The 1909 D. H. Morris House -- No. 19 East 70th Street

photo by Alice Lum

Young Alice Vanderbilt Shepard could claim one of the most enviable pedigrees of New York Society.  Her mother, Margaret Louisa Vanderbilt was the daughter of William Henry Vanderbilt and the brother of Cornelius Vanderbilt II.  Her father, ultra-conservative millionaire attorney Elliot Fitch Shepard, founded the New York State Bar Association and owned and edited the New York newspaper Mail and Express.

The girl had a sweet disposition and angelic face—yet she sometimes exhibited a spirit unbecoming to a well-bred society girl; especially a Vanderbilt.  While climbing a tree--the type of tom-boyish act strictly prohibited by her stern father--Alice fell and fractured her thoracic spine.  Reportedly Elliot F. Shepard refused to summon a doctor in order to punish the girl for her disobedience.

She would spend the rest of her life slightly deformed by scoliosis.  Her “delicate constitution” was forever after a consideration; she wore a brace for several hours a day; and spent hours reclining on a sofa.  As she entered her teen years, Alice’s beauty increased.   Having met the girl, Oscar Wilde supposedly asserted there were but three destinations worthy of a traveler’s attention in the United States:  Niagara Falls, the Grand Canyon, and Alice Shepard.

Sargent painted Margaret Shepard in 1888 -- San Antonio Museum of Art

 Near-life sized portraits of wealthy socialites were obligatory in the Victorian drawing rooms of Fifth Avenue.  In 1888 Shepard commissioned the famed John Singer Sargent to paint Margaret.  As the sittings progressed, Sargent was taken with the ethereal beauty of 14-year old Alice who sometimes appeared in the room.  He was met with resistance when he requested permission to paint her; and Margaret agreed only when she was assured that the sittings would be short and not taxing on Alice’s fragile condition.

Sargent's portrait of 14-year old Alice was completed the same year -- photo Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth Texas

The resulting portrait, also completed in 1888, is one of Sargent’s masterworks.

Society saw little of Alice after her debut.  The New York Times would latter mention that she had “not appeared much in society” and instead “devoted her attention, rather, to charitable and religious matters.”  That would change in the summer of 1894.

A year earlier, on March 24, 1893, Elliott F. Shepard was being prepared for a gall bladder operation.  As the doctors administered ether, the patient reacted badly.  “At the first inhalations dangerous symptoms were produced and the inhalations were immediately discontinued,” reported the Rock Island Daily Argus the following day.

Margaret and the two youngest Shepard girls had been nudged off to the summer estate at Scarboro-on-the-Hudson during the procedure.  They were now urgently called back home to the mansion at No. 2 West 52^nd Street.  Elliot Shepard died around 4:20 p.m., well before they made it home.

Now, in 1894, Margaret and the stunningly beautiful 20-year old Alice were aboard the Majestic, heading to Europe.   Also aboard was Dave Morris (The Times would clarify for readers later, “he was christened Dave, not David”); a 23-year old medical student who ran a horse racing stable with his brother.   Morris was struck by Alice and readily brushed off her slight disability.

Morris was, however, not a fitting suitor for a Vanderbilt girl.   Bumping into one another aboard ship was not a proper social introduction; and the bulk of his not-insignificant fortune came from gambling.   The Times said “Mrs. Shepard did not view [the relationship] kindly.  She thought that her daughter should not marry Mr. Morris because he owned raced horses, and because his father had owned them.”

Nevertheless, despite the unconcealed and vocal disapproval of Margaret Louise Vanderbilt Shepard, the romance flowered.  On June 21, 1895 The New York Times printed the socially-shocking story of the Morris-Shepard wedding.  The headline read “Mrs. Shepard Not There.  She Opposed the Marriage of Her Daughter to a Horse Man.  None of the Vanderbilts Present.”

Headstrong Alice had, for all intents and purposes, eloped.  Her marriage was not in one of the fashionable society churches; but in The Church of the Transfiguration—known popularly as the Little Church Around the Corner where marriages of theater types often were conducted.

The article said “Mrs. Shepard knew that the wedding was to take place, but she refused to give her consent to it or to be present.

