The 1902 Automobile Stables on East 75th Street

On November 24, 1899 The New York Times reported that the McKenny estate “has sold the five three-story dwellings 168 to 176 East Seventy-fifth Street.”  The rowhouses had been built in 1880 and their impending demolition was sparked as much by the change in the neighborhood as by a revolution in transportation.

Fifteen months later, on February 22, 1902, Western Electricianreported that “Edmund C. Stout of the firm of Hill & Stout, architects, will undertake the erection of five automobile stables on the lots 168 to 176 East Seventy-fifth Street, New York.”  There were wealthy New Yorkers who adamantly argued that the horseless carriage was simply a fad; one that would never replace the dependable horse.  Others disagreed.

By the first years of the 20^thcentury, millionaires added automobiles as an alternative means of getting about.  Hill & Stout’s “automobile stables” would take care of that new-found problem of where to house the expensive contraptions.

Three days before Western Electrician’s article, The Horseless Age described the new buildings, mentioning “we have never heard of any being built solely for the use of automobiles.”  The magazine assumed that a new word would be coined for such buildings.  “Whether the term ‘automobile stables’ is correct or whether some word suitable to the keeping of automobiles should be coined to take the place of the word stables will develop with the extensive use of automobiles, which is sure to come.

“It seems rather incongruous to call buildings in which horseless carriages are kept stables.”

The magazine felt “This novel departure in the method of keeping motor vehicles should certainly appeal to anyone who has two or more machines, for the disadvantages and annoyances to an owner of several machines of being compelled to keep them in a public repair station is well known, and it is equally disagreeable to keep them in the same stable with horses.”

Stout & Hill's draughtsman H. W. Dyer produced a detailed drawing in 1902 -- The Horseless Age, February 19, 1902 (copyright expired)

Edmund C. Stout’s automobile stables followed closely the traditional layout of a carriage house:  Centered double bay doors were flanked by an entrance and a window.  A large arched window over the bay doors harkened to the hay loft of many stables.  Like the carriage houses of Manhattan’s millionaires, these garages would be architecturally appealing and upscale.

The first floor of each garage was capable of housing up to five automobiles.  Industrial-type elevators would lower the cars to the cellar “which is entirely open, well ventilated and dry, thus adapted for storage of machines not in constant use.”   The rear portion of the ground level contained a washing station, a repair pit so mechanics could easily get under the cars, a fully-equipped work bench, and an “electric charging board.”

Floor plans show handsome, octagonal rooms with fireplaces on the second floor of Nos. 168 and 176 The Horseless Age, February 19, 1902 (copyright expired)

The second floor was elegantly outfitted for the owner’s use “or for the family of the chauffeur or machinist, as the owner may elect.”  The wealthy owner who elected to turn this level over to a worker and his family would be generous.  There was a billiard room with fireplace at the rear, and a 17-foot square room to the front with another fireplace where the spacious arched window overlooked the street.  The Horseless Carriage noted “This room may be used as a stitting room or dining room, and off of it is an alcove of generous proportions in which a bed or a lounge can be placed.”

Next to the alcove was a modern bathroom that included a “shower bath.”  There was also a kitchen on this floor.

Stout used blackened bricks to create designs in the facades, as seen in No. 176 here.

The third floor was designated as the “chauffeur’s apartments.”  Here were a large living room, three bedrooms, a “commodious bath,” and a gas range, pantry closet, washtubs, and other conveniences.   The top floor contained two bedrooms to the rear, a water closet, and a large living room with a fireplace.  “Thus the floor can be used for storage or for spare bedrooms, or for anything that odd rooms in a house would be ordinarily used for,” said the magazine.

Stout’s charming string of garages, called “in the modern French style of architecture,” by The Horseless Age, were faced in brownish-red Harvard brick with touches of blackened brick used as quoins and highlights.  The architect alternated the roofline with gables and dormers so that the five structures were, as described by Horseless Age, “each separate and distinct, yet are treated as a whole.”

No. 174, above, was owned by millionaire Mortimer Leo Schiff.

The row was completed before the end of 1902 and The New York Times deemed it “a row of five ornate structures.”  The newspaper said “Inside they are luxuriously fitted up, containing on the upper floors a living room, which the owner may use if he feels so disposed, a dining room, and small kitchen, in which suppers or light meals may be prepared, and a billiard room.”

