The Players -- No. 16 Gramercy Park

The Players in 1905

A year before the end of the Civil War, Major General Robert B. Potter stopped at his 1847 Gothic Revival brownstone residence at No. 16 Gramercy Park. There he kissed his wife good-bye before heading south in command of the 2nd Division of the 9th Army Corps.

Potter was the son of the Bishop of Philadelphia, Alonzo Potter. His brother, Henry C. Potter, would become Episcopal Bishop of New York, one of the city’s most socially prominent figures of 19th Century. Theirs was a wealthy and esteemed family with a distinguished lineage and his dignified mansion on Gramercy Park reflected his social station.

On April 2 the next year, Major General Potter was shot through the body during an assault on the rebel lines at Petersburg. He was transported back to New York where he recuperated in his Gramercy Park home.  When General Potter moved to England for a period of four years in 1869, his brother, the Honorable Clarkson Nott Potter took up residence. Clarkson Potter was a lawyer, a judge, a civil engineer, US Representative from New York State from 1869 to 1875 and President of the American Bar Association from 1881 to 1882.

It was in the Gramercy Park house that Clarkson N. Potter diedcat the age of 58 on January 23, 1882.  He willed the house to his wife, Virginia Mitchell Potter, who stayed on in the house for another six years, surrounded by neighbors with respected names like Samuel Tilden and Stuyvesant Fish.

In the meantime renowned Shakespearean actor Edwin Booth was making plans. Booth, who also owned and ran the grand marble Booth’s Theatre on 23rd Street at 6th Avenue, had suffered severe dishonor and embarrassment with his brother’s assassination of President Abraham Lincoln. The actor sought an outlet by which members of the theatre and other arts could convene to discuss the art.

Those in the acting profession were offered charity and shelter when times were hard, but they were never treated as equals among the club set. Booth established The Players, bringing together actors, managers, writers and others for the first time. Now he needed a clubhouse.

He gave the task of finding the appropriate venue to the club’s secretary, William Bispham. Accordingly, Bispham chose the Potter House. Booth purchased the house from Virginia Potter for $75,000, then had Stanford White, a Players member, renovate it as a club.

photo museumplanet.com

White added a two-story loggia to the front and moved the entrance door to the street level, and to the side. Ornate, wrought iron gas lamps illuminated the entrance. Entering the large vestibule, one could descend to the lower level where a bar, billiard room and kitchens were housed. Up a short flight of steps from street level was The Great Hall with large pillars and a grand marble fireplace.

Players entrance hall 1899

Fronting the park was the parlor and to the south was the wood-paneled dining room. The second floor housed the library, filled with theatrical memorabilia donated by Booth and other members. Edwin Booth retained the third floor as his apartments. He had the fireplace from his home in Boston installed here. A single framed photograph of his brother was the one remembrance he kept of him.

The Players Library - 1899

Above, on the fourth floor, were sleeping rooms for members.

The New York Times was tepid in its assessment of White’s changes. The “curious construction of the entrance way deprives it of an imposing effect. A heavy balcony juts out on a line with the first story. The entrance is in the basement, through a door in the shadow of this balcony pierced at the extreme east end of the house.

photo museumplanet.com

“At first glance from a distance the establishment looks more like a Turkish bath than the abiding place of a club of artists,” said the newspaper

The Times then relented, considering the practical reasons for the positioning of the entrance. “But seen near at hand, the elegance and solidity of the entrance strike you, and as soon as you enter you feel inclined to accept Mr. Stanford White’s odd doorway because its utility is at once apparent.”

At the first meeting of the club in its new home on New Year’s Eve 1881, Edwin Booth explained his goals for the house. He wanted it to be one “wherein I hope that we for many years, and our legitimate successors for a thousand generations may assemble for friendly intercourse and intellectual recreation.

“Frequent intercourse with gentlemen of other arts and professions who love the stage and appreciate the value of the drama as an aid to intellectual culture must inspire the humblest player with a reverence for his vocation as one among the first of ‘fine arts,’ which too many regard as merely a means to the gratification of vanity and selfishness. Such is the object of this club.”

The Players (the group has never used the word “Club” in its name) continues as a refuge for those involved in the theatrical business. The membership reads like a history of American theatre: Mark Twain, Lionel Barrymore, Eugene O’Neill, James Cagney, Eli Wallach, Alfred Lunt and Edward Albee among the hundreds of celebrities. When the club decided to admit women, Helen Hayes was its first female member, followed by the likes of Carol Burnett, Angela Lansbury, Rue McClanahan and Judy Collins.

Outside the gas lights still burn; among the handful of surviving gas lamps in the city. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1962, the description given by The New York Times on January 1, 1882 rings true today: “The impression, indeed, that the whole house makes upon one at the first visit is one of solid comfort.”

The Lost Cyrus W. Field Mansion -- Gramercy Park

A double staircase led to the entrances of the two mirror-image Field mansions.

Samuel Ruggles’ ambitious plan to transform part of the old Gramercy Farm into an elite residential enclave was well under way when Cyrus West Field and his attorney brother, David Dudley Field, purchased side-by-side lots at the northeast corner of Lexington Avenue and 21^stStreet.  A total of sixty building plots surrounded a large, central park enclosed by a high iron fence.  Ruggles had begun landscaping of Gramercy Square in 1844 and soon afterward imposing mansions began rising.

The exclusivity of the square was furthered by the locked gates to Gramercy Park, opened only for residents -- vintage postcard, copyright expired

Cyrus Field’s rise from an errand boy in A. T. Stewart’s dry goods emporium to one of the city’s wealthiest men was meteoric.  Years later the Daily Alta California would remind readers “His brother, David Dudley, was given a collegiate education; instead of a classical education Cyrus received $25 in cash and his father’s blessing.”

After working three years for $2 a week for Stewart’s, he took a job as a salesman for a paper manufacturer.  Before long he started his own business.  The California newspaper said “on the first day that he took possession of his new office he made the sanguine remark: ‘I shall make a fortune here in twenty years.’  Better than his word, he made his fortune in twelve years and retired, still in the prime of life, to enjoy the rest which he had never known since his boyhood.”  

The “prime of his life” was age 33 and Field left business with a comfortable fortune of $250,000—between $6 and $10 million today.

Cyrus and David built mirror-image mansions.  Cyrus took the more agreeable corner lot, affording windows on three sides.  The brownstone-clad houses featured a wide shared stoop that accessed the side-by-side entrance doors.  Cast iron balconies adorned the parlor levels where floor-to-ceiling arched windows could capture the park breezes; and another iron balcony ran the length of both homes along the second floor.

The New-York Tribune noted that “they were arranged so that they could be thrown into one.”  The main entertaining rooms—the dining rooms and ballrooms—could be opened up creating a single grand space.