“No member of Miss Shepard’s family was a witness of the ceremony.  The Vanderbilts were all absent, although they knew of the engagement of the young people and the time of the wedding.”  Only six guests were present; one of which, a witness, was Rosina Kelly, the maid to Dave Hennen Morris’s sister.

The rift between mother and daughter would soon heal and by 1909 there was no discord among the family.  That year Dave, by now a distinguished attorney, purchased the lot at No. 19 East 70^th Street; part of the newly-available land where the former Lenox Library had stood facing Fifth Avenue.   Dave and Alice once again tossed off social expectations.  Rather than hiring one of the prominent mansion architects, they went to the lesser-known Thornton Chard.

A captivating juliette balcony graces the understated facade -- photo by Alice Lum

Chard produced an elegant Italian Renaissance-style palazzo that was as charming as it was impressive.  A roomy 30-feet wide, it was distinguished by the deep, arcaded loggia at street level.  Above each arch was a sets of French doors, opening onto a wide stone balcony directly above.   Above the quietly simple façade a projecting roof cornice rested on foliate brackets.

Inside were 30 rooms, eight baths and two elevators.  Like the façade, the interior décor was understated and relatively simple.   The Times called it a “unique” residence.

The Morris dining room in 1915 was understated -- Architectural Record, January 1915 (copyright expired)

The Morrises’ disregard of the expectations of society would continue throughout their lives.  The couple would have five children—Dave, Lawrence, Noel, Emily and Alice—and would entrench themselves in pioneering works.   Alice had been for years interested in the concept of a neutral auxiliary language that could ease communication among diverse cultural groups.  In 1924 she and Dave would found the International Auxiliary Language Association.

Unlike the Victorian mansions in which she grew up, Alice Morris' reception room was cozy and welcoming -- Architectural Record, January 1915 (copyright expired)

But in the meantime, there were other less lofty issues to address.  In the spring of 1913 the high-toned neighbors on East 70^th Street were suspicious of a group of “boys who find a fascination at night in loitering near the Frick home, now under construction,” said The New York Times.  Suspicions grew to anger when severe vandalism to the mansions erupted.

One of neighbors, William Truslow Hyde, awoke to find disturbing damage.   On May 7 The Timessaid “Mr. Hyde’s steps were enriched by railings of finely wrought bronze until these were ripped away the other night and pieces of stone coping with them.  The thief can realize little compared with the damage done by his work.  Other houses have been similarly treated.”  Among the houses “wronged” was the Morris mansion.

The house would be the scene of the debutante dances and dinners for the Morris daughters through the years; however entertainments would more often involve the International Auxiliary Language Associate, and the World Service Council of the Young Women’s Christian Association, of which Alice was Vice President.

The Morris’s youngest son Noel was a quiet, studious boy who immersed himself in books on philosophy.   At 24 years old, he had graduated from Antioch College in Ohio and was studying at the Russell Sage School of Social Research in 1928.  He enjoyed a private apartment in the mansion which he filled with his philosophy books.

On the night of October 31 that year, he left the house, had dinner alone at the exclusive Union Club, then attended the Metropolitan Opera’s performance of “Tannhauser.”  The melancholy mood of the opera apparently affected the young man deeply.

He returned home, went to bed, but arose sometime deep in the night.  Noel Morris inserted a sheet of paper into his typewriter and wrote a note which he slipped into the last page of his diary.  Dated Oct. 31 it read “Tannhauser wasn’t brave enough to stick it out, but I have the courage to do it.  This is the closing entry.”

Noel locked the door to his suite, then locked the bathroom door behind him.  Standing before the mirror he put a gun into his mouth and pulled the trigger.

Two weeks later the troubled youth’s will was read.  He bequeathed his estate of $10,000 to his parents.

The following year happier press would come to the mansion on East 70^th Street when daughter Emily’s engagement to Hamilton Hadley was announced.  The restored social standing of Alice and Dave Morris was reflected in the society page.  While earlier the couple had been left off the lists of “prominent” guests to weddings and dinners; now The New York Timesnoted that Emily’s engagement “is of wide interesting owing to the prominence of both families.”