Among the first purchasers was millionaire C. G. K. Billings, who bought No. 172 in April 1903.  The Times said “Mr. Billings’s horses, for which he recently completed a fine stable on Washington Heights, will, it is said, engage less of his attention in the future, and his friends say that his automobile house will contain one of the most imposing assortments of motor vehicles to be found in the city.”

One of the first cars Billings would drive into the garage was his new Mors limousine he had imported from France in October.  The Motor World said “It is an imposing looking car.  It is rated at 45 horsepower, and contains the new features that are directly traceable to the influence of the Mercedes of French construction…The body is of the limousine pattern, roomy and exceedingly comfortable…The appointments are most complete and luxurious.  There is a speaking tube, by means of which the chauffeur can be communicated with, and two electric lights.  The interior is furnished in fawn colored cloth, and the body is finished in a rich cream color, with dark trimmings.”

The garage next door, No. 170, was purchased by financier Hamilton McKown Twombly.  Twombly was a director in several railroads and other firms.  Twombly housed five high-end automobiles in the garage, one of which was destroyed on November 17, 1904.

The following day The New York Times reported on the fire “caused by the explosion of a five-gallon can of gasoline” which did about $500 damage to the building.  “The firemen had considerable trouble in extinguishing the flames,” said the newspaper.  Touring cars and limousines were rapidly removed from the garages; but Twombly’s Mercedes did not make it out.

Motor Age reported “During a fire in the garage of H. McK. Twombly, 170 East Seventy-fifth street, New York, a 60-horsepower Mercedes car, valued at $27,000…was destroyed.”  The loss would amount to about $685,000 today.

A well-dressed gentleman stands in the bay of No. 168 in 1906.  Architectural Record, February 1906 (copyright expired)

Billings’s chauffeur, Harry Cornell who had once been employed by Mayor Hugh j. Grant, lived upstairs at No. 172.  The 35-year old was arrested on the evening of June 15, 1904 and charged “with having in his possession an auto gasoline generator and an electric lamp which were stolen from the Smith & Mayberry automobile sheds at 513 Seventh Avenue,” as reported in The Times the following day.  Billings, it may be assumed, soon searched for a new chauffeur.

The indecision regarding the proper terms to apply to the new automobile age went beyond “automobile stables.”  In 1905 the owner of No. 176 advertised in the newspapers for a “coachman wanted.”

The single garage not purchased by a wealthy auto owner was No. 168.  Instead it became the Continental Automobile School where one could learn to drive for $25 payable in installments.  An advertisement in the New-York Tribune on March 13, 1906 offered "Come and see our practical school; disappointed scholars from other schools come to us to become competent chauffeurs; foreign and American cars for road work; day and evening classes; no limit to course; French, German and American instructors."

On the other side of Billings’s garage No. 174 was owned by banker Mortimer Leo Schiff.  When his fleet of automobiles outgrew the building by 1909, he commissioned the eminent architect C. P. H. Gilbert to enlarge it.  On July 4 that year The Times reported that the architect had filed plans for the renovations.  (The enlarged facility was still not sufficient and Schiff would eventually purchase a second private garage at No. 212 East 74^th Street.)

The quaint garages would not house automobiles for very long.  Billings had sold No. 172 to Robert Schnaier by 1914.  That year, in March, Schnaier leased the upper floors to the Herter Looms.  It was the first hint of changes to come.

In the meantime, Mortimer Schiff maintained his private garage and wealthy Felix Warburg took over No. 170 from Twombly.  No. 168 was owned by another millionaire banker, George F. Baker, First National Bank President.  On September 15, 1916 Warburg found himself in court defending himself for his chauffeur’s reckless driving.  When Edward Mehl was arrested and charged $25 for driving in excess of the speed limit, he explained that he was doing so “under the explicit direction of his employer.”

Judge Beal told Warburg “My object in having you brought here this morning was that I do not approve of the noticeable reticence of employers in cases where chauffeurs get into trouble through following the employer’s instructions.”

Warburg explained that the reason his limousine was speeding (although he maintained he did not direct his chauffeur to speed) was that “he was on his way to Dobb’s Ferry Hospital with a friend, the father of Albert Stern, Jr., who had been shot accidentally,” according to The New York Times.

The Judge accepted Warburg’s explanation, saying “in view of this morning’s developments we’ll forget all about it.”

