The Lost Irving T. Bush Mansion -- No. 28 East 64th Street

Like an Elizabethan sore thumb, the new house starkly stood out between its Queen Anne neighbors -- 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=24UAYWNO1JL7&SMLS=1&RW=1280&RH=915

In 1881 developer and architect Theodore Weston began construction of four harmonious Queen Anne style residences stretching along East 64^th Street from the southwest corner of Madison Avenue towards Central Park.  The brick-and-brownstone mansions burst forth with the balconies, quirky dormers and turrets expected of the visually-entertaining style.

No. 28 had at least two owners before the turn of the century.  The Williams family was here in the 1880s and that of George Henry Warren was in the house in the 1890s.  The architectural harmony of Weston’s string of homes was about to come to an end when, on October 24, 1900, The New York Times reported that G. H. Warren had sold “to a Mr. Bush the four-story dwelling 28 East Sixty-fourth Street.”

The following day the mysterious Mr. Bush was identified as “Mr. G. A. Bush, who will occupy [the house] with his family."  In fact, both facts were wrong.  The buyer was Irving T. Bush and if he had any intentions at all of living in the Queen Anne mansion, they would be short-lived.

Irving T. Bush -- photograph Library of Congress

The 31-year old businessman was the son of wealthy industrialist and oil refinery owner Rufus T. Bush.  Like his father, Bush was an avid yachtsman and the two had circumnavigated the globe in 1888.  When Rufus Bush died two years later, leaving his wife and two sons an estate of about $2 million, Irving could have lived off his inheritance.  Instead, the 21-year old went to work for Standard Oil as a clerk.

The large bank account did not hurt, however.  In the mid-1890s Bush envisioned a gigantic warehouse, manufacturing and shipping complex on the site of his father’s Brooklyn oil refinery.  He constructed the Bush Terminal—the first industrial complex of its kind in New York and the largest multiple-tenant industrial park in the country.  It was his first personal business success.

The title to the 64^th Street property was not transferred until August 1901.  Bush put the mansion in his wife, Bella’s name, as was customary.  At the time of the transfer the New-York Tribune made note of the exclusive neighborhood.  In the corner mansion next door to the new Bush house, at No. 30, lived Seth Low, one of the city’s most recognized educators and politicians, and among its wealthiest.

If the Bush family lived in No. 28 at all, they had packed up by Christmas 1904 and were living at their Lakewood, New Jersey estate.  On December 24 that year the Real Estate Record & Builders’ Guide announced that the architectural firm of Kirby, Petit & Green was at work on plans for a 6-story dwelling costing $60,000 (about $1.5 million today).  The Guidehinted at the appearance, describing “a brick and terra cotta front, metal and glass skylights, tin roof, elevator, terra cotta cornices and coping, steam heat, electric light, etc.”  The out-of-date Queen Anne mansion was demolished and in its place rose an Edwardian dream home. 

Victorian houses obsessed with the damaging effects of sunlight on expensive textiles and artwork.  Interior shutters, window blinds and heavy velvet hangings shut out the direct rays of the sun, creating what must have been dusk-like interiors.  By now, however, doctors stressed fresh air and sunlight as the two major components of a healthful environment and the trend carried over into residential architecture.  The new Bush mansion was as much glass as it was masonry.

The architects drew heavily on Elizabethan country house designs, lining the brick façade with limestone quoins and clustering windows.  The deeply recessed entranceway sat behind four large stone columns on a porch just above the sidewalk.  Inside there were seven bedrooms and baths (three fewer than the number of servants bedrooms), a conservatory that extended to the rear, a 24 by 22 foot library, and an elevator.

The house was put on the market in 1908 (New-York Tribune, October 28, 1908 copyright expired)

For some unknown reason the mansion was put on the market in 1908 with the architects as brokers.  A sale never materialized, however, and the Bush family stayed on.  Irving and Bella maintained the expected routine of wealthy New Yorkers and in February 1915 newspapers noted they were spending the winter season in Pinehurst, North Carolina.  A month earlier they had announced the engagement of Bella’s daughter, Rose Howard Bush, to Arthur Tucker Ellsworth.  Rose had taken the Bush name when her widowed mother married Irving.