Dave was good friends with a local politician—Franklin Delano Roosevelt--and in 1931 was one of a small group who managed the campaign leading to his nomination for President.   The friendship resulted in Morris’s being named Ambassador to Belgium in May 1933.  A proficient violinist, Dave H. Morris stepped off the airplane in Belgium carrying his violin case—something that did not go unnoticed by the local press.

A Belgium newspaper wrote “We like diplomats who are artists, for we feel that artists will understand us better and act accordingly.”  Indeed Morris “understood” the Belgians and his four-year term was highly regarded.

After he stepped down from the post in 1937, he continued his interest in the country.  He was a director of the Belgium-American Educational Foundation, president of the Belgium War Relief Society and head of the Belgium American Associates.  It was a connection that would bring royalty to No. 19 East 70^th Street in 1940.

The Nazis had overrun Luxembourg and its royal family arrived in New York on October 4 after being separated for months.  The following day the Grand Duchess Charlotte held a news conference from the parlor of the Morris mansion.  In part she told reporters “Under these circumstances, you will understand that although it is for me a great joy to see, after a long separation, my husband and my children, there is no happiness in my heart, nor will there be any wherever I may be, until my beloved people are free again.”

On May 4, 1944, at the age of 72, Dave Hennen Morris died in the house on East 70^th Street after a long illness.  The man whom Margaret Vanderbilt Shepard had felt unsuited to marry her daughter had risen to political heights, held directorates in several corporations, and was a leader in educational organizations.  He had been president of the New York Medical College and Hospital for Women; Chairman of the executive committee of the New York Orthopedic Dispensary and Hospital; Vice President of New York Post-Graduate Medical School and Hospital; Director of the American Bureau for Medical Aid to China; and a host of other positions and titles.

Four years later Alice Shepard Morris sold the mansion she and her husband had built four decades earlier.  The house was converted to offices in 1952 and one of them was leased by attorney Louis D. Frohlich.

Among Frohlich’s clients was underworld boss Thomas Luchese, known as Three Finger Brown.  On November 28 of that year Luchese sat in his lawyer’s office where he surrendered to F.B.I. agents.  In reporting the incident, The Times was not overly-sympathetic with the mobster.  “After the agents left, Mr. Frohlich issued over Luchese’s signature a lengthy legalistically worded statement that seemed quite out of character for the underworld boss who seldom tries more than one syllable at a time.”

The Morris music room in 1915 (top) and today. -- vintage photograph Architectural Record, January 1915 (copyright expired) contemporary view http://ny.curbed.com/archives/2013/08/23/old_upper_east_side_gallery_sells_to_major_london_developer.php#more

In 1973 the mansion was converted to a “commercial gallery,” and for decades would be the home of the well-known Knoedler Art Gallery.    Then, in 2013, developer Christian Candy purchased the home for $35 million, with plans to reconvert it to a single family home.

photo by Alice Lum

The Richard Stevens House -- No. 171 East 70th Street

photo by Nicolas Lemery Nantel / salokin.com

In 1871 development on the Upper East Side was rampant.  The official completion of Central Park was just two years away (as was, on a less positive note, the great Financial Panic of 1873).  Investors and developers funneled their funds into the erection of speculative rows of brownstone homes aimed at the upper middle-class.  Among them was Thomas Smith who commissioned William O’Gorman to design six houses on East 70^th Street, Nos. 165 through 171 that year.

Three stories high over an English basement, the Italianate houses would have been little different from scores of other such homes rising in the neighborhood.  The house at No. 171 became home to the Thomas Thorpe family by the last decade of the century.  Thorpe and his wife Mary took their several children each summer to Patchogue, Long Island.  They were an accident-prone brood.

In 1896 one of the boys was nearly drowned while swimming in the Patchogue Bay.  The following season his brother “while riding a bicycle, was run down by a stage and nearly killed,” as reported by The Sun.  And on July 4, 1898 8-year old Mary Thorpe was celebrating Independence Day with fireworks.  The Sun reported the following day “In lighting a pinwheel a flying spark ignited her dress.”  The newspaper said that she was severely burned; although Dr. T. S. Divors “does not think [the wounds] will result fatally.”