In 1920 a group of investors formed the Seventy-Fifth Street Syndicate to improve the block.  They purchased more than a dozen buildings and upgraded them to high-end residences.  Among the first of the garages they converted was No. 176.  On September 13, 1920 The New York Times reported “Clara W. M. Tailer is the buyer of the dwelling at 176 East Seventy-fifth Street, sold recently by the Seventy-fifth Street Syndicate.”  The New-York Tribune added “She will alter the house and occupy.”

Clara would not enjoy her new home for long.  On April 29, 1921 she died "suddenly" in the residence.

One by one the other garages were renovated.  In 1921 artist Lawrence Maldarelli was living in No. 172 and Emily Vanderbilt Thayer had taken over No. 176.  The former wife of William H. Vanderbilt, she leased “her house for the season” in September 1930 to banker Maurice Wertheim.  “The season” dragged on for two years with Wertheim leasing the residence through 1932.

By now it appears that only two of the five buildings were still being used as private garages—Mortimer Schiff died in 1931 but No. 174 was still owned by his estate; and No. 168 was still being used by George Baker.  When Schiff’s estate was settled in 1933 the garage was assessed at $46,000; a substantial $775,000 in today’s dollars.

That same year on July 20 The New York Times announced that Emily Vanderbilt Thayer “is married again.”  In what the newspaper called “a quiet home ceremony,” she married writer Raoul Whitfield in the No. 176 East 75^th Street house.  The newspaper added that the marriage would be “a surprise to their friends as there had been no announcement of engagement.”

The newlyweds’ blissful lives on East 75^th Street would be short lived.  On February 22, 1935 a Times headline read “Emily Whitfield Sues; Former Mrs. Vanderbilt Seeks to Divorce Third Husband.”

No. 176 soon became home to Mr. and Mrs. John A Woodbridge, whose baby daughter was born in 1935.  The Schiff garage, No. 174, was home to Arthur Gray, Jr. and family by the 1940s.  They welcomed their third child in 1948.

The ground floor of two of the garages became commercial spaces.  By the mid-1950s the studio-gallery of sculptress Maria Clapp was in No. 170, and the interior design/antiques business of Gertrude B. Jarvis—called the Jarvis Carriage House—was at No. 172.

The Schiff garage at No. 174 was listed as a five-bedroom single-family home when it went on the market for $6.8 million in August 2008.  Six years later it was back on the market for $14.75 million.

No. 170 is hidden behind construction netting in 2014.

Today two of the former garages, Nos. 174 and 176, are private homes.  The others have been converted to apartments.  The alterations to the charming string have not spoiled their charm and few passersby today realize that a little over a century ago the expensive limousines and “pleasure cars” of Manhattan’s wealthy drove through their doors.

non-historic photographs taken by the author

The 1895 Hoyt Mansion -- No. 2 East 75th Street

Already successful, the 31-year old attorney Henry Reese Hoyt married Emy Otto in Berlin, Germany on December 9, 1892.  A graduate of Harvard College and Columbia Law School, he formed the firm of Daly, Hoyt & Mason with former Chief Justice Charles P. Daly and Alexander T. Mason.

Following their honeymoon, Henry R. Hoyt and his bride moved into No. 87 West 10^th Street.  But it would be a temporary stay.  He purchased the plot of land at No. 2 East 75^th Street, steps away from Fifth Avenue and in October 1893 filed plans for a “five-story brick house” that was expected to cost $28,000—about $700,000 today.

Hoyt had commissioned architect Richard Howland Hunt to design his new mansion.  Hunt worked side-by-side with his highly esteemed architect father, Richard Morris Hunt, in the senior Hunt’s office.  For the Hoyts he produced an eye-pleasing five-story amalgamation of historical styles.  Generally neo-French Classic in style, Hunt adorned the red brick façade with neo-Tudor and Gothic Revival touches.  Square-headed drip moldings capped the quoin-surrounded openings.  A romantic three-sided oriel at the third floor had Gothic pointed-arched windows and supported a fourth floor balcony protected by a carved limestone of openwork quatrefoils.  Hunt returned to the French influence above the stone cornice where a crested mansard sprouted two dormers.

Discreet fleur de lis pressed into the cornice carry on the French motif.

Henry and Emy Hoyt had four children—Henry Jr., Alfred, Gretchen and Elizabeth.  In the summer season all wealthy New Yorkers abandoned the stifling city for country estates or seaside resorts.  In 1903 newspapers noted that the Hoyts had closed their house and left for Sag Harbor, Long Island, for the season.