If Field intended to relax; his intentions were short-lived.  He traveled with artist Frederick Church through Bogota, Guayaquil and Ecuador.  On this expedition Church painted some of his more memorable works, such as “The Heart of the Andes,” and not surprisingly several of the artist’s works ended up in the Field mansion on Gramercy Park.

Back in New York Field met Frederick Newton Gisborne in 1853.  A year earlier the Canadian inventor and electrician had successfully laid the first deep-sea cable in North American waters—connecting Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick.   Gisborne laid out the possibility of an even grander project—a transatlantic cable between Britain and the United States.

Field reportedly mulled over the globe that stood in his library and finally came to the conclusion that laying the cable could be done.  In 1854 he called a group of his friends together in his library—Peter Cooper, Moses Taylor, Marshall O. Roberts, Chandler White and Wilson G. Hunt.  A newspaper later said he “preached the Atlantic cable to them until they were converted to his plans.”

Decades later, in 1895, Daniel Huntington would paint his account of the meeting around Field's globe.  The painting was presented to the New York City Chamber of Commerce.  The globe eventually landed in the Smithsonian Institution.  New-York Tribune (copyright expired)

It would not be an easy task.  Cyrus Field obsessed and labored on the project for twelve years and crossed the ocean 51 times.  The first cable failed.  The group tried again.  “The second cable spoke for three weeks, then parted and was dead as the first,” said a newspaper. 

On October 31, 1865 Field prepared to try again.  The Field mansion was the scene of a grand entertainment that evening, The New York Times reporting that “Mr. Cyrus W. Field invited many of our most prominent citizens to meet Sir Morton Peto and party…prior to their departure for Europe to-day.”  Field’s brother, Stephen Johnson Field, a Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, was among the distinguished guests including Chief Justice Chase, Senators Sherman and Morgan, two major generals, several judges, two university presidents and, of course, the original investors who had met in Field’s library eleven years earlier.

The third cable dropped slowly from the Great Eastern, reaching Europe in 1866.  It succeeded.  Not only was the laying of the transatlantic cable a monumental technological and engineering success; it was a colossal personal triumph for Cyrus West Field.  He was presented a gold medal by Congress; the Paris Exposition of 1867 awarded him the grand medal; and according to the Daily Alta California, “the Queen of England knighted his [British] associates, and he would have been Sir Cyrus had not his American birth and prejudices prevented.”

Across the park stood the mansion of Samuel J. Tilden, Governor of New York and 1876 presidential candidate to succeed Grant.  Tilden and Field were, for awhile, business associates; but would become outspoken adversaries.  Their combative rhetoric about issues like the elevated railroad would be fodder for the press for years.  The intense dislike between the pair was possibly sparked by David Dudley Field’s idea for the Electoral Commission in 1876 which resulted in Tilden’s losing the election.

It was not surprising, therefore, when Tilden was not present when many of the most esteemed names in the city assembled in the Field library on April 15, 1874.  The group, deemed by The New York Times as “the leading bankers, capitalists, and merchants of this City,” met to discuss what action should be taken “to represent the feelings of the business men of New-York to the President regarding the Senate bill for the expansion of the currency.”  Among those present were August Belmont, Theodore Roosevelt, Peter Cooper, and William E. Dodge, John Jacob Astor, W. H. Macy, A. A. Low and A. T. Stewart.

A rare glimpse inside the Cyrus Field mansion was offered when Count Ferdinand De Lesseps “and a select party of friends” were guests at a breakfast in the house on March 31, 1880.  The Times described “The breakfast-room and glass-covered veranda adjoining were aglow with flowers and tropical plants and the sideboard and tables were loaded down with vases of choice flowers…The walls of the room were decorated in fresco with paintings of Columbus, Washington, and Franklin, and the sideboard was the identical one purchased by Thomas Jefferson in London, and adorned the dining-room of the White House from 1801 to 1809.  After the repast the company inspected Mr. Field’s collection of paintings, embracing views of the Atlantic cables of 1865 and 1866, in the various processes of laying; the great Falls of Tiquandama, in New-Grenada, and the Volcano of Cotopaxi, in New-Granada.”

Cyrus West Field’s long run of triumphs and happiness in the Gramercy Park mansion came to an abrupt halt, beginning on in November 1891.  One year earlier, on December 2, the house was aglow with cheer as the Fields celebrated their golden wedding anniversary.  The Evening Worldremembered that “Mrs. Field was Mary Bryan Stone, daughter of a Guiford (Conn.) clergyman, when, on Dec. 2, 1840, she was led to the altar by Cyrus W. Field, then a poor boy of twenty-one years.”

The New-York Tribune reported “The venerable couple received their guests in the drawing-room, which was profusely decorated, and although the invitations had been limited to members of the family and intimate friends, more than a thousand persons came to offer their congratulations.  The object of interest, next to the central group, was the certificate of marriage of 1840, which was displayed on a table near the receiving party, and next to it the golden wedding certificate, signed by General W. T. Sherman, Benjamin H. Field, and a number of other well-known citizens.”

The couple had seven children in the house, now all grown; and despite never sharing in her husband’s spotlight, Mary was “companion and intelligent counsel, as well as wife and helpmate.”  When Mary died in their country home at Irvington-on-the-Hudson in November 1891, Cyrus Field was incapacitated with grief.

Mary Field as she appeared around 1860 -- photograph by Charles D. Fredericks & Co., from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult_VPage&VBID=24UAYWEDNRGO&SMLS=1&RW=1280&RH=915

Only days later things would get worse when son Edward’s stock brokerage business, Field, Lindley, Wieehers & Co., failed.  The Sun reported on November 29 “nearly all of those who have spoken on behalf of the firm have attributed to the alleged mental derangement of Edward M. Field all the damaging irregularities in the firm’s business methods which have come to light.  The statement that Mr. Field is insane and has been for some time was reiterated yesterday with a great deal of circumstantiality and was denied also.”

To make matters even worse, Edward’s partner Daniel A. Lindley was married to one of the Field daughters, Grace.  The ugly and public state of affairs was affecting her severely.  The Sun reported on November 29 “Mrs. Daniel A. Lindley was removed from the Everett House shortly after noon yesterday in an ambulance to the house of her father, Cyrus W. Field.  She has been in New York for about three weeks, and her husband has been with her at the Everett House.  When she came here she was suffering from nervous prostration and a cold was followed by pleurisy and pneumonia.”

Her condition deteriorated to the point that doctors felt it best to take her to the Field residence.  “It was impossible to take her there in a carriage, and Mr. Lindley hired an ambulance from the New York Hospital.  The change was accomplished in a few minutes, and Mrs. Lindley felt no evil effects from it.”

