The 1889 Beck House -- No. 249 Central Park West

The fanciful house stretched 100 feet down the block -- photo streeteasy.com/nyc

In 1887 both architect Edward Angell and developer William Noble were busy on the Upper West Side.  Following the Civil War and with the opening of Central Park, real estate developers speculated on the opportunities that the rocky, barren area held.  In place of the shanties and dirt roads, they envisioned a modern residential neighborhood.   By now development was going full-steam.  In 1885 The New York Times had noted “The west side of the city presents just now a scene of building activity such as was never before witnessed in that section, and which gives promise of the speedy disappearance of all the shanties in the neighborhood and the rapid population of this long neglected part of New York.”

Within two years Angell would be working on two rows of houses on West End Avenue and West 77^th Street in the Romanesque Revival style and the Hotel Endicott.  In 1890 construction would begin on his San Remo Apartments.  But for now, in 1887, he was working with William Noble on a string of rowhouses on Central Park West from 84^th to 85^thStreets.

Angell used a full bag of architectural styles and the Upper West Side was a perfect canvas.  Here the latest trends were reflected in stained glass, gargoyles, dog-legged stoops, and eccentric turrets and balconies.  In writing about the Upper West Side in August 1890, the New-York Herald said “As the time of square brick and brown stone houses has gone by, so alas has the time when New York can afford to neglect her approach and her outward appearances.”

For Noble’s nine speculative residences Angell turned to the Queen Anne style.  Ground was broken in 1888 and construction was completed a year later.   For his upscale homes with Central Park views, Noble spared no expense—these were, after all, intended for well-to-do families.   Construction of each of the residences cost $37,000—about $850,000 today. 

The homes—running from No. 241 to 249 Central Park West—were a riot of gables, bays, chimneys and angles.  Each was individual; yet they flowed together as a harmonious whole.   The commodious houses were 100 feet deep and 25 feet wide.  The additional wall of windows of the two corner residences, Nos. 241 and 249, made these two especially desirable.



photo by Alice Lum

No. 249 blended brownstone and red brick into an architectural whimsy.  A corner faceted tower rose to a conical tiled cap and delightful pseudo balconies.   "The Real Estate Record & Builders’ Guide" thought the group perhaps too whimsical; criticizing their “giddiness.”

The house was purchased by wallpaper manufacturer Frederick Beck.  The principal of Frederick Beck & Co., he would sit on the Board of the National Wall Paper Company upon its founding in 1894.  That company was an amalgamation of 17 wall paper manufacturers; creating a gigantic business concern.

Around 200 guests filed into the house on October 15, 1890 for the wedding of daughter Frederica to Rudolph J. Schaefer.  “The parlors were decorated with palms and a profusion of cut flowers.  At one end of was bower of roses, under which the marriage ceremony was held,” reported The New York Times.

The newspaper made note that Frederica’s “ornaments were diamonds.”  Among the more celebrated guests was the newly-elected Governor of New Jersey Leon Abbett, Rudolph Guggenheimer, and display manufacturer J. R. Palmenberg and his family.

Beck would stay on in the house through the turn of the century.   By 1914 it was owned by clergyman Luther Albert Swope and his wife, the former Rebecca Wendel.  The Swope’s comfortable financial position came from mostly from Rebecca Wendel Swope.

Rebecca had grown up in the Wendel mansion at No. 442 Fifth Avenue at the corner of 39^th Street.   The hulking brick and brownstone house was built by her grandfather around 1856.  John G. Wendel began as a fur merchant at the same time as John Jacob Astor; and like Astor he funneled his money into Manhattan real estate.  Despite his fortune, Wendel was notoriously frugal—The New York Times would later say he “let his contractor draw the plans [of his mansion] to save the architect’s fees.”

Along with Rebecca in the house were her brother, John Gottlieb Wendel and her four sisters.  Following their parents’ deaths the eccentric and controlling John ruled his sisters’ lives.  “Because of his aversion to automobiles and other modern improvements he became known as ‘The Hermit of Fifth Avenue,” said The Times.

The newspaper later said that he “taught them they must not marry or dissipate their stewardship and that publicity was demeaning.”   While Rebecca “resisted this training,” according to the newspaper, her sisters lived in a time capsule, insulated from the changing world outside the old mansion.   The Times said “The sisters dressed in styles of many years ago, lived frugally and simply, and persisted in hanging the family washing in the back yard in defiance of neighbors’ protests.”

