The 1901 Joseph Ulman House -- No. 22 E. 82nd St

 

photo by Alice Lum

As the Upper East Side rapidly developed in the 1870s real estate developer Robert McCafferty teamed up with architect Richard W. Buckley to develop rows of brownstone neo-Grec residences for upper middle class families.  When the pair completed a row of six such homes stretching from No. 801 to 811 Madison Avenue the Real Estate Record and Guide called Buckley a “rising young architect.”

In 1880, when the partnership was formalized with the establishment of McCafferty & Buckley, the population of the area was changing.  With the mansions of Manhattan’s millionaires creeping northward along Central Park, the side streets off Fifth Avenue grew increasingly upscale.  The McCafferty & Buckley followed suit.  By the turn of the century their speculative residences were designed for the very wealthy.   The New York Times would later say “McCafferty & Buckley produced many of the handsomest private dwellings on the east side of the city.”

In 1900 they began construction on three adjoining mansions at Nos. 19 through 22 East 82^nd Street.  Completed a year later, No. 22 was a self-important Beaux Arts beauty that refused to hold back.  Sitting aloofly back from the sidewalk, an iron fence enclosed its areaway and shallow, curved steps let to the entrance.  A stone cornice, supported by heavy scrolled brackets, upholds four stories of elegantly carved limestone and grouped windows.

photo by Alice Lum

The homes were the property of Robert McCafferty whose health soon began failing.  After what was termed “a lingering illness,” he died in his Park Avenue home on February 11, 1905.  No. 22 East 82^ndStreet, along with many other properties, sat unsold while his estate was settled. 

In 1907 the McCafferty holdings finally began being liquidated.  On July 27, when about thirty lots comprising an entire block in the Bronx was offered, The Times remarked “The sale of the real estate owned by the late Robert McCafferty is an event of unusual interest to the older generation of real estate men in New York, among whom he was for many years a leader.”

It would not be for another year before the house at No. 22 was sold to broker Joseph S. Ulman.    The well respected Ulman was, according to the “History of the Manhattan Club” that year, “familiarly known on the Stock Exchange and in the Club as ‘Josephus.’”

Having sat vacant for seven years, the Ulmans apparently felt the house needed some sprucing up.  They contracted architect C. H. P. Gilbert to update the interior decorations and alter the interiors—a project that cost nearly $100,000.  Gilbert added what The New York Times called “all modern improvements, including electric elevators and other conveniences.”

While many of his neighbors were still riding in stylish carriages, the modern-thinking Ulman owned a motorcar.   Shortly after purchasing their new home, in October 1908, the Ulmans sailed for Europe where they embarked on a “lengthy automobile tour” that was reported in Automobile Topics.

photo by Alice Lum

Mrs. Ulman hosted the expected high-end entertainments in the house, such as the dinner on November 27, 1910 for Sibyl Grey-Wilson.  The guest of honor was the daughter of Sir William Grey-Wilson, Governor of the Bahamas.

Five years after purchasing and updating the mansion, Ulman sold it on November 8, 1913.  The New York Times called it “A private house sale of more than ordinary interest,” and deemed the house “one of the high-class private homes in that section of the city.”

The Times noted that “The name of the new owner was not divulged by the brokers, but he was said to be a prominent New Yorker who intends to occupy the house.”  The Sun was quick to trump the rival newspaper, printing “E. C. Knight is said to be the buyer of the dwelling at 22 East Eighty-second Street.”

Edward C. Knight, Jr. was the son of railroad and sugar refining magnate Edward C. Knight of Philadelphia.  The senior Knight had been famously sued by the United States Government in the first case tried under the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890.  In October 1908The New York Times announced that “Mr. and Mrs. Edward C. Knight, Jr…have given up Philadelphia for New York and Newport.”

The Knights would not stay in the 82^nd Street mansion, long, however, and by 1916 it was home to Edward Motley Weld, his wife, the former Sarah Lothrop King, and their 18-year old son, Lathrop.  Weld was the president of the New York Cotton Exchange, a well-known sportsman and member of the exclusive Union, Turf and Field, and Tuxedo Clubs among others.