The multiple blows were evident on Cyrus Field.  His grandson told reporters “The shock he received at my grandmother’s death was terrible.  He did not realize that she was dangerously ill at the time, and when she passed away, it shattered him completely.  He had not recovered at all from that when this second shock came, and he is now completely crushed.  And when a man gets to be 72 years old such things are likely to be very serious.”

A physician gave an even graver assessment.  “Mr. Cyrus W. Field’s health is much more serious than I fancy the members of his family imagine.  Just at the moment he is in a state of artificial excitement.  His nerves are all on end.  But a reaction is sure to follow.

“Just how long before it will come it is difficult to say; it may be to-morrow or considerably later.  But I have little hope that he can withstand it.”

A few days later, on December 3, Cyrus Field’s secretary, Philip H. Harris gave a more hopeful prognosis, telling newspapers “Mr. Field’s condition had improved very greatly and that now he believed he would rally and recover.  When asked if he thought that Mr. Field knew the whole story of his son’s misbehavior, Mr. Harris said that he believed that the whole story had been told to him gradually and that the old gentleman knew everything.”

On January 11 Grace Field Lindley died in the mansion.  For the second time in three months Cyrus W. Field attended the funeral of an immediate family member—this one in his Gramercy Park home.  Grace was just 51 years old and left five children and her husband.  The New York Times remarked “The death of his daughter, although not unexpected, was a great shock to Cyrus W. Field.”

As summer neared, Field went to his country estate in Irvington.  There at 9:45 in the morning on July 12 he died in the house where his beloved Mary had died a few months earlier.  The accounts of his life and death filled full pages of newspapers across the nation.  The Times said “The name of Cyrus W. Field will pass into history as that of the man whose grit and genius succeeded in connecting the continents of Europe and America by a submarine cable.”

Two years later, on April 14, 1894, David Dudley Field died.  The substantial accomplishments of the attorney who was responsible for the Field Code—the move away from common law pleading towards code pleading—and who represented New York as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives had always been overshadowed by the fame of his brother next door.  Nevertheless his funeral drew thousands of mourners.  Before the service, the David Field house was visited by the United States Supreme Court Justices and other eminent jurists, politicians and scholars.  The New York Times remarked that he was honored in death “in the presence of the largest assemblage of representative men and women Calvary Church…has ever held.”

David Field’s house was sold for $73,800; about $2 million today.  In the meantime, the Cyrus Field house had been stripped of the paintings, historic relics and furniture and turned into a boarding house.  David’s mansion was likewise converted.  The New-York Tribune said “The lofty and spacious rooms were cut up into small apartments, and with the exception of the ceiling decorations and the wall hangings there was nothing left in the Field houses…to remind the visitor of the days when they were a part of New-York’s fashionable centre.”

That was about to change.

On April 23, 1899 the Tribune reported that wealthy banker Henry W. Poor had purchased both mansions with the intention of razing them and erecting a single large mansion.  The newspaper noted that “some of the most brilliant receptions and other society functions in the history of the metropolis took place in the Field houses.”  Now, having bought the properties for $200,000, Poor announced plans to build “a more modern building.”

The New York Times announced that “Plans have been prepared by Architect Stanford White…The new house will be modeled after an old English homestead, and will be novel in many features of its design.”  White, incidentally, lived directly across the street, on the northwest corner of Lexington Avenue and 21^st Street.

It could have been the fact that he lived on the park that drove the architect to convince Henry Poor to renovate the two houses rather than demolish them.  By essentially maintaining the exteriors of the old brownstone mansions the quaintness and historic continuity of the neighborhood would be preserved.  Instead of demolishing them, Stanford White did a massive renovation, combining the two Field mansions into one magnificent residence.

Stanford White's alterations would result in the entrance on Lexington Avenue -- photograph "Old Buildings of New York City" 1907 (copyright expired)

The transformation, costing Poor about $1 million, was completed in 1901.  The stoop and entrances on 21^stStreet were replaced by a shallow glass conservatory.  The entrance was moved to street level to the side—creating the new address No. 1 Lexington Avenue.  The New-York Tribune noted “Henry W. Poor two years ago purchased the twin mansions in Gramercy Park.  One of these belonged to the late Cyrus W. Field, and contained may wonderful oak carvings and other artistic features.  Under the advice of Stanford White, the architect, the two houses were thrown into one, and across the entire length has been arranged a splendid apartment, which is one of the largest ballrooms in the city.”

The entrance hall and staircase of the renovated mansion -- photograph McKim Mead & White, from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult_VPage&VBID=24UAYWEDTSIW&SMLS=1&RW=1280&RH=915

One of the first grand entertainments in the renovated mansion would be the debut of Edith Poor in January 1902.  The Tribune said “There will be a ball, and there is much curiosity concerning the house, as it is a veritable museum, of all of Europe having been ransacked for artistic furnishings.”

Indeed, White had scoured the continent for antique paneling, doorways, carved mantels and flooring.  On December 20, 1901 the Poors hosted the first of the string of entertainments for Edith.  The New York Times noted “It was the first large entertainment of the kind given there since the two Field houses were made into one.  The house is admirably adapted for entertaining, and is furnished with rare mural paintings, antique furniture, tapestries, statuary, etc., from abroad.” 

The guests entered into a large marble hall where they were awed by a large Roman fountain and statue.  Fifty young people were invited for the dinner.  A dais had been constructed in the hallway outside the dining room where The Hungarian Band played during dinner.  Another group, Schubert’s Band, arrived to play for the dancing in the drawing room overlooking Gramercy Park.  The Times remarked “This room has fine examples of mural painting on the ceiling, and is hung with tapestries, the general effect being dull, rather light green, and white, with touches of antique gold.”

White installed imported ceilings, antique mantels and carved doorways.  photograph McKim Mead & White, from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult_VPage&VBID=24UAYWEDTSIW&SMLS=1&RW=1280&RH=915

The Poors were not done impressing yet.  Following the dance in the drawing room, the ballroom was thrown open for a cotillion.  Another 200 guests filed in.  The Times reported that “After the cotillion supper was served at small tables placed in the large upper hall and dining room.  The squash court and conservatory were also open.”

It was the first of the lavish entertainments held in the Poor mansion.  In March 1902 the house was the scene of a musicale “one of the largest of the season,” according to The Times.  300 guests, some from Philadelphia and Boston, heard a full 60-member orchestra under the direction of Emil Paur.  Soprano Kate Huntington sang, and famed violinist Charles Gregorowitch performed as did Hamilton J. Orr who played a piano concerto with the orchestra.  After the program supper was served in the dining room, followed by “dancing of the young people, for which the Hungarian Band furnished the music.”