The Thorpes stayed on through the turn of the century, at one point purchasing No. 169 next door, presumably as rental income.  Both properties were in Mary’s name.  But then in 1906 the change that was sweeping over the Upper East Side in general was magnified on the East 70th Street

Joseph L. Buttenweiser had demolished Nos. 154 and 156 with the intention of building a sanitarium.  The iron framework had already been erected when the project came to a halt.  With Manhattan’s wealthiest citizens building in the area, property values here were more suited for upscale homes.  In February 1906 Harry H. Hollister and Henry D. Babcock purchased the property to “remodel the iron frame and improve the plot with private houses,” said The Sun on February 6.

The entire block was about to get a make-over.  Within the same week Babcock’s son purchased No. 158, Hollister’s son-in-law purchased No. 160, and Hollister purchased No. 162.  “These three dwellings will be modernized and occupied by the purchasers,” said The Sun.

“In view of the radical change taking place in the character of the block, Please & Elliman have formed a syndicate which has purchased the remaining parcels that were for sale in the block.”  The syndicate then sold off the houses for the owners.  Those sales included Nos. 176, 155, 157, 159, 173, 175, and the two houses owned by the Thorpes—Nos. 169 and 171.

Robert H. E. Elliott purchased both of the Thorpe homes, according to The Sun.  Elliott apparently had no intentions of moving in to No. 171, for within three days he resold it.  No. 179 down the block sold on the same day.

Richard T. Stevens and his wife Georgiana purchased No. 171.  The couple was rarely in town for the winter season and the house was repeatedly leased.  In 1909 Edward Powis Jones took the house.  He was a partner in the Sperry Gyroscope Company.  Jones would be one of the last renters in the old brownstone.  Within two years the Stevens commissioned George B. de Gersdroff to update their Victorian dwelling.

As was happening throughout the area, the architect removed the brownstone façade, moved the entrance to the sidewalk level, and created an updated Edwardian residence.  Following the lead of Augustus N. Allen who had remodeled the house next door at No. 169 in 1910; de Gersdroff turned to the neo-Federal style.

Completed in 1911, the Stevens house gave the first impression as having been built as a pair with its neighbor.  Both had rusticated brick bases, iron-railed balconies at the second floor, and centered three-part openings at the three upper stories.  The similarities continued with the large centered dormers above the cornices.

photo by Nicolas Lemery Nantel / salokin.com

The Stevens continued to lease the house and in 1913 it was taken by Robert L. Livingston.  A member of the influential and wealthy Livingstons “of Revolutionary stock,” as described by The Evening World, Robert had had his share of misfortune.  On December 21, 1902 he had married Helen L. Kountze, “much courted for her good looks and charming manner,” according to The Evening World.

The newlyweds received a “colonial villa” in Morristown, New Jersey as a wedding present from Robert Livingston, Sr.  A year later his lovely Helen Kountze suddenly died at the home of her parents.

Now joining him in the 70th Street house in 1913 was his relatively new bride.  Livingston had married Marie Sheedy in February 1911.  The Evening World called her the “richest girl in Denver.”

The Stevens continued to rent the house in the years to come.  In 1919 they signed a lease “for a matter of years” according to The Sun.  Their new tenants were Duncan D. Stuphen, his wife Jane, and her widowed mother Eleanor Kevan Fraser.

Sutphen was a member of the textile firm A. D. Juilliard & Co.  The year 1919 would be a highly traumatic and tragic one for the businessman.  Suddenly on Tuesday morning February 11 Eleanor Fraser died in the house.   Her funeral was held in the parlor three days later, on Valentine’s Day, at 10 a.m.

Duncan Sutphen would attend another funeral in April—that of his employer, millionaire Augustus D. Juilliard.  But even more tragically, the following month, on May 24, his wife, Jane, died in the 70^th Street house.  In a morbid case of déjà vu, her funeral was held here on Tuesday morning, May 27 at 10:30.

photo by Nicolas Lemery Nantel / salokin.com

The Stevens continued to hold on to the property and it saw a succession of wealthy tenants.  On June 22, 1921 The New York Times reported that “Mr. and Mrs. Frederick L. Collins have taken Mrs. Richard T. Stevens’s house at 171 East Seventieth Street for their residence.”  Collins was the publisher and president of McClure’s magazine.