In 1934 the Wendel mansion still sat at 39th Street and Fifth Avenue.  Note the wall extending to the right and the handsome old carriage house to the rear of the house.  photograph by Wurtz Bros. from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult_VPage&VBID=24UAYWFZDRV&SMLS=1&RW=1280&RH=894

John Wendel died in 1914 leaving Rebecca in charge of managing the family estate—worth at the time around $60 million.  On February 28, 1915 The Times noted “The sisters never ride in a street car and never in their lives have they been in an automobile.  They never shop in the fashionable district, for things are too expensive there.  They buy all their groceries and supplies in the inexpensive little shops over on Sixth Avenue and make their purchases personally, seldom letting them be delivered but carrying them home themselves and paying for them with cash.  They are quick to see bargains and watch for them like the poorest housewife.”

In order to prevent the State from receiving what had been estimated at between $3 or $4 million in estate taxes, John had quietly and quickly transferred the Wendel real estate into the names of his sisters during the last two years of his life.  “It had been done in such a gradual way that it will probably be impossible for the State to show that it was done with the purpose of evading the inheritance tax,” reported The Times.

The block was still intact when the Swopes were living here.  No. 249 sits at the far end.  photo NYPL Collection

Although Rebecca escaped the house and her brother, the Wendel family values were deeply instilled.   “Twice a week Mrs. Swope and her husband dare the wild adventure of the elevated to the downtown offices of the Wendel estate at 175 Broadway  They do not own a car and taxicabs are so expensive!” reported The Times, somewhat mockingly.

“There, surrounded by twenty or more ancient safes containing the deeds to the Wendel properties, they discuss with the manager the details of their affairs.”

Luther Swope had graduated from Harvard with a Bachelor’s degree in 1868 and a Masters in 1871.  Upon his death in 1924, he added to Rebecca’s personal fortune by leaving her $90,000.  She was now widowed, childless and fantastically wealthy.  Public speculation focused on the aging Wendel sisters who had no direct heirs.

There were only three sisters left now, and the following year Rebecca’s 79-year old sister Georgiana died of influenza which had developed into pneumonia.  (At the time of her death newspapers noted that the house, built at a cost of $5,000 was now valued at $2 million).   The family’s attorney, Charles G. Koss, was deluged with calls regarding the Fifth Avenue house which, said The Times, “has never been changed.  The dining room, parlor and library, it is said, are scrupulously kept in the exact condition in which they were left by the builder of the house, John Wendel, at his death in 1859.”

Developers were disheartened when it was announced that “Miss Ella V. von E. Wendel, an elderly woman and worth many millions, will live alone with the old family servants and carry on the traditions of the Wendel family in the old rusty brick mansion at Thirty-ninth Street and Fifth Avenue.” 

On July 20, 1930 Rebecca A. D. Wendel Swope died, leaving Ella the sole surviving sister and the end of the Wendel line.    Readers were somewhat shocked, although surprisingly so, when her entire estate was left to the 80-year old Ella.  Following the filing of the will, The New York Times noted that “about $100,000,000, representing real estate accumulated by two centuries of the Wendel family, was not left to charity after all.”  Among the few items not left to her sister was the house on Central Park West.

“Mrs. Swope’s nearest relative after her sister was her husband’s nephew, George Stanley Shirk of Dobbs Ferry, N.Y., to whom she left a house at 249 Central Park West, as well as cash deposited in various banks and personal and household effects.”

Eight months after Rebecca’s death, Ella died in the house at Fifth Avenue and 39^th Street, ending a most peculiar New York social story.

George Stanley Shirk maintained ownership of the Central Park West house for years; however he and his family never moved in.  Instead he leased it, maintaining the magnificent interiors not unlike his distant relatives had done with their ancestral home.   Then in 1957 the house was converted to apartments and the exterior modernized to comply with mid-century distaste for overblown ornamentation.   In a further attempt to update the old Victorian, it was slathered in white paint.

No. 249 lost its carved ornamentation, still evident next door at No. 247 (which also endured a coat of paint) -- photo by Alice Lum

One of the tenants, John Herget, purchased the house in 1974.  The former mansion would probably have remained a bit beat up if a chunk of the façade had not crashed to the sidewalk in 1989.  In order to repair the masonry, Herget had to strip off the paint and eventually the facade was somewhat unintentionally restored.