Before long entertainments in the 75^th Street house would center around the growing children.  On December 21, 1904 the Globe and Commercial Advertiser noted that “Miss Gretchen Hoyt has her formal presentation to society to-day at a reception given during the afternoon by her mother, Mrs. Henry Reese Hoyt of 2 East Seventy-fifth street.  The reception will rank among the largest of kind.  A dinner for the receiving party follows the reception.”

If Gretchen’s debut was a bit early by social norms, Elizabeth’s would not be.  Three years later Emy gave a cotillion in the house for Elizabeth who, said The New York Times, “is not yet out.”  On December 26, 1907 at around 9:30 the young guests began arriving.  They danced until around 11:30 when supper was served.  The Times remarked “The guests invited included the young girl and boy friends of Miss Hoyt who are not yet out.”

Earlier that year Elizabeth’s father had enlarged the house with a rear addition designed by Henry Pelton.  It would not be the last of Henry Hoyt’s renovations.

The following year Elizabeth would serve as maid of honor in Gretchen’s high-society wedding in St. Bartholomew’s Church on June 3, 1908.  Before Gretchen married the Harvard-educated banker Henry Ladd Corbett of Portland, Oregon, she hosted a glittering dinner party in the house for the bridal party.

Emy Hoyt pulled out all the stops in decorating the church, prompting The New York Times to say “The church decorations were unique and perhaps as fine as have ever been seen in New York.”  The sanctuary of St. Bartholomew’s was transformed into an Italian garden with aisles of bay trees.  Around their trunks grew white and pink peonies.  Emy carried the theme to the chancel.  “The chancel was a miniature Italian garden, with its bay trees arranged in prim lines, huge jars of rhododendrons and peonies giving the effect of growing flowers.”

The reception was held in the 75^th Street mansion where guests with names like Roosevelt, Stokes, Alexander, Sturgis and Lydig offered congratulations--and gifts.  Following the honeymoon Gretchen and her husband returned to Portland to live.

1909 was finally Elizabeth’s debutante year.  There were to major entertainments in the house during December, beginning on the 6^th.  That night 30 guests sat down to dinner, after which additional guests arrived for the cotillion.  Van Baar’s orchestra played throughout the night and at midnight a buffet supper was served.

Almost three weeks later, on December 20, a second wave of guests arrived.  Emy Hoyt had the reception room decorated with Christmas greens, holly and mistletoe.  Forty young people were invited to dinner and another 60 arrived for the dancing afterward.

On August 27, 1910 the Real Estate Record & Builders’ Guide noted that Henry R. Hoyt had filed for alterations to the house.  Architects Hiss & Weeks had been commissioned to do $1,800 in renovations including “partitions, stairs, and piers.”  The New York Times had remarked a day earlier that the plans called for “entirely remodeling the interior.  It was at this time that the street level received a new limestone façade, generally in keeping with the overall architecture.

By now the Hoyts’ wealth and social standing were at a peak.  The title of the grand country home in New Marlboro was in Emy’s name and she was one of the principal owners of the 6,000-acre Marlboro game preserves.  Henry was a member of the best gentlemen’s clubs, including the Union, University, Automobile, New York Yacht Club, Racquet and Tennis Club, the Downtown Club, the South Side Sportsmen’s Club and the Riding Club.  He served on the board of the Metropolitan Opera and no fewer than ten corporations including banks, mines, and real estate firms.  Additionally Hoyt was the legal representative of the Italian Government and for the French Consulate in New York City.

On January 20, 1915 Elizabeth married Thomas H. Frothingham of Boston.  It would be a rocky relationship. 

But in the meantime, Henry Hoyt continued remodeling his mansion.  On November 8, 1919 The Real Estate Record & Guide reported that Hiss & Weekes was back at No. 2 East 75^th Street, this time designing a $10,000 penthouse on the rear addition. 

Just over a year later, in January 1921 Henry Reese Hoyt died of a heart attack in Chicago.  The 59-year old had appeared to be in excellent health before his attack on New Year’s Day.  Emy and Alfred rushed to Chicago, as did Henry’s brother and sister, John and Rosina.  They were at his bedside on January 4 when he died.  Three days later an escort of motorcycle policemen accompanied a cortege with Hoyt’s body from the house on East 75^th Street to St. Bartholomew’s Church. 