Following the Collins family, that of Dr. Hugh Auchincloss would be long-term residents.  The family summered in Kennebunkport and the East 70^th Street home would be the scene of many social events throughout the years. 

On November 26, 1927 a dinner was given in honor of daughter Frances, followed by a debutante ball at the Colony Club.  The following year it was daughter Maria’s turn to be introduced to society.  Now the young women participated in hosting teas and receptions in the house for their favorite charities. 

Hugh and Katharine Auchincloss lived on at No. 171 as one-by-one their children were wed.  Frances married Thomas Watson Armitage in a fashionable St. Bartholomew’s ceremony on January 10, 1930; Maria was next, marrying Allen Look in Kennebunkport on July 2, 1934; and in 1942 the engagements of both Barbara and Hugh Jr. were announced.

In 1946, after four decades of ownership, Georgiana H. Stevens sold the house to Robert W. Straus, Jr.  A member of an old and prominent New York family, Straus was a publisher and President of Farrar, Straus & Giroux.

By 1959 the Strauses had become unhappy with the Edwardian interiors.  They mentioned their issues to an artist friend, Francis Scott Bradford.  Among these, according to Rita Reif of The New York Times on April 9, 1960 were “leaded windows, which obscured the views of street and garden and rejected sunlight” and “foot-thick moldings, which cheated the rooms of height.”

Although Bradford was “a complete amateur in architecture, interior and furniture design,” according to Reif, he set about gutting and renovating the Straus interiors.  He designed the furnishings and produced a 1960s Modern environment appropriate for the Jetsons.  While the spaces were trendy and artistic, they were irrelevant to the building and were quickly dated.

photo by Nicolas Lemery Nantel / salokin.com

Before the house went on sale for $5.75 million in 2013, Bradford’s Mod renovations had been reversed.  Ceiling moldings were replaced, period mantels installed and parquet floors laid in an effort to recapture an historic feel.  In the meantime, little has changed to de Gersdroff’s 1911 façade.

The A. B. Strange House -- No. 111 East 70th Street

By 1910 moneyed New Yorkers were remodeling or replacing the old brownstone rowhouses of the Upper East Side as the fashionable Fifth Avenue neighborhood spilled eastward.  When the 1870s house at No. 111 East 70^th Street, described by The New York Timesas a “three-story brownstone dwelling,” became available, the Century Realty Investment Co. saw opportunity.

The firm demolished the old building and commissioned architect William Adams to design an up-to-date, high-end replacement.  Construction began in 1911 and was completed a year later.  Adams turned to the neo-Georgian style so popular with upper crust homeowners at the time.  The architectural style intimated culture and reserve, and eschewed the ostentation of so many mansions of a generation earlier.

Five stories tall, the building consisted of a stone base, three stories of red brick, and a mansard roof with two prominent dormers.  The second and third floors were washed in sunlight through expansive multipaned windows treated nearly as a unit.  The second floor bay, protected by an ornamental iron railing, supported a balcony at the third story.  The red brick was contrasted with white marble.  The new home held its own among the other renovated or replaced upscale dwellings on the block.

The house became home to Albert Burton Strange and his wife Elizabeth Ryle Strange.  Albert was the son of William Strange, founder of William Strange Co., one of the nation’s largest silk manufacturers.  He held the position of President of the Read & Lovatt Mfg. Company, silk throwers.  The couple had three children, Albert Jr., William and Mary. 

As World War I erupted, Elizabeth was highly involved in war relief activities and served as Chairman of the Executive Board of the War Relief Committee in New York.  The dynamic woman was also prominent in the Woman Suffrage movement.

Elizabeth Strange briefly put her causes aside in 1917 when she and Albert divorced in October.  That same month she leased the house completely furnished to A. F. Pulido.  According to the Courier-Journal Almanac,Senor Don A. F. Pulido was the Charge d’Affaires of the Venezuela Foreign Legation in the United States.

Like a wedding cake, the successive tiers of base, bay window and third floor openings create two balconies.

Within the year, however, Elizabeth Ryle Strange was back in her routine of war relief and charitable causes.  In the spring of 1918 she worked on the committee of the Grand Military and Naval Meet being staged for the benefit of the Women’s Oversea Hospitals.  But soon her attentions would be diverted to important issues closer to home—Mary’s debut into society.