By now Europe was embroiled in world war and New York debutantes were volunteering for war relief work.  Rose’s sister, Maud, worked with the Red Cross and related causes as the United States was pulled into the conflict.  And like many other society girls doing such work, she fell in love with a dashing (and wealthy) military man.  On December 26, 1919 Irving and Bella announced Maud’s engagement to Ensign Arthur Lincoln McElroy. 

Irving T. Bush retained ownership of the house on East 64^thStreet; but he and Bella moved on.  By early 1921 he had converted the mansion to apartments with a gallery space at street level.  On March 20 that year the New-York Tribune reported “There is a new gallery to be added to the already long list in the city, the Mesnard gallery, at 28 East Sixty-fourth Street.  It makes a creditable start, with American paintings among which good examples of Emil Carlsen, Childe Hassam and the late William M. Chase are conspicuous.” 

Irving Bush sold the house in 1927 to Roland Moore who intended to move his Chinese antiques business into the mansion.  But after owning the property for a year, he decided to remain at his East 57^th Street location.  When he sold No. 28 to Halsey & Flint in September 1928, the new owners already controlled the adjoining property at the corner of Madison Avenue.

The end of the line for the Irving T. Bush house was on the horizon.  In 1932 construction began on architect Morrell Smith’s neo-Georgian Bank of the Manhattan Company building, which survives today.  The last slice of Theodore Weston’s 1882 Queen Anne row remains at No. 26—Bush’s former next door neighbor—sadly altered and out of context.

A handsome bank structure replaces both  the Bush mansion and the corner house.  No. 26, the last slice of Theodore Weston's row still stands.  (photo by the author)

The Emanuel Libman House -- No. 180 East 64th Street

Jonas Langfeld’s brownstone clad house at No. 180 East 64^thStreet was different from the rest of the homes on the block.  His, like the others, was three stories tall over an English basement and featured a tall stone stoop.  But Langfeld’s, completed in 1879, broke the flat-faced mold.  The architect had increased the living space of the somewhat narrow home by jutting two of the three bays out to the property line.  The result was a crooked and charming footprint and interiors awash with sunlight.

Langfeld, like his neighbors, was financially comfortable; the owner of a pocketbook factory.  The New York Times described him on February 27, 1886 as he was considered for jury duty in a murder trial.  “Mr. Langfeld has a high, bald forehead, small, dark side whiskers, and a small mustache.  He said he was a Pennsylvania German, was in the pocketbook trade, had a factory in Philadelphia, an office at No. 336 Broadway, and a residence at No. 180 East Sixty-fourth-street.”

Three years after Langfeld served his jury duty the house was sold to Fajbush Libman, a successful picture framer who had emigrated from Poland in 1865.  Libman and his wife, Hulda Spivak Libman, had 11 children, two of which died in childhood.  He was determined that his children would be raised in intellectual atmosphere.  According to a relative later, each night after dinner they were required to take a role in a classic work like a Shakespearean play.

Among those reciting Shakespeare in the dining room was Emanuel Libman—somewhere in the middle of his siblings age-wise.  The boy would study at the College of Physicians and Surgeons and do post-graduate work in Berlin, Vienna, Prague and Munich.  Back in New York he became Professor of Clinical Medical at Mount Sinai Hospital in 1900.

Hulda Libman died in 1904 and the following year Fajbush retired and moved to an apartment in the Hotel Breakers in Atlantic City.  Emanuel kept the family home which included his father’s classical library; sharing it with his unmarried sister, Esther, who kept house.  Around the time that their father left, another man appeared on the scene. 

Esther had attended Hunter College and held a teaching degree.  Now, at the age of 27, she was wooed by a 37-year old successful businessman of Austro-Hungarian descent.  When he applied to the family to marry Esther, he was flatly told that he could do so only if they would remain in the 64^th Street house.  They did.