With the war in Europe raging, young Lathrop left East 82^ndStreet for the United States’ Federal Military Training Camp that year.  He went on to become a junior lieutenant in the Navy Flying Corps during the war.

With the end of the war, Lathrop Weld returned to New York and on October 20, 1920 the New-York Tribune announced his engagement to the Bostonian debutante Dorothy Wells.   Lathrop’s fiancée was the granddaughter of Colonel Thomas L. Livermore.

Following Lathrop's marriage, the Welds left No. 22 East 82^ndStreet.  On November 4, 1922 the New-York Tribune noted that they leased the house furnished “to Orlando F. Weber, president of the allied Chemical and Dye Corporation.”

Although Edward Motley Weld died on December 17, 1929, the Weber family would stay on in the 82^nd Street house for decades.  A good friend of the Weber family was B. Lord Buckley, the founder and headmaster of the exclusive Buckley School for Boys.   Buckley lived not far away at No. 114 East 71^st Street and was visiting the Webers on Monday morning, December 27, 1932.  Without warning the 61-year old educator died in the house.

Among the 700 mourners who attended the funeral in St. Thomas Episcopal Church on Fifth Avenue were Eleanor Roosevelt with her two sons, Franklin, Jr., and John; both of whom were pupils of Buckley.

The Webers maintained a country estate, Wendanbrook, in Mount Kisco, New York and it was there on June 7, 1941 that daughter Clare Sturtevant Weber was married.   As with the Weld family before them, following the marriage, the Webers soon left No. 22 East 82^nd Street.

photo by Alice Lum

The gracious mansion became home to Editorial Management Inc. which published Authentic Detective.  Throughout the 1940s it advertised for “factual accounts of actual crime cases.”   The country’s entry into World War II caused problems for the publication, however and in May 1947 it announced it had “temporarily suspended publication…will resume when paper supply is improved.  Query before submitting.”

In 1953 the house was renovated to classrooms.   The Ramaz Primary School was here through the 1970s, educating children from 4-years old through third grade.  Then in 1983 it was converted to luxurious apartments, just one per floor.

In 2001 the house appeared in the motion picture Head Over Heels when character Amanda, played by Monica Potter, took an apartment in the building.

photo http://www.elliman.com/new-york-city/museum-house-22-east-82-street-unit-4thfloor-manhattan-jziovkz

Today the Ulman mansion is known as Museum House and the full-floor apartments rent for about $16,000 a month.  While C. P. H. Gilbert’s 1908 interiors have long disappeared, the lavish limestone façade remains essentially unchanged.

The 1896 Edith Wharton Carriage House -- No. 111 E 77th Street

On August 9, 1895 builder-architects McCafferty & Buckley filed plans for a “three story brick stable and dwelling” to be erected at No. 111 East 77^th Street.  Robert W. Buckley and Robert McCafferty had already been busy in the rapidly-developing area; putting up rows of townhouses and corresponding carriage houses.

Their choice of location made sense.  Sitting between Fourth Avenue (later named Park Avenue) and Lexington Avenue, it was close enough to the fine homes near Central Park to be convenient; yet far enough away that wealthy homeowners were not offended by noises and smells.  Similar carriage houses were appearing on the north side of the block; while on across the street was the nurses’ training school of the German Hospital and Dispensary.

The architects estimated the cost of the proposed structure at $18,000—about half a million today.  That figure may have risen when the intended brick façade became instead stone.  The handsome gray graining of the planar block of the upper floors suggests marble rather than the more expected granite or limestone.

McCafferty & Buckley’s carriage house “and dwelling” was completed the following year.  It was an income producing property for the partners and they retained ownership for four years.  And while similar structures housed stable-related employees on the upper floors, rooms in the building at No. 111 were leased to a variety of tenants of meager means.  As the 19^th century rolled over to the 20^th, only one occupant held a carriage occupation—apprentice coachman George H. Thompson (just 16 years old).

All of the residents were black, born in the US, except Irish immigrant Ellen McCarty who made her living as a laundress.  The other three women in the building were also laundresses; and there was one valet.

