the next year. The congregation approved an additional $5,000 to use tiles rather than slate for the roof. The yearbook went on to say “Some very picturesque panels carved with the coats-of-arms of the church and of past benefactors are also in terra cotta.”

The interior would be as unconventional as the outside. “The church will have a gallery over the vestibules and porches, without any columns to interfere with the ground floor,” said The Times. “The roof is in open timber work of trusses supporting beams formed in panels. To the east of the church are the ladies’ parlors, chapel and school.”

photo NYPL Collection

Completed 1892, the church was dedicated on November 21 with an overflow crowd. Using words like “quaint” and “picturesque,” The Times gave a flowery description of the finished structure, “…and from its peaked roof there turns to the wind an ancient weathercock, which has ornamented the spires of several of the old churches, not long passed away, and which were once conspicuous buildings in the lower part of the city.”

The connected school building -- photo Alice Lum

West End Collegiate clung to its Dutch connections and during World War II established itself as a headquarters for aid to Dutch refugees and relief efforts. Twice during this period Princess Juliana of the Netherlands visited the church.

A fire in the sanctuary during the 1980s necessitated extensive restoration and reconstruction, headed by Hall Partnership Architects, LLP. and in 1999 another restoration was initiated, focused on the roof and terra cotta, by LZA Group.

The beautiful church and school were designated New York City landmarks in 1967, at which time the Landmarks Designation Commission said that “this group of buildings gives an aura of old world charm to the residential area in which it is located.”