Now a household of three, they maintained a staff of three most of the time.  There was a cook, a maid and a chauffeur.  Life in the house with Dr. Libman was apparently not normal.  Highly esteemed and remarkably adept at his medical practice, he was reclusive in his own home.  One of Esther’s twin sons who grew up in the house later reported that Libman took his meals in his bedroom and never socialized with the family.  Guests of the doctor would be taken to his office or his bedroom—never the living room.  Libman played the piano, but according to his nephew would do so only when no one was around.

Despite his idiosyncrasies at home, Libman was tremendously successful professionally.  His patients included Dr. Albert Einstein, Lord Northcliffe, Dr. Hideyo Noguchi, Sarah Bernhardt, and Dr. Chaim Weixmann.  His motivation was medical rather than financial and he never garnered the fortune his fame and reputation could have afforded.  The Canadian Jewish Review would remark “Dr. Libman did much charity work particularly in hospital clinics, and his charge to his wealthy patients were moderate, so that it was reported that he never earned more than $50,000 in a single year, although he could have amassed much more money had he so desired.”

Dr. Libman made the cover of Time magazine on June 10, 1935

Libman had an uncanny—some said “sixth sense”—ability to diagnose disease.  He often said he could “smell” certain diseases.  While watching a motion picture he might lean to his companion to say that the movie star was “working up to pernicious anemia;” and once while looking at an old master painting of a mother and child in the mansion of a friend he muttered, “rickets.”

Perhaps his most famous off-the-cuff diagnosis happened in 1923 when he was invited to the Harding White House for dinner.  The following morning he called a protege and said “Who is the Vice-President?  Because whoever he is, within six months he will be President.  The President has a disease of the coronary arteries.”  On August 2, 1923 Warren G. Harding suddenly collapsed and died.   His Vice-President, Calvin Coolidge became President as Libman had predicted.

Emanuel Libman never married.  According to his prominent psychiatrist nephew George L. Engel in a 1985 interview, Libman was doubtlessly a homosexual, as was the chauffeur.  In the first half of the 20^th century the discovery of a prominent physician’s homosexuality would have devastated his career.  It is possibly this strain of needing to repress his natural inclinations that resulted in the doctor’s reclusive and authoritarian behavior at home.

Esther Engel’s husband died in 1928.  She and her famous brother continued to live in the East 64^th Street house together.  Libman sloughed off any acclaim for his continuous philanthropies saying “Most people do nothing and so when one does something, most people think he is doing a great deal.”

His charitable work did not always involve merely money.  When Hitler rose to power he threw himself into helping expatriated German physicians.  In 1939 he worked arduously to find positions for exiled German doctors throughout the world. 

Within four years Emanuel Libman’s glorious career would begin unraveling.  In 1943 he suffered a stroke while attending a cardiology conference in Mexico City.  When he was met by family members in St. Louis the formerly fastidious and brilliant man was suddenly confused, disheveled and unable to see on the left side.  Back in New York he attempted to continue his practice, but understandably it fell off.

In the spring of 1946, in typical fashion, Libman diagnosed himself.  “In about six or seven weeks, I will be dead of a coronary thrombosis, a cerebral thrombosis, or a mesenteric thrombosis.”  Doctors dismissed his prediction.

A few weeks later he was operated on for appendicitis, after which Libman complained “These damn fools!  They operated on an old man for appendicitis.  They should know that it was mesenteric thrombosis.”  The doctors—some of whom had been students of Libman—humored him and went on with the post-surgery regime.  Five days later Libman was dying.  Dr. Robert Loeb, Chairman of Medicine at Columbia arrived and examined him.  He diagnosed mesenteric thrombosis.  Libman died the following day.

Emanuel Libman’s will stipulated that the house on East 64^thStreet be sold within two years of his death.  The house with the quirky angles became apartments in the second half of the 20^th century.  Then, in 1997, the new owner, Austrian developer Peter Cervinka commissioned Scarano Architects to do what the firm called “the gut renovation of 180 East 64^thstreet” that “converted a four-family brownstone into a single-family ‘mini-mansion.’”