A charming breakfast room with intricate plaster ceiling opened onto the conservatory -- photograph McKim Mead & White, from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult_VPage&VBID=24UAYWEDTSIW&SMLS=1&RW=1280&RH=915

Edith Poor continued her social successes when she married Capt. James K. Cochrane of the British Army on January 5, 1904.  The Times called it “one of the largest and most fashionable weddings of the season” and it was followed by reception in the Poor mansion.  “Capt. Cochrane and his bride received congratulations and felicitations in the large red and gold drawing room on the second floor, under a bell of ferns and smilax,” reported the newspaper.

It would be among the last grand fetes held in the Poor household.

On December 27, 1908, the shocking news was published on the other side of the continent.  The San Francisco Call ran the headline “Henry W. Poor, Banker, Fails For 5 Million.”  The newspaper seemed as surprised as its readers.  “Poor was looked upon not only as a very wealthy man, but his family has long held a high social position.  He has two magnificent homes, one the old Cyrus W. Field mansion at 10 Lexington Avenue [sic], and the other a stone chateau at Tuxedo, which have been gathering places of the fashionable for years.”

It was the end of the line for the Gramercy Park mansion as a gather place of the fashionable.  Less than a decade after Stanford White had plundered Europe’s castles and palaces for rare and costly architectural elements, the house was slated for dismantling.  On April 18, 1909 The New York Times reported on the upcoming exhibition of the furnishings, artwork and architectural elements to be auctioned off.

Potential buyers, and the curious, filed through the mansion.  “In the drawing room the picture panels of the ceiling are in a light, yet opulent scheme of silvery grays and rose, with occasional cooling touches of blue.  Another extremely rich ceiling taken from an old Umbrian palace contains twelve panels depicting the divinities of Olympus in a color scheme of violets and grays with deep notes of blue, dusky red, and orange, all subdued by the tone of time to a smothered splendor,” said the newspaper.

The imported mantels would all be sold.  The Times said “Some of them are comparatively simple, but the one in the main hall is highly elaborated in the style of Francia, first period, and with its ornament of mascarons and cherubs, birds, and fruits in high relief it gives opportunity for a delightful play of light and shadow over the mellowed surface of the marble.”

There were Spanish doors, Colonial wooden mantels in the bedrooms, carved door frames and wrought iron gates and stair railings going under the hammer.  The house was hung with medieval tapestries, including several French 15^th century millefiori examples; a 15^th century Gothic tapestry depicting Hercules and Theseus wrestling; and Italian and Flemish tapestries from the 16^thcentury.  The furniture spanned several periods and styles—Chippendale, Louis XV, American Colonial, and Adams.

The Times tempered its sadness at the loss of a residential treasure with a positive note.  “The spectacle of the disintegration of a house in which the appointments have been assembled with such exacting taste cannot but be melancholy, but the opportunity for collectors is one to inspire enthusiasm.”

Despite Stanford White’s successful urging to preserve the Field mansions eight years earlier, Gramercy Park was changing.  In 1909 there were already two large apartment houses that had replaced old mansions.  Now in February 1910 it was announced that developer Charles W. Buek would raze the Poor house “and erect another towering apartment overlooking the park.”

Buek paid $200,000 for the property that had cost Poor $1.2 million less than a decade earlier.  He told reporters his apartment building would be “in the Italian Renaissance style, the façade being finished in Indiana limestone and buff brick.”

The corner as it appeared in 1929 with the new No. 1 Lexington Avenue building -- 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=24UAYWEDTSIW&SMLS=1&RW=1280&RH=915

Before long a handsome new building, designed by Herbert Lucas, replaced the old brownstone homes.  No. 1 Lexington Avenue survives today; a dignified Italian Renaissance-inspired building with a plaque on its façade reminding passersby that once the home of the man responsible for the Transatlantic Cable lived here.

photograph taken by the author

The Fish-Sonnenberg House -- 19 Gramercy Park South

Samuel Ruggles’ grand scheme to create Gramercy Park, a refined residential square, was well underway by 1845. A year earlier landscaping had begun in the elegantly-fenced park and the city’s elite had begun erecting dignified residences on the 60 plots around the square.

At 86 Irving Place, at the corner of Gramercy Park South, Whig politician William Samuel Johnson erected his comfortable four-story home in 1845. Five years later he sold it to socially prominent paper merchant Horace Brooks and his wife Mary Brooks. It was here in 1855 that the funeral of their 2 year old son, Horace Jr., was held.

In 1866 Brooks updated the house with a fashionable black slate mansard roof with ornate iron cresting. The addition gave the restrained structure a dignified, Victorian flavor. A matching, mansarded stable was built to the south.

Shortly thereafter it was owned by the eminent tobacco merchant Joseph Fatman who died in the house on October 11, 1869.

The large home had become a high-class rooming house by 1887 when Stuyvesant Fish purchased it. Fish, the president of the Illinois Central Railroad, was the son of former governor Hamilton Fish and a descendant of Peter Stuyvesant. His wife Marion (called Mamie by her friends) immediately began renovations. Her first priority was to change the address to the more socially-accepted 19 Gramercy Park South, despite the fact that the entrance was squarely on Irving Place.

Although popular legend holds that Stanford White redesigned the home, documentation points more accurately to architect Sidney V. Stratton, a favorite of New York society at the time. Whichever designer was responsible, the results were spectacular. A curving marble staircase rose from the reception area to the upper floors. Here were classical elements, painted paneling and columns. On the top floor Mrs. Stuyvesant Fish installed her ballroom, where the cream of New York society would be lavishly entertained. The renovations cost a staggering $120,000.

In 1898 the Fishes commissioned Stanford White to design a magnificent Italian palazzo at 78th Street and Madison Avenue, as they participated in the migration of millionaires northward. They retained the Gramercy Park home, leasing it to well-to-do merchant class families.

In 1901 Mr. and Mrs. Sharles rented it and on May 9, 1902 The New York Times reported that Mr. and Mrs. Philip Lydig “have taken the old Stuyvesant Fish house…for next Winter. They are to return shortly from Paris.” The newspaper amended the account the following September when the Lydigs sub-leased the home to Mr. and Mrs. Robert Collier, the Lydigs “have taken another house up town.” The Gramercy Park house, said The Times, “is not very old, and it was entirely done over by Mrs. Stuyvesant Fish in 1888.”

The Stuyvesant Fish House in 1909 with the marching stable -- photo NYPL Collection

On January 25, 1903, in honor of Mrs. Collier's grandmother, Mrs. Astor, the Colliers gave “their first large entertainment in the residence that belonged formerly to Stuyvesant Fish…It is to be a dinner, followed by a musicale, a very popular form just now of entertaining,” reported The New York Times.