The magnificent woodwork of the dining room is unbelievably intact -- photo streeteasy.com/nyc

Around 2006 the mansion was purchased for $14.4 million and a conversion was begun to bring it back to a single-family home.   A real estate agent put a happy face on the gutting of the top two floors saying “most of the demolition work has been completed in preparation for the building’s metamorphosis.”

Exquisite stained glass survives throughout the lower floors.  photo streeteasy.com/nyc

Despite the outrage committed upstairs, the interiors of the lower floors are astoundingly intact.   The oak-paneled dining room with stained glass and coffered ceiling; the pocket doors and eccentric nooks all survive.   Relisted and sold in 2013 for just under $20 million, the once-abused dowager has reclaimed her position as grand dame of the block.

photo by Alice Lum

Twin Whimsies -- Nos. 44 and 46 West 85th Street

In 1886 construction was started on two adjoining houses for developer Charles H. Bliss.  The plots at Nos. 44 and 46 West 85^th Street were located in a quickly developing area where upscale residences were filling the blocks.  Bliss had commissioned Edward L. Angell to design the homes.  The architect was busy at the time creating Upper West Side homes with his personal take on historical styles.

But for Bliss’s two speculative mansions he turned to the recently popular Queen Anne style—for the most part.  One can almost imagine Angell sitting down at his drafting table and saying to himself, “let’s have fun.”  Never one to be reined in by architectural purity of style; he splashed the facades with touches of neo-Tudor.  The resulting, mirror-image homes, completed a year later were fanciful, delightful and impressive.

The brownstone-clad facades were trimmed with contrasting stone quoins.  Whimsical decorative carvings and imaginary heraldic ornaments vied for attention with the aggressive second floor bays (which provided a balconies at the third floor), and the tiled mansard roofs with their scalloped dormers.  Stained glass transoms enhanced many of the openings, and graceful dogleg stoops turned to face one another at sidewalk level.

Heraldic shields, florid carvings, Tudor bays and quoins, and dormers that smacked of Flemish created a fanciful whole.  The mansard of No. 46 (right) was originally the same height as its neighbor.

It was perhaps the steep price of the 25-foot wide homes that resulted in sluggish sales.  Bliss listed them at $67,500 (about $1.75 million in today’s dollars) and neither sold until 1889.  Bliss sold No. 46 in December to James Kearney.  In reporting on the sale, the Real Estate Record & Builders’ Guide called it an “elegant four-story Ohio stone front dwelling.”

In the meantime, the Spaulding family was living next door at No. 44.  Young Morrel Boughton Spaulding was attending the School of Mines in 1892.  But the lifespan of No. 44 as a private home would be very short lived.

The stoops of the mirror-image homes turn to face one another  Note the charming group of white-dressed girls with their wicker doll carriage.  photograph 1905, Library of Congress

On May 14, 1905 The New York Times reported that “Leading Japanese residents of New York yesterday organized the Nippon Club, which will occupy a handsome house at 44 West Eighty-fifth Street, now a private residence.”  The newspaper noted that the Nippon Club would be the only large organization of its kind outside Japan.  “The membership will include Japanese bankers and merchants, those represented in the professions and the Government service.”

The members had decided not to go overboard in remaking the house in Japanese style.  “In point of furnishings the Nippon clubhouse will be finely equipped.  While the American style will prevail a Japanese atmosphere will be maintained by handsome bronzes, teakwood tables, and exquisite Japanese silks, hangings and bric-a-brac.”  One room on the second floor was designated as “the Japanese room.”  Edward Angell’s mantelpieces were removed, replaced by Japanese tokomoma with silk panels.  Japanese artists were commissioned to produce the sliding doors and windows, decorated “in the Fusuma style.”  All of the furnishings in this room were covered in Japanese silks and embroideries.

A Japanese chef, “experienced in the mysteries of Japanese delicacies,” was brought from Japan and arrangements were made for the importation of Japanese foods—dried mushrooms, bamboo shoots, chicory, Japanese fish, rice, Giokuro coffee, sake-rui, Japanese cocktails and chrysanthemum masamune.”  The members told the press that the menu would be “such as is served only in the houses of Japan’s aristocracy.”