A three-year renovation resulted in a 6,000 square foot residence attempting on the outside to be a miniature royal palace and on the inside a Parisian maison.  Behind the somewhat self-important gates the stuccoed façade is ornamented with pseudo-royal symbols and over-the-top decoration.  The New York Observer called it “Viennese elegance.”

It was the sort of house—with its 8-person Jacuzzi--that attracted Mike Tyson to put a bid on it in 2002.  At the time the newly-renovated property was listed at $10.75 million.  But not everyone was as enthusiastic.  One real estate broker remarked to the New York Observer “It is not in the New York spirit.  Of course, if somebody wants to have a little Versailles in New York, you might go for that.”

The formerly-unpretentious home now has its own set of palace gates.

There is no trace left of Dr. Emanuel Libman’s brownstone that prompted The New Yorker’s S. N. Behrman to say on April 8, 1939, “The Doctor is proud of the antiquity of his house; he will seize you by the arm, take you to the front windows on the fourth floor, and make you look back through the hall and his study to the windows facing on the garden.  The line is not true.  The house curves somewhere along its middle, and this architectural eccentricity Dr. Libman cherishes.”  

It remains, however, an architectural eccentricity, sure to catch the eye of the casual passerby on East 64^thStreet.

Royal symbols surmount a third floor window.

photographs taken by the author

The 1903 R. D. Graham House -- No. 163 East 64th Street

In the decade following the end of the Civil War the Upper East Side experienced a flurry of building activity.   Streets and avenues that dissected the former farmland and country estates were quickly lined with speculative brownstone homes.   The 64^th Street block between Lexington and Third Avenues was one such example.  Before 1880 it had filled with nearly-identical high-stooped brownstone residences intended for merchant class families—among them was No. 163 East 64^th Street.

Most likely the first owner was the unmarried Sarah Breese.   The Breese name was well-known in New York social circles; but if Sarah was related to that branch, her financial status was less impressive.  She was living in the house in 1875 while teaching in the Girls’ Department of Grammar School No. 53 on 79^th Street near Third Avenue.   The devoted teacher was still unmarried in 1896 when she was appointed Principal of that department.

Within a few years C. A. Bustin and his wife Esther lived here.   Bustin was a designer of ships and while living here he patented the design of a two-keeled steamship.  The side-by-side keels were designed to keep the vessel from rolling.  No vacuous social butterfly, Esther was the sole director of S. Broadbent & Co. in 1902.

By now change was coming to the Upper East Side.  The upscale tone of Fifth and Madison Avenues had spilled across Park Avenue.  One by one wealthy New Yorkers purchased out-of-style brownstones and either razed or remodeled them.   As was common at the time, the Bustin house was in Esther’s name and on March 19, 1902 she sold it to Edith S. Graham.

Edith was the wife of architect Robert D. Graham, who was known professionally by his first initials.  Graham was a partner in the firm of Foster, Gade & Graham; architects who had already begun making a mark on the Upper East Side with an up-and-coming residential style—Neo-Georgian.   By the end of World War I they would design a number of upscale homes in the area clad in red brick with limestone or marble trim that harkened to the city’s Colonial days.

Four months after the purchase the wheels were already in motion to update the Victorian house.  On July 26, 1902 the Real Estate Record & Builders’ Guide reported that John K. Turton had received the general contract “for exterior and interior alterations” to No. 163.  The all-inclusive contract included “mason work, plumbing, plastering, heating, carpentering, etc.”  The estimated cost of the renovations was set at $12,000—about $325,000 today.

 

The diamond-pattern brickwork is evident in this Wurts Bros. photograph of the newly-completed structure -- photo from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York http://collections.mcny.org/Collection/163-East-64th-Street.-R.D.-Graham-house.-2F3XC5UA3B.html

The completed home following the general lines of other Neo-Georgian homes being erected at the time.  Graham replaced the English basement with a rusticated limestone base.  The main doorway was adorned with a triple keystone, distinguishing itself from the lesser service entrance.  Above, three stories of red brick laid in a tapestry-like diamond pattern were enhanced with limestone details.  French windows at the 2^nd floor were guarded by cast iron window boxes.  A shallow, metal-encased mansard capped the stately home.