In 1909 an apartment building was added to the southern end where the stable had stood. The resulting complex was managed as a multiple – albeit high-end – dwelling. Over the years residents included portrait artist Cecilia Beaux, actor John Barrymore, David Lamar, the "Wolf of Wall Street," Edward Sheldon, the playwright, and William C Bullitt, ambassador to France in 1939 and, in 1944, Norman Thomas, the Socialist Party candidate for President.

High-profile publicist Benjamin Sonnenberg and his wife leased two full floors in 1931, quickly falling in love with the house. In 1945 the couple purchased the building from Stuyvesant Fish’s son for $85,000, moved into the Waldorf-Astoria, and quickly re-converted it to a private residence, joining the original house with the apartment building.

The Sonnenberg’s furnished the resulting 37-room mansion with English antiques and paintings by Renoir, Seurat, Gauguin, Goya, Tintoretto and Cezanne. Seventeenth Century English paneling from Streatlam Castle in England was installed in a second story drawing room, which became known as The William & Mary Room. There were 13 fireplaces, six bedroom suites and, of course, Mamie Fish’s dramatic ballroom.

With the arrival of the Sonnenbergs, the house again saw lavish entertainment on par with that of Mrs. Stuyvesant Fish with 150 guests for dinner. According to one friend, Sonnenberg “always thought the ideal dinner party should have one actress, one businessman, one artist, and one banker.” The guest list of a 1967 dinner party included Brooke Astor, Bob Dylan, Jacob Javits, Jackie Kennedy, Alistair Cooke, Tom Wolfe, Truman Capote and Ethel Kennedy.

On September 5, 1978 Benjamin Sonnenberg suffered a heart attack. A day later he was dead. The house was opened for a day in June for prospective buyers to survey the publicist’s collections, then the house was emptied by Sotheby Parke Bernet and put on sale for $1.9 million

The house was purchased for $1.5 cash by Baron Walter Langer von Langendorff, the creator of White Shoulders perfume. Peculiarly, the baron and his wife staffed the house but did not move in. For years it sat, essentially empty, the private residence of servants.

Finally in 1981 the baron entreated Jane Ashley to take up residence and start redecorating. Two years later, however, the owner of 19 Gramercy Park South died, leaving an estate of approximately $125 million. Jane Ashley continued to live in the house another seven years before it was put on the market for $10 million.

The house, which critic Brendan Gill had once called “the greatest private house remaining in private hands in New York,” was simply too large. Entertainment on the scale of the Fishes and the Sonnenbergs no longer existed. In 1995 the property was sold to fashion designer Richard Tyler and his wife, Lisa Trafficante, for $3.5 million. Mrs. Stuyvesant Fish’s glorious ballroom was renovated into a “white space” for fashion shows.

By January 2000 the 18,000 square foot home was on the market again, selling in December for $16.5 million to psychologist Dr. Henry Jarecki.  No. 19 Gramercy Park has one of the most varied and colorful histories of New York residences; a dignified reminder of the Park’s rich heritage.

The Lost Luther Clark Mansion -- No. 18 Gramercy Park

photograph from Old Buildings of New York 1907, (copyright expired)

Luther C. Clark was born in Easthampton, Massachusetts on the Fourth of July 1814 to Bohan and Mary White Clark.  By the time he married Julia Crawford on August 10, 1843, Samuel B. Ruggles’s ambitious project of a high-end neighborhood called Gramercy Square was well underway.

Sixty years earlier, while Clark’s grandfather Enoch White was a lieutenant in the Revolutionary Army, the Gramercy Square area was part of James Duane’s 20-acre farm known as Gramercy Seat.  The name was said to come from the Dutch Krom Moerasje, meaning “Crooked Little Swamp.”  In December 1831 Samuel Ruggles purchased a portion of the swampy land, then spent an astounding $180,000 to drain the swamp and haul away innumerable cart loads of earth.

In 1844, the year following Clark’s wedding, the park had been fenced and landscaping begun.  Mansions began rising around Gramercy Square.  One of the handsomest would be Luther C. Clark’s brownstone home at No. 18, erected in 1853.

The stately red brick home with its tall mansard roof sat on the south side of the park, at the western corner of Irving Place.  Tall floor-to-ceiling parlor windows opened onto ornate cast iron balconies.  Above the high stone stoop the entrance was deeply recessed behind two fluted Corinthian columns about 12 feet tall.  These and their flanking carved pilasters upheld the hefty entabulature with its highly decorative cresting.

photo Columbia Alumni News 1918-1919 (copyright expired)

Clark was, by now, a well-established banker and member of the firm Clark, Dodge & Co.  He and Julia would have six children; George, Ellen, Arthur, Louis, Julia and David.  On March 20, 1854, just a year after moving into the No. 18 Gramercy Square, 10 year old Ellen died.  Two years later, on August 5, 1856, the family would lose 4-year old Arthur.

Clark, Dodge & Co. did much of its business in gold.  It was a circumstance that would cause problems.  On October 1, 1864 Luther C. Clark appeared before Justice Dowling to testify against Loring W. Watson regarding one such incident.

Watson had been a cashier with the firm for many years.  His trusted position gave him the opportunity to embezzle $12,000 (although Clark suggested “that a close examination of their books might show a larger amount”).  Watson’s take in Civil War period dollars would translate to more like $175,000 today.  He attempted to make his escape on the steamship City of London on Saturday, October 1 when he realized his theft had been detected.

Before the steamship left the pier, Police Captain Jourdan and Sergeant Quinn rushed aboard and arrested the clerk.  They found $450 in English gold  on him, “this being, probably, all that he had saved from the large amounts of his employers’ money, with which he had speculated at the gold board,” presumed The Sun two days later.

As Luther Clark prepared an affidavit, Loring Watson explained that he needed the funds because “he had been drawn into difficulty solely through speculation in stocks.”  The judge was unmoved by his reasoning.  “He was committed,” said The Sun.

photo Columbia Alumni News 1918-1919 (copyright expired)

When the Civil War draft lottery was initiated, the wealthiest of New York families managed to purchase their sons’ exemption.  It was not the case with the Clark family.  Three weeks before Watson’s embezzlement had been detected, on September 4, 1864, 20-year old George Crawford Clark’s name was drawn in the draft lottery.

In January 1866 the firm of Ludwig C. Meyer sent a $5,000 bag of gold to Luther C. Clark.  The New-York Daily Tribune explained two months later that it “was lost in some way between the two.”  Meyer insisted that the bag of gold was delivered.  Clark, Dodge & Co., said the opposite.  Now, on Saturday March 17 a jury had to try to discern who was telling the truth.