The renovations included “billiard rooms, smoking room, parlors, library, and a banquet and ball room,” said The New York Times.  When the clubhouse was opened in June 1905, the Nippon Club had a membership of 75.

As the club was being organized, Japan was at war with Russia.  Two months after moving into No. 44, the defeat of the Russians seemed inevitable.  On July 31, 1905 300 proud Japanese businessmen assembled in the clubhouse “to listen to addresses by some of the heroes of the fleet that smashed the Russian navy about Port Arthur and in the Sea of Japan,” reported The Times.  Traditional Japanese deportment did not allow for boisterous celebration and self-applause.

“The Japanese naval officers, Commander Kamimura, Commander Oguro, and Lieut. Commander Sato, told the stories of their exploits in the simplest and most unassuming manner.  The guests sat silent, as they listened to the stories of their country’s triumphs, with lips apart like children listening to the story of Jack the Giant Killer.  There were no shouts of ‘Banzai.’”

Western journalists had a difficult time reporting on the club’s activities without exposing a hint of Edwardian racism.  In 1906 the American Druggist and Pharmaceutical Record began its report on a dinner held at the club with the line “A typical Japanese dinner, in which chop sticks played an important part, was tendered Wednesday evening, March 21, to Oscar W. Smith.”

Nevertheless, there was much to report over the years.  Every important Japanese political or military figure who visited New York was entertained here.  On June 11, 1909 Vice-Admiral Sotokicci Uriu of the Imperial Japanese Navy and his wife were guests at a glittering reception.  “The entire clubhouse was festooned with green branches and the national flower of Japan, the cherry blossom.  Japanese lanterns hung from the ceilings and everywhere were the crossed flags of Japan and the United States,” reported The Sun the following day.

The newspaper called the manner in which the club served refreshments “unusual,” saying “Each room was given up to one particular kind of refreshment.  Rice cakes were served in one room, fruits and wines in another, while in the reception room, which is furnished wholly in Japanese style, ice cream and cake were served.”

Upper floors in the Nippon Club were used by some members as sleeping rooms or apartments.  In 1908, Shinguro Arakawa, a silk merchant with a store at No. 109 Prince Street, was living here.  On October 30 that year R. Fukui, a traveling salesman for a Tokyo novelty house, had taken the room next door.  That night Ceceilia Ohnishi, the 15-year old daughter of the club’s manager, heard a noise in an unoccupied room.  When she peeked into the doorway, she discovered a burglar.

“Her screams aroused thirty-five members of the club, who were in the billiard room and dining rooms, and the burglar ran to the roof with all the Japanese in pursuit,” reported The Times the following day.  A policeman on the street heard the commotion and ran into the club.  He exited a fourth floor window and saw the burglar running across the roofs.  Policeman Weckerson “started after him, but ran into a clothesline, which he did not see in the dark, and, falling backward, was stunned by striking his head on the roof.  The burglar got away,” reported the newspaper.

Sadly for Arakawa and Fukui, the robber made off with some of their possession.  Arakawa lost a $150 watch, three stickpins worth $100 and expensive Japanese silks.  The novelty salesman lost a set of pearl vest buttons set with emeralds.  He told officials they were worth $200.

None of the club’s visitors would be more important than that of Yoichi Katsura, son of Prince Katsura, ex-premier of Japan, who arrived in New York in August, 1912.  The young man had been accompanying his father on a tour to Russia and then the United States, when the Prince was recalled to Japan following the death of Emperor Meiji.  Now in New York, newspapers said that he had been offered “the hospitality of the Nippon Club, 44 West Eighty-fifth Street.”

At the time the Nippon Club was putting the finishing touches on its new clubhouse on West 93^rd Street, designed by John V. Van Pelt.  After leasing the house on 85^th Street for seven years, it had now decided to purchase its own property.

The house became home to well-known violinist Herwegh von Ende and his wife, Adrienne.  Born in Budapest, Adrienne was the god-daughter of Franz Liszt.  Her father, Edward Remenyi had been a Hungarian patriot and, like her husband, was a violinist.  The couple’s entertainments were most-often music-related; such as their reception in February 1914 for renowned pianist and composer Leopold Godowsky.