A few years later architectural critic Montgomery Schuyler would comment on the trend, saying it was “what might fairly be called a new type in local domestic architecture.  It was, in essentials, a reversion to an old type, the New York house of the first quarter of the nineteenth century, as being more suitable to the needs and notions of the modern New Yorker than any manner of building which had followed it.”  He fervently applauded the passing the brownstone era, noting its “monotony.”

Montgomery Schuyler used the house (lower right) as an example of Old New York style architecture cropping up around the city.  Architectural Record, December 1911 (copyright expired)

The Graham house would be one of the first to be renovated on the block.   There were ten people in the household—the three Grahams and a staff of seven.    The family would live in the 64^thStreet house with little attention.  They leased it for the winter season of 1913-14 to the immensely wealthy financier Grafton Howland Pyne and his wife, the former Mary Van Pelt. 

At some point the house became home to Annie E. King.  Unmarried and wealthy, she was born in Newport and was perhaps better known in social circles there than in New York.   In 1923 the 77-year old Annie sold the house for $80,000, over $1 million today.

Wealth was the only common denominator between the new owner and his two predecessors.  Irving Blumenthal's fortune was made in the meat business.  His grandfather, Wolf Blumenthal, had founded the United Dressed Beef Company in the mid-19^th century.  While Irving’s father, Isaac, was the head of the firm, it had became affiliated with Swift & Co.  By the time he purchased the 64^thStreet house, Irving was Treasurer of the company and before long would take on the position of President.

Irving and his wife, Clarice Altmayer Blumenthal, had a daughter, Suzanne, and a son Thomas.   Although his business was less glamorous than that of bankers, attorneys or captains of industry, Irving was a keen collector of art and he spent his leisure time painting oils and water colors.

The couple entertained lavishly, as well.  On October 30, 1928 they hosted a dinner-dance in the Crystal Room of the Ritz-Carlton.  The New York Times reported that it would be “in the manner of an Italian fiesta.”

Given Irving’s artistic proclivities, he and Clarice were probably pleased to announce Suzanne’s engagement to Claude Domec in May 1942.  The French artist had studied in the Lycee Louis-le-Grand in Paris.

Before long Irving’s health gave out.  He suffered an extended illness, finally dieing in the house on East 64^th Street on the night of March 13, 1946.  He was 67 years old.

Unlike many turn-of-the-century homes in the neighborhood, No. 163 survived throughout the 20^th century as a single-family residence.  In the 1970s it was home to Robert H. Ellsworth, an antiques dealer.  Ellsworth left the house around 11 p.m. on Friday night, May 13, 1977 for the weekend.   When he returned around 5:00 on Monday afternoon, he discovered burglars had been at work.

The collector told police that around half a million dollars in Oriental art were missing from the house—including paintings and other objects.   His extended absence gave them the time to break into a vault within the townhouse.

It was possibly too much for Ellsworth to take; in any event he sold the house that year for $650,000.  It was the first of a string of rapid turnovers and price jumps.  In 1980 it sold again, this time for $2.5 million; and again two years later for $4 million.   Commercial broker Kenneth Laub purchased the house in 1986 for the same amount.  He initiated extensive renovations; a few of which might had curdled the blood of R. D. Graham.

Colorful rooms replaced Graham's 1903 Georgian interiors.  http://streeteasy.com/sale/623925-townhouse-163-east-64th-street-lenox-hill-new-york

Laub installed a bar with a blue stone top in the living room and embellished other spaces with painted French panels and dripping crystal chandeliers—the antithesis of the home’s 18^th century architectural style.

In 2008 he put the 20-foot wide house on the market for a staggering $35 million.  With no bites, he reduced the price in 2011 to $29.95 million.   In 2013 it was relisted for $27.5 million.   

Understandable windows have been punched into the mansard and the second floor balconies have been reduced to window guards; but the overall design remains beautifully intact.

Despite the well-intentioned but unfortunate renovations inside, Graham’s pristine design survives outside; a fine example of the architectural trend Montgomery Schuyler referred to as “Old New York.”

non credited photographs taken by the author

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.)