Unlike most debutante entertainments, which began soon after socialites and their daughters returned following the summer season; Mary’s would begin early in 1919 and last through the year.  On January 25, 1919 the New-York Tribunereported on the dance in the house the night before.

“It was one of the large private affairs of the season, the guests numbering about 200.  There was general dancing until about midnight when a seated supper was served, after which the dancing was resumed.”  The guest list included other young women like Grace Vanderbilt and Katherine Mackay; along with the sons of New York’s millionaires with newly-earned military titles.  Among these were Lieutenant Cornelius Vanderbilt, Jr., Captain Schermerhorn, Ensign William Ryle, and Lieutenant Frederick Barbour.

The entertainments for Mary would continue, including a dance at the Colony Club on December 22 and a reception in the house on January 6, 1920.  But it was later that year that society pages printed the most notable news.  On November 9, Elizabeth Ryle Strange, and the wealthy physician, Dr. Henry Arthur Griffin obtained a marriage license and two days later The New York Times reported they “will be married tomorrow at the home of the bride.”

The 55-year old groom was a widower.  The ceremony in the 70^th Street house was understated, the New-York Tribune saying it was performed “in the presence of relatives and a few intimate friends.”  Mary Danforth Strange, who had been feted in the house repeatedly during the past year, served as one of her mother’s bridesmaids.

Along with a husband Elizabeth gained two more daughters.  Helen Griffin had recently married Hugh Dudley Cotton; but young Kate Weyman Griffin moved into the 70^thStreet house.  It would not be an especially long stay, however.  On September 21, 1921 Henry and Elizabeth announced the engagement of Kate to W. Macy Chamberlin, the grandson of William H. Macy.  Mary Strange attended her step-sister at the March 30, 1922 wedding in St. Bartholomew’s Church; and a reception was held in the house afterward.

Mary followed her mother’s lead in charitable work and in 1924 was Chairman of the committee of the Parrot Ball.  The socially-important event was held at the Ritz-Carlton for the benefit of the Junior Auxiliary of St. Luke’s Hospital Social Service.  The New York Times noted that Mary had “secured the services of Miss Helen May, one of Pavlowa’s pupils, well known in London, where she has put on her own ballets.”

In 1930 Elizabeth Ryle Strange Griffin sold the house to Walter Sherman Gifford, President of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company.  The country was deep in the throes of the Great Depression by now and President Herbert Hoover had appointed Gifford Director of the President’s Organization on Unemployment Relief.

On June 2, 1931 the house was once again the scene of a wedding.  Walter’s niece, Barbara Frances Gifford lived in New Rochelle, New York.  Her fiancé, John Reis, Jr., lived in Montclair, New Jersey.  And so the couple apparently chose the half-way mark—the Gifford mansion in New York City—as a convenient spot to be married and for the reception.

Walter Sherman Gifford -- photo by Underwood & Underwood, from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult_VPage&VBID=24UAYWND0T2U&SMLS=1&RW=1366&RH=638

Later that year Gifford spoke from the house “over national radio networks arranged by both the National Broadcasting Company and the Columbia Broadcasting System,” according to The New York Times.  He implored those who still had jobs to spend whatever money they could afford to help the economy.  The newspaper said he “urged last night that those who are employed and financially able to do so use their purchasing power to the utmost as the surest and quickest way of alleviating unemployment distress.”

Gifford did not sugar-coat the problem.  In part he said “This depression will not be ended by a panacea.  It is your depression and mine and when and how we get out of it lies in each person’s power to some degree.  Each must consult his own conscience as to whether his course in this emergency is helpful or not.”

In 1947, immediately before his retirement, Gifford sold the 70^thStreet house to Edward Mortimer Morris Warburg, eldest son of the immensely wealthy Felix and Frieda Warburg.  Known as Eddie, he had grown up in the Warburg’s French Gothic mansion at No. 1109 Fifth Avenue.  Now married to the former Mary Whelan Prue Currier, he would fill the house with art treasures by modern masters including Picasso, Hopper, O’Keeffe, Matisse, Miro, Klee, Calder and Brancusi.