But more importantly, von Ende transformed the former clubhouse to the von Ende School of Music.  Adrienne taught voice and other instructors, deemed by the school’s advertisements to be “masters of celebrity,” provided a full range of musical instruction.  The American College and Private School Directory noted that the school was “co-ed” and offered both “board and day” classes.

The house was the scene of regular recitals and concerts open to the public.  The highlight of the year, however, was the annual concert of the von Ende School of Music held at the Waldorf-Astoria. 

Following Herwegh von Ende’s death in 1919, Andrienne moved to the Wellington Hotel where she died in 1945.

In the meantime the house next door had had a rocky start.  After James Kearney purchased it in 1889, he resold to John A. Rochford.  Rochford sold it in February 1890 to John P. Paulison who resold it 20 days later to Peter J. Brady.  A week later Brady sold it to J. S. Robinson for $65,000--$2,500 less than Kearny had paid for it a year earlier.  Nevertheless the Real Estate Record & Guide still described the home as “elegant.”

Robinson offered the house for lease and on April 14, 1891 an advertisement appeared in the New-York Tribune describing it as “Full-size, four-story basement and cellar, stone-front, cabinet-finish private dwelling…with two-story extension.  Box-stoop, steam heat, modern plumbing; immediate possession.”

Before the turn of the century William Hyde and Mary B. Simonson had purchased No. 46.  William’s widowed mother, also named Mary, moved in with the large family, which included his physician son, Jeremiah T. Simonson.  It was no doubt the Simonson family who sympathetically raised the level of the mansard, thankfully lifting the ornamentation of the dormer rather than replacing it.  The extra height made the smaller dormer look oddly diminished.

photo New York Lumber Trade Journal, September 15, 1917 (copyright expired)

William Hyde Simonson’s ancestors had been among the first settlers on Staten Island and Manhattan soon after the Dutch arrived.  The New York Lumber Trade Journal said that his family “had always been engaged in the shipbuilding and lumber business.”  He had joined his father’s lumber firm in 1866 and, following his father’s death in 1883, expanded the business to one of the major lumber concerns in the city.  An avid yachtsman, he was active in both the New Rochelle and Larchmont Yacht Clubs and owned several yachts.

Dr. J. T. Simonson set up his office in the 85^thStreet house, publishing his office hours as 10:00 to 12:00 and Sundays by appointment only.  The doctor focused on diseases of children and by the turn of the century was listed as an "instructor in paediatry."  Eventually he would become a Professor of Pediatrics at New York Medical College.

On October 10, 1899 William H. Simonson’s 85-year old mother died in the house.  Her funeral was held here two days later at 11 a.m.

While the house next door changed from Japanese clubhouse to music school, the Simonson family lived on in No. 46.  Another funeral would be held in the house on September 8, 1917.  William Hyde Simonson died in his bedroom at the age of 74 on September 5. 

A year later, in August 1918, his daughter Mary Hyde Simonson was married to Caleb Rowland Nash.  It signaled the beginning of the end of No. 46 as a private home.  On September 19, 1919 an advertisement appeared in The Sun:  “46 West 85^thStreet, near Central Park West; one, two, three rooms, kitchenette and regular housekeeping; new and modern improvements.”  A few months earlier two of Mary’s brothers, George and H. S. Simonson, had formed the 46 West Eighty-fifth Street, Inc. realty firm.

Interestingly, however, 25 years later when Dr. Jeremiah T. Simonson died in 1944, his obituary noted that two sisters, Mrs. Caleb R. Nash and Sarah A. Simonson, were still living at No. 46 West 85^th Street, “the family home.”

As with the Simonson home, rooms in No. 44 were now being rented as apartments; listed in 1948 as a “five-story apartment house for 13 families.”  In 1956 36-year old Elynore Rich was living here when she came up with a regrettable way of making extra money.

On September 5 she walked into the Chemical Corn Exchange Bank on Columbus Avenue near 81^st Street.  She passed a note to the teller that read “Give me $500.  Don’t turn the alarm.  My little girl needs clothes.”

According to The New York Times the teller, Eileen Higgens, merely smiled and said “I can’t.”  She then returned to her work.  Elynore walked out of the bank and was arrested across the street soon after.

Although the tall stoops have been removed, the stained glass transoms pulled out; and the stone facades painted pastel colors, Edward Angell’s whimsical yet “elegant” twin houses still do what he intended—they force the passerby to pause and wonder.

photographs by the author