The newspaper put it in simple terms.  “The chief question was as to whether the gold was lost before or after its delivery to the defendants.”  Meyer sued for more than the intrinsic amount of the loss; asking for $11,719.96 in damages.  Clark and his partners were no doubt stunned when on Sunday morning the jury “rendered a verdict for the full amount claimed…to which the Court added an allowance of $500.”

When Luther Clark died in 1877, only three of his six children survived him.  He left an estate of $200,000—nearly $4.5 million today—of which half went to his widow and the remainder divided equally among Louis, Julia and David.

Julia, daughter Julia, and 13-year old David remained in the Gramercy Park mansion.   The younger Julia was married on November 11, 1879 to Samuel Phillips Blagden in the Madison Square Church.

Early in 1883 Julia Clark took on Charles Byrnes as assistant butler.  Not long after he arrived she noticed that little by little items were missing—“various articles of jewelry, one or two pocket-books, and considerable money,” said The New York Times.  Nearly a year later she estimated that the mysteriously disappearing cash and objects amounted to more than $1,000.

Suspecting that the thief was one of the servants, the shrewd widow did her own detective work.  She marked a bill and left it in a conspicuous place in the house.  It disappeared.  Having narrowed down the field to one suspect, she called police to arrest Charles Byrnes. 

“In Byrnes’s possession were found not only the marked money, but one of the stolen purses and a pawn-ticket, which is supposed to represent a diamond ring valued at $600, upon which Byrnes had realized only $125,” reported The New York Times on February 3, 1884.

On April 30, 1895 the 72-year old Julia C. Clark opened her house for the wedding of her niece, Alice Townsend Crawford to Richard Tighe Wainwright.  The family’s social standing was reflected in the names among the wedding party—including Beekman, La Farge, Colt, Livingston and Norrie.

Decades earlier, when Luther C. Clark’s mansion was first completed, a wisteria vine was planted.  Now, on December 3, 1899, the New-York Tribune remembered “It was planted fifty years ago, at which time the house was newly built and the Clark family took possession of it.  The small sprig soon put forth its tender shoots, and as soon as the tendrils were long enough they were trained to run along the iron fence.  Gradually they began to wind in and out of the pickets, and the vine, prospering, grew so strong and sturdy that all attempts to dislodge it failed.”

Now the immense and venerable plant had grown “as large in diameter as a good sized tree” in places.  The Tribune writer was amazed that the wisteria vine had proven to be stronger than the iron fence.  “In places it has taken a firm hold on the rails, completed surrounding them, and several times by the strength of its grasp it ha s lifted the fence from its foundations.”

 

The New-York Tribune published a photograph of the unusual wisteria growth on December 3, 1899 (copyright expired)

Julia Clark’s wisteria was somewhat of a curiosity for visitors to the area.  “It became extremely luxuriant, and now has to be trimmed frequently, and it is a little difficult to determine whether the fence is growing out of the vine or the vine from the fence, for a complete union seems to have been effected between the two.”  The newspaper said that during the blossoming season it was “one of the ornaments of the neighborhood.  As a prank of nature it is always interesting.”

Suddenly, on Monday November 12, 1900, after nearly half a century in the house, the 81-year old Julia Crawford Clark died in her home.  Before long the block would be known for its high-end clubs.  The former Potter mansion at No. 16 had become the clubhouse of the Players years earlier.  Now the Clark home and the Tilden mansion at No. 15 would follow suit, becoming the Columbia University Club and the National Arts Club respectively. 

On April 7, 1905 the Columbia University Club announced it had purchased the Clark mansion for $150,000.  “The alterations to the Gramercy Park house will cost $10,000,” reported the New-York Tribune.  “The club has now a membership of eight hundred and it is believed that the purchase of the Gramercy Park home of the club will tend materially to increase that number.”

Four bottles of champagne await as properly-dressed Columbia alumni prepare to hoist the flag on the roof of their new clubhouse -- photo Columbia Alumni News 1918-1919 (copyright expired)

The Columbia Alumni News would later say "The interior of this venerable pile was skillfully remodeled by Architect Ken Murchison, and, on September 7, 1905, the Club put its new house in commission with appropriate ceremonies."

Not long after the housewarming, an open-air dining room was constructed over the rear yard and the Clark stable, facing Irving Place, was converted into squash courts.  It was here that Columbia would battle opponents like Harvard in high-class squash matches.

Only three years later the club had so “lustily” grown that additional space was needed.  “In 1908 thirteen of the Club architects busied themselves over plans for enlarging the old house,” said Columbia Alumni News, “but, however cunningly they contrived, the result was the same—no enough room could be found.”

Plans would drag on for a decade before the Columbia University Club moved on.  It appeared that the end of the line for the Clark mansion had come on March 25, 1917 when The New York Times reported that it was to be razed to make way for the Gramercy Park Studios.  The 14-story structure would provide “unobstructed north light for artists” 

The proposed Flemish Revival "Gramercy Park Studio" building was never realized -- The New York Times, March 25, 1917 (copyright expired)

The newspaper said “The old house there, remodeled several years ago for the Columbia University Club when it bought the property, is one of the finest remaining residences of the time when Gramercy Park was one of the fashionable dwelling sections of the city.”

Nevertheless “Studio apartments of this sort are at a premium in the Gramercy Park section,’ said The Times.  The proposed building, designed by Charles W. Buckham and D. Everett Waid, already had several apartments rented at the time of the announcement.

But for whatever reason, the Gramercy Park Studio project never went forward.  Instead the Army and Navy Club of America moved into the Clark mansion.  But the love affair between the club and the vintage residence would not last.

On September 18, 1920 the Real Estate Record & Builders’ Guide noted “The present clubhouse at 18 Gramercy Park has long been unsuited for entertaining the hundreds of officers who annually come to New York.  During the war members found it very inadequate.  Naval officers of this and the other allied countries were entertained at the New York Yacht Club, but Army officers in New York during those trying days found hotels overcrowded and themselves without a home to which they could go for suitable accommodations.”

As the organization’s new $3 million clubhouse was being completed, the Clark mansion was sold to an investor.  The New York Times reported on June 29, 1921 “The building is to be extensively remodeled into small apartments and the squash courts building will eventually be remodeled into duplex studio apartments.”

Well-to-do families moved into the renovated mansion; but that arrangement, too, would not last.  On June 13, 1926 the sale of the building was announced.  The Rosman Corporation revealed its intentions to erect a 16-story “restricted modern residence exclusively for women.”

photo Samuel H. Gottscho, January 11, 1928, from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult_VPage&VBID=24UAYWHYCD5N&SMLS=1&RW=1366&RH=631 

Designed by Mungatroyd and Ogden, the Parkside was completed in 1927.  Women paid $3.50 a night in 1939 for one of the 300 rooms and full hotel services.