Like his father, Warburg was actively involved in philanthropic and relief organizations.  He was co-chairman of the Joint Distribution Committee in World War II and would become National Chairman of the United Jewish Appeal in 1950.  His passions included the arts, as well.

He had helped found the Harvard Society for Contemporary Art in 1928, was a founder of the Museum of Modern Art, and in 1934 founded the American Ballet with George Balanchine and Lincoln Kirstein.  After graduating from Harvard, he had taught Modern Art at Bryn Mawr College.

Before moving in to the 70^th Street house, the Warburgs hired architect Alfred A. Tearle to update and alter the interiors. 

The paint was barely dry on the renovated home before Mary Warburg opened its doors for charity entertainments.  On May 11, 1948 she hosted a reception for the benefit of the Henry Street Settlement.  The “One Hundred Club” was organized that afternoon, by which members would contribute $100 annually to the cause.  A committee hoped that $50,000 would be raised for the settlement house each year.

In 1956 Mary’s son Stephen Currier, was working in a Boston art gallery.  The family, accustomed to high-profile society weddings, was shocked on April 22 to learn that he had been married for months.  The Times reported that he and Audrey Bruce were “married secretly last November” by a justice of the peace and “are living in Boston.”

Edward Warburg sold the house in 1962 to actor Anthony Quinn.  The celebrity quickly changed his mind about the residence, however, and a year later resold it to the Government of Uganda.  It served as the country’s Mission to the United Nations for at least two decades before moving to Uganda House at No. 336 East 45^th Street.

The Government of Uganda still retains ownership of No. 111 East 70^th Street, leasing it as a private family home at a reported monthly rent of  $30,000.  

photographs taken by the author

The Jules S. Bache Carriage House -- No. 163 E. 70th Street

In 1877 Herman Alexander founded the New York College of Music.  At the time there were at least three other significant music conservatories in the city—the Grand Conservatory of Music, the Metropolitan Conservatory of Music, and the German Conservatory of Music.  Alexander established his new school in a brownstone-fronted building at No. 163 East 70^th Street; an area still developing with rowhouses and small commercial buildings.

The school would last here for 14 years before relocating.  In July 1891 an advertisement appeared in Etude magazine announcing “New York College of Music will remove September 1^st, from 163 East 70^th Street, to its new and handsome building, 128 and 130 East 58^th Street.”  The tense competition among the music schools is evidenced in the notice pronouncing that the New York College of Music possessed the “greatest facilities to its pupils.”  Directly beneath was an advertisement in which the German Conservatory boasted of being “the leading school of music in New York,” and below that the America Conservatory touted its “unsurpassed advantages.”

By now the Upper East Side was seeing its brownstone rowhouses of a generation earlier being replaced by the grand mansions of Manhattan’s millionaires.  Full blocks of side streets--near enough to Madison and Fifth Avenues to be convenient yet far enough removed to be unoffensive—became “stable blocks.”  Here the impressive private carriage houses serving the marble and limestone mansions sat side by side.

For a while the East 70^th Street building was home to Miss Mary L. Van Wagenen’s “training class for kindergartners.”  Mary Van Wagenen headed the first free kindergarten established in New York City.  Her school here was connected with the All Souls’ Church.  But by January 1899 the school building had been replaced by the private carriage house for Dr. Eliot Gorton who lived at No. 18 East 68^th Street.  Unlike the carriage houses on other “stable blocks,” this one nestled in among brownstone homes.

Steps away from Gorton’s residence lived Jules S. Bache, at No. 10 East 68^th Street.  In August 1900 the Evening Post Record of Real Estate Sales in Greater New Yorkreported that both the house at No. 18 East 68^th Street and its stable at No. 163 East 70^th Street had been sold.  Dr. Gorton was apparently giving up more than the house and stable.  On December 28 an advertisement was placed in the New-York Tribune by a coachman looking for work.  “By experienced city driver; first class references; leaving on account of family giving up horses. Call or address C., 163 East 70^th-st., private stable.”

Within months the stable building would be the property of Jules S. Bache.