Alfred and Henry Hoyt, Jr. still lived in the family home.  Elizabeth and her husband, who now lived at No. 153 East 71^st Street , maintained a second house in Far Hills, New York.  Thomas Frothingham worked for the brokerage firm of Potter Brothers & Co. at No. 5 Nassau Street.  As the summer came to a close that year, with his mourning mother and brother away, Alfred was living alone in the house with just one servant.  Elizabeth and Thomas suggested he come to their Far Hills home for a visit.

On September 9 it was arranged that he, Elizabeth and Alfred would meet at the 75^th Street house at noon, and then travel together to Far Hills.  Thomas Frothingham arrived first and was let in by the assistant housekeeper.  While waiting for his wife and brother-in-law, he poked around in Alfred’s rooms and there he found a loaded pistol. 

When Alfred and Elizabeth arrived, they were told that Frothingham was already there.  “That much they learned when they entered the foyer, but there was no sign of him, nor did he answer Hoyt’s hail,” said The New York Times on September 11, 1921.  The two began a search.  “In Hoyt’s bedroom, on the second floor, they found him lying in a heap, blood oozing from the wound in the left shoulder.”

Whether an accident or not, a gunshot in a mansion bedroom could spell scandal.  A private ambulance was called and Frothingham was taken to a private ward in Presbyterian Hospital without notifying police. 

When news leaked to the newspapers, reports suggested a cover-up.  “Shooting of Broker Kept Secret 2 Days” read a headline in The Times.  On September 11 the New-York Tribune wrote “All information concerning Mr. Frothingham’s accident was refused by Mr. Hoyt’s housekeeper and other persons living at his address.  Except to admit that he was still a patient, attendants at the hospital last night refused to comment on the case.”  When the Tribune’s reported questioned the housekeeper she replied “I know nothing of any shooting.”  The Times reported on September 11 “A maid at the Hoyt home answered the bell last night and said nothing was to be learned there.”

The mystery would come to mind three months later when Frothingham filed for bankruptcy and “it was alleged that he had made fraudulent misrepresentations” in the sale of silver mine stocks, as reported by The New York Times.  Among those he reportedly cheated was his wife, Elizabeth.  The Times said he had transferred $1.5 million in silver mine stocks “to his wife and other preferred creditors when he knew he was insolvent.”

Two years later Thomas Frothingham deserted Elizabeth and their three children and disappeared to Memphis, Tennessee.   When Elizabeth filed for divorce on April 11, 1927 she was back in the family mansion with her mother and brothers.

The family managed to garner less scandalous press going forward.  In September 1928 Henry Jr. was in a small airplane lost in a thick fog.  Persons on the ground, hearing the engine, grabbed flashlights and directed the plane to a football field where it landed with only a smashed landing gear.  In 1929 Emy’s name appeared in the newspapers when she inherited the Lydig family silver following the death of Philip Mesier Lydig; and that same year Alfred was appointed aide-de-camp to Governor Flem D. Sampson of Kentucky.

On December 15, 1932 the house was the scene of Elizabeth’s quiet wedding to William A. W. Stewart.  The Times felt obligated to mention “He gave his age as 56 years and she 35 years.” 

Emy Otto Hoyt lived on at No. 2 East 75^th Street until 1941.  In April that year she rented an apartment at No. 1040 Fifth Avenue where she had 12 rooms and five baths.  Two months earlier she had sold the townhouse to Albert Klein who intended to convert it “into an apartment building of small suites,” as reported in The New York Times on February 21.

Klein changed his mind a week later and resold the mansion to Benjamin Cohen.  The Times reported “It will be altered into sixteen apartments of one and one-half and two rooms and penthouse.”  At the time of the first sale the newspaper published a photograph of the mansion with its marvelous oriel window intact.  Sadly, like the grand interiors, it would not survive.

Architects did an admiral job of patching the hole where the bay window and balcony had been.  Stone quoins around the clustered windows mimicked the originals as did the drip moldings.  A pseudo-heraldic shield and a carved panel decorated the new stone face.

Although a valiant attempt, the patching of the lost oriel leaves the passerby scratching his head.

Since then little has changed.  There remain 12 apartments inside and the facade is carefully maintained.  Sadly, without its wonderful oriel, the mansion looks more like a clubhouse than a home.

photographs by the author