Today the Parkside still stands.  It was renovated in 2013 by Zeckendorf Development and Robert A. M. Stern into 16 lavish, luxury residences—one of which sold that year for $16.575 million.  Another, with four terraces and two pools was purchased by Houston Rockets owner, Leslie Alexander for $42 million.

The somewhat awkward looking building has survived longer than its predecessor did—a fact that proves that it is often neither architectural beauty nor historical interest that dictates a structure’s endurance in Manhattan.

The James Pinchot House -- No. 2 Gramercy Park

By 1849 Samuel B. Ruggles’ ambitious project of a high-toned neighborhood centered around his Gramercy Square was well underway.  Like Washington Square and St. John’s Park, fine mansions would soon encircle the landscaped park.  That year two matching mansions were erected at Nos. 1 and 2 Gramercy Square (later renamed Gramercy Park).  The Italianate residences rose four stories over brownstone English basements.  Elegant cast iron balconies enhanced the floor-to-ceiling parlor windows and the openings were framed in carved brownstone, which contrasted with the red brick facades.

The corner house at No. 1 would become home to the internationally renowned surgeon, Dr. Valentine Mott.  The family of Colonel Richard French would be living next door at No. 2 by 1860.  French was given command of the 12^th Regiment of the New York State National Guard on August 10, 1855. 

Years later the report of the Annual Reunion and Dinner on Saturday, April 21, 1894 reminded officers that under French, “the well-known white coats, which had attracted so much attention, were laid aside, and the Regiment adopted a blue coat and light blue trowsers.”  French would not see much of his newly-uniformed troops.  He resigned toward the end of 1856.

The years 1860 and 1861 would be tragic ones in the French household.  On July 25, 1860 Adelaide, the infant daughter of Richard and Matilda, died at the age of 10 months and 4 days.  The doorway of No. 2 Gramercy Park would have been hung in black crepe on the afternoon of July 27 when the funeral took place in the parlor.

Just over two months later 4-year old Henrietta Louise French died on Saturday, September 29.  Once again the parlor was the scene of a child’s funeral; this one on Monday October 1 at 2:00 p.m.  But the seemingly-peculiar string of deaths within the French family was not over.  On Saturday morning, October 12, 1861 19-year old Emma became ill.  She was dead within three hours.  Friends and family gathered at No. 2 Gramercy Park the following Tuesday for the third funeral within a year.

It would be the last funeral in the house until 1872.  The 64-year old Colonel Richard French died suddenly on July 16 while out of town.  The funeral was held in the parlor the following Saturday morning at 10:00.

Although Matilda French would live until October 2, 1899, she sold No. 2 Gramercy Park in March 1884.  Samuel Glover purchased the house for $43,000—no doubt a satisfying amount for the aging widow.  The sale price would equate to about $986,000 today.

Until 1917 No. 2 was a twin to the Valentine Mott house next door.  In this photo modern buildings are rising around the venerable houses.  Interior shades and shutters along the row are closed to protect against the damaging sunlight.    photograph by George F. Arata, from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult_VPage&VBID=24UAYW1T1VKS&SMLS=1&RW=1280&RH=915&PN=4#/SearchResult_VPage&VBID=24UAYW1T1VKS&SMLS=1&RW=1280&RH=915&PN=4

Glover quickly resold the house to David Dudley Field, Jr., whose well known father lived across the park.  Cyrus W. Field, who was responsible for the laying of the Transatlantic Cable, lived next door to his brother.  Field would not hold onto the property for long, either.  On January 22, 1887 the Real Estate Record & Builders’ Guide noted that “Mrs. David Dudley Field, Jr., has sold the dwelling No. 2 Gramercy Park to James W. Pinchot.”

Pinchot’s family had made a fortune in the wallpaper industry.  James had married Mary Eno, the daughter of Amos Eno, one of New York City’s foremost and wealthiest real estate developers.  The couple had three children:  Gifford, Antoinette and Amos Richards Eno Pinchot.

James Pinchot’s interests did not involve many of the expected pastimes of Manhattan’s gentlemen like yachting.  Instead he was a supporter of the nature conservation movement, which sought to preserve forests, plant and wildlife.  Historians believe he seriously regretted the destruction of the forestland that the family’s business had caused and set out to atone for it.  His club memberships reflected a serious, erudite bent.  Instead of joining the Metropolitan or Union Club, he preferred the more bookish Century Club and Grolier Club.

Mary Pinchot’s entertainments in the house would follow a similar pattern.  At 3:00 on Tuesday, March 29, 1898 she hosted a lecture by Ada Webster Ward on “Making of Modern History;” and on February 27, 1900 The New York Times noted that “The drawing room of Mrs. J. W. Pinchot’s residence, 2 Gramercy park, was filled last evening at a private lecture recital by Mr. W. J. Henderson on ‘The Development of Passion Music,’ which was illustrated by the quartet known as The Bach Singers of New York.”

None of this meant that Mary was immune to society fads, of course.  On October 20, 1895 the Los Angeles Herald reported on “The Latest Fad in Fans.”  It told its readers “The newest thing in fans is an echo of the Napoleonic era and of Louis XVI.”  The newspaper reported on the reproduction fans used by fashionable ladies nationwide to cool their overheated heads.  “The average cost of the new fans is in the neighborhood of $100.  Cheap ones can be had for as low as $10, while the better ones run up to $200…Those which have been decorated by artists of note bring very large sums running well into the thousands.”

The newspaper noted that Mary Pinchot’s collection of fans was unsurpassed even by Caroline Astor’s.  “Of the many New York women who have fine collections of fans that of Mrs. James W. Pinchot is probably the most complete.”  It added “One of the most prized in her collection is a fan which was once used by Marie Antoinette with a Vernis Martin finish.”

Six months after the Los Angeles Herald’s article on fans the nation's attention was riveted on the slightly scandalous marriage of former President Benjamin Harrison to the niece of his now-deceased wife.  Not only was the couple faintly related by marriage, Harrison was 62 years old; his bride-to-be, Mary Scott Lord Dimmock, was 37. 

Mary Scott Lord Dimmock on her wedding day in 1896 -- The Pullman Herald, April 11, 1896 (copyright expired)

Despite some wagging tongues, the wedding took place in St. Thomas’ Church at 5:45 on the afternoon of April 6, 1896.  As the bridal party emerged from the church, they entered “the carriages waiting at the entrance” and were “driven to the residence of Mr. and Mrs. Pinchot, No. 2 Gramercy Park, where light refreshments were served, and where the party donned traveling attire for the trip to Indianapolis,” according to the Pullman Herald of Pullman, Washington on April 11.