Soon mansion architect C. P. H. Gilbert would change the complexion of the East 70^th Street block.  Early in 1901 he began designs for three lavish carriage houses that reflected the wealth and social status of their owners.  Next door to the site of the former music college; at No. 165 would rise the private stable of Henri P. Wertheim; across the street three brownstone houses were demolished for the massive carriage house of Daniel G. Reid; and the stable building at No. 163 was taken down for the new carriage house of Jules S. Bache.  All three impressive structures would be completed in 1902.

For Bache, Gilbert produced a three-story limestone and brick neo-Italian Renaissance palace for his vehicles.  The architect harmonized the design with that of the abutting Wertheim stables to create visual congruity.  Within the rusticated base of No. 163 was the centered, arched carriage bay within a concave surround.  A heavily carved cartouche adorned the keystone.  Above the heavy first floor cornice, two floors of buff brick took on a residential quality.  Tall second story openings were framed in carved limestone; handsome cast iron railings embellished the stone sills of the third floor; and dramatic splayed stone lintels radiated above the windows.  The metal cornice was decorated with snarling lions.

The upper stories melded with the residential character of the block.

The 41-year old Jules Bache had made his fortune in banking.  At the age of 20 he was hired in his uncle’s brokerage firm, Leopold Cahn & Co. as a cashier.  Five years later he was made a minority partner and in 1892 he took it over, renaming it J. S. Bache & Co.  By the time he built his lavish carriage house, his firm was the second leading brokerage house in the United States and he was among Manhattan’s wealthiest citizens.

Jules S. Bache -- from the collection of the Library of Congress

If Bache ever housed horse-drawn carriages here, they were gone by 1905 and replaced by motorcars.  On the upper floors lived his chauffeur, George Deaulieu.  On March 26, 1905 George was driving Bache, theatrical manager Daniel Frohman and an unidentified woman uptown.  He was going a bit too fast for one bicycle policeman.

The Sun reported the following day that “A big automobile shot by Policeman Brennan of the bicycle squad on Madison avenue near 136^thstreet at 6 o’clock last evening.”  Brennan was apparently a fit cyclist, because the newspaper went on to say “Brennan gave chase and overtook the automobile at 129^th street and took it and its occupants to the East 126^th street station.”

While Frohman identified himself, Bache remained tight-lipped.  The newspaper said that in the car with Frohman was “a man who said he was a banker, but who refused to give his name, and a woman.”  The 27-year old driver had to appear before a judge on his speeding charges.

The caliber of the vehicles housed in the East 70^thStreet building can be judged by an advertisement placed in the New-York Tribune on June 25, 1919.  Bache was selling his three-year old limo.  “1916 Twin Six Packard, ran 13,000 miles, limousine body; guaranteed absolutely in best condition; price $4,000.  Can be seen at private garage, 163 East 70^th St.”  The price the millionaire put on his used car would amount to about $50,000 today.

Through the carriage bay passed Jules Bache's high-end limousines.

While Jules Bache conducted his business, collected art and spent much money on his limousines, his wife Florence and their two children spent most of their time in Paris at No. 38 Avenue Marceau.   A 1914 investigation by the Treasury Department noted “The children were taken abroad by the mother about the year 1900 for the purpose of educating them, and from that time on the wife spent about nine months of the year with her children abroad and three months with her husband in the United States.”

She was in New York in November 1926, however; and helped out with a rummage sale for the benefit of the Florence Crittenton League.  Florence was put in charge of collecting the donations and the carriage house made a good drop off spot.  “Articles for this sale may be sent to Jules S. Bache’s Garage, 163 East Seventieth Street,” advised The New York Times on November 21.

Jules Bache died in 1944 in Palm Beach.  The carriage house-turned-garage was purchased by John D. Rockefeller, Jr.  The millionaire died at the age of 86 on May 11, 1960.  By now the age of private garages and had long passed.  The Daniel Reid carriage house across the street had been converted to a school nearly three decades earlier, and the Wertheim stable was renovated into a residence in 1920..  The real estate taxes alone on Upper East Side properties made the luxury of a privately-owned garage unfeasible.

In 1977 Jules S. Bache’s carriage house was converted to a single-family residence with a medical office on the ground floor.  Aside from the single-paned replacement windows, the structure is beautifully intact and lovingly maintained.

photographs taken by the author