By now the Pinchot children were grown.  Antoinette had become Lady Alan Johnstone and lived in Copenhagen where her husband was First Secretary of the British Legation.  Gifford Pinchot was asked by President Grover Cleveland in 1896 to develop a plan for managing the nation’s expansive Western forest reserves.  Two years later he succeeded Bernhard Fernow as Chief of the Division of Forestry, later renamed the United States Forest Service.

That same year Amos left law school to fight in the Spanish-American War.  At war’s end, he enrolled in New York Law School and was admitted to the bar in 1900.  Later that year, on November 14, he married Gertrude Minturn, the daughter of fabulously wealthy Robert B. Minturn, in St. George’s Episcopal Church on Stuyvesant Square.  The New-York Tribune said the church was “crowded, many of the fashionable set having come to town to attend” the wedding.

Lady Alan Johnstone and her brother, Amos Pinchot -- photo Library of Congress

The Gramercy Square mansion enjoyed its own brief time in the limelight when Francis Hopkinson Smith published his novel Caleb West, Master Diver, in 1898.  It became the best selling book in the United States that year and was serialized in The Atlantic.  Smith used the house as the residence of his character Mrs. Leroy.  “It was there that Caleb’s wife found a refuge after her flight from her home near the Race Rock lighthouse in the Long Island Sound," said The Bookman later in 1916.

By 1903 the entire Pinchot family was spending more time in Washington DC and their Pike County, Pennsylvania estate, Grey Towers, and less time in New York.  Finally on October 11 that year The New York Times reported that John Griffin Carlisle and his wife, the former Mary Goodson, had leased the mansion at No. 2 Gramercy Park.

 

John Griffin Carlisle in his younger years -- photo Library of Congress

The aging couple had an illustrious past.  Carlisle had served as Speaker of the House from 1883 to 1889 and was Secretary of the Treasury under Grover Cleveland.  The Times would later remember that Mary Carlisle “took a leading part in the social life of the capital, and was very popular.”

She continued the practice, now, in New York.  On December 14 that year she gave a luncheon in the house for her two granddaughters, Jane and Laura Carlisle.  “Miss Jane Carlisle will make her debut next Winter,” noted The Times.  Their girls’ father, William K. Carlisle, had died in 1898.

In the meantime, the Pinchots took up where the Carlisles left off in Washington.  On January 15, 1904 the Pike County Press reported that “James W. Pinchot and wife and Amos R. Eno Pinchot and wife were guests recently at the White House at a musicale given by President Roosevelt.”

A gaslight was conveniently located outside the mansion's stoop -- The Bookman, February 1916 (copyright expired)

The Carlisles maintained a country estate, the Remsen Villa, in West Islip, Long Island.  It was there, in July 1905, that Mary became ill and died within three weeks.  Now William’s widow, along with Jane and Laura Carlisle, move into the Gramercy Park house with John. 

On May 5, 1907 The Times reported on Jane’s engagement to Frederick L. Allen, an attorney for the Mutual Life Insurance Company.  “Miss Carlisle, who has spent most of her time lately in Washington, where her grandfather has a house, is tall and handsome, with brown hair and large blue eyes.”  A month earlier the newspaper had felt the need to report that Allen “is considerably older than his financee.”

By now Amos Pinchot held the title to the Gramercy Park house.  His mother was living in Washington DC and his father seems to have been spending most of his time in the Pennsylvania estate.  The Carlisles left No. 2 Gramercy Park and by the first week of June, 1907 Amos had leased it to C. W. Sherwin and his wife.  What he may not have realized is that Mrs. Sherwin intended to operate her dressmaking business from he house.

On June 9, 1907 The New York Times reported “There is a dressmaker in one of the fine old houses in one of the most aristocratic quarters of the square, and Gramercy Park residents don’t quite know what to do about it.”

The newspaper said Amos Pinchot “doesn’t seem to know what to do about it, either, and he has gone to Europe.  The only person who is sure of anything is the invader herself, who says there is only one thing to do and that is to go on.”

Mrs. Sherwin admitted to the press that she knew there were “serious objections,” but “I have a lease for five years—and I don’t know what can be done.  It must be more disagreeable for Mr. Pinchot, whose friends live here, than for me.”

Indeed, the Sherwins stayed on—they not only lived here through their five-year lease; but for another five years.  If Gramercy Park residents had been upset over the incursion of a dressmaker, they were no doubt in a panic when they read the Real Estate Record & Builders’ Guide on February 17, 1907.  The newspaper reported that No. 2 had been sold by the Pinchot family and “It is reported that the new owner plans a high class apartment house improvement.”

The “new owner,” it turned out, was C. W. Sherwin.  The Record & Guide noted that the house had been on the market for $115,000—about $2 million today.  But instead of demolishing the old mansion, Sherwin quickly turned it over to Ronald C. Lee.  On April 7 Lee announced that architect Grosvenor Atterbury had been commissioned to alter the building “into studio apartments.”  The Record & Guide noted that the plans consisted “of altering the building from 4 to 5 stories.”

The completed renovation stopped short of a fifth floor, however.  Atterbury removed the stoop and moved the entrance to the former English basement.  The fourth floor was raised and large windows installed; perfect for working artists.  By early 1918 the renovated building was ready to receive tenants.  On March 26 The Sun reported that P. S. Hildreth and G. C. Tyler had rented apartments.  “This completes the renting of this building.”

Large studio windows flood the heightened fourth floor.

Despite the apartment buildings that replaced refined mansions and the division of homes into apartments; Gramercy Park retained its upscale tone.  Among the first of the respected tenants in No. 2 were the family of George E. H. Werhan; and newlyweds Richard C Noel and his wife, Marietta.

In July 1922 Ronald C. Lee finally got around to his anticipated additional floor to the house.  Architect Aymar Embury II files plans for a “new pent house” with an estimated cost of $5,000.   Lee would retain ownership of the house for decades and lovingly maintained it.  In May 1945 when the Gramercy Park Associate held its annual window box and garden competition, Lee was ready.  He won the first prize in the competition for “tidy front yards.”  The New York Timessaid “The house at 2 Gramercy Park, owned by Ronald C. Lee, in a setting of ivy and privet with bright window boxes along the balcony was judged the finest.”

 

It appears that Ronald C. Lee either painted or stuccoed the brick in the 1940s -- photograph by Beecher Ogden, from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York, http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult_VPage&VBID=24UAYW1T1VKS&SMLS=1&RW=1280&RH=915&PN=4#/SearchResult_VPage&VBID=24UAYW1T1VKS&SMLS=1&RW=1280&RH=915&PN=5

Today No. 2 Gramercy Park looks much as it did following Grosvenor Atterbury’s 1917 renovation.  And most likely few of its tenants know that a former U.S. President enjoyed “light refreshments” here following his wedding on an April afternoon in 1896.

The handsome 1849 iron fencing survives.

non-credited photographs taken by the author