On October 3, 1900, about three months after the census-taker recorded the mix of residents, The New York Times reported that McCafferty & Buckley had sold the “three-story private stable” to Edward R. Wharton.   The wealthy Wharton who lived nearby at No. 884 Park Avenue at 78^th Street paid a hefty $36,000 for the stable. 

In 1885 he had married the former Edith Newbold Jones in a fashionable society wedding.  Wharton relished the whirlwind of social seasons in Newport and Europe; in stark contrast to his wife who disdained the conspicuous consumption and inane lifestyle of her staggeringly-wealthy peers.

For about a decade following her marriage Edith Wharton published poems and short stories; although Edward was mainly unimpressed with her avocation.  By the time the carriage house was purchased, Edith was seeing some recognition as a writer.  In 1897 she had begun writing The Decoration of Houses and two years later The Greater Inclination, a collection of short stories was published.

The deed to the 77^th Street carriage house was apparently transferred to Edith’s name.  On November 13, 1903 The New York Times reported that Edith Wharton had leased the stable to Edward T. H. Talmage. 

Talmage lived at No. 969 Park Avenue at 82^ndStreet.  His passion for golf led to his co-founding the Somerset Hills Country Club in Bernardsville, New Jersey in 1894.  The Talmages maintained a 400-acre estate in New Jersey known as “Woodmere Farms.”

Edward Talmage used the carriage house for only a year.  In 1904 Edith Wharton sold it to Francis Burton Harrison and his wife.  Mary Burton Harrison was the former Mary Crocker, daughter of Colonel Charles Fred Crocker of San Francisco, and heiress to the Crocker Bank and railroad fortunes.

The Harrisons had been married four years earlier.  Mary’s personal wealth rivaled that of her husband and Some Prominent Virginia Families noted that under Crocker’s will “the daughter received a large fortune.”  Her portion of the estate was about $5 million.

The year that Harrison purchased the carriage house he received the nomination for Lieutenant Governor at the Democratic State Convention.  The following year he was elected to Congress.  The couple lived at No. 876 Fifth Avenue across from Central Park.

Although their coachman lived above the stable, evincing that the building was still used for horses and carriages; the Harrisons owned motorcars, too, and a garage was maintained on West 58^thStreet.  On November 25, 1905 tragedy struck when Mary was motoring in Long Island City.   Her brother, Charles T. Crocker who was studying at Yale, and two friends from San Francisco, Mr. and Mrs. Laurence I. Scott, were visiting and the party was on their way to Hempstead Colony, Long Island.

As the limousine headed down Thompson’s Hill (deemed by a newspaper as “a favorite speedway for automobiles"), Scott and Crocker were examining a road map while Mary and Mrs. Scott were talking and laughing.  The chauffeur, Constant Ravert, turned and said that something was wrong with the steering gear.

According to the Baltimore Sun, “The next instant the machine swerved sharply.  The chauffeur’s frantic efforts to guide it back into the road were fruitless and the car plunged toward a ditch at the side of the road, with a telegraph pole booming directly in its course.  It struck the pole a glancing blow and then toppled into the ditch.”

Mary Burton Harrison was thrown under the car, her head pinned down by the vehicle.  Her neck was broken.  The Baltimore Sun reported “Former Congressman Harrison was grief stricken to-night, remaining at the hospital with the body of his wife.”

Harrison would hold on to the 77^th Street carriage house for years as his political stature grew.  Unfortunately, so did his less-than-sterling reputation.  According to historian Robert A. Fulton in his Moroland, 1899-1906, “Handsome, rich, and powerful, Harrison also gained a deserved and less-savory reputation as an aggressive ladies man who targeted other men’s wives, particularly attractive spouses of those equally rich and powerful.  He went through six marriages in his lifetime, four ending in divorce.”

In the meantime, the German Hospital and Dispensary moved its facility in 1905 from the Lower East Side to the block where its nursing school had stood for decades.  As the United States entered World War I, a name change was deemed advisable to distance the hospital from the enemy abroad.  In July 1918 the medical facility directly across the street from the Harrison carriage house was renamed Lenox Hill Hospital.

In 1920 Francis Burton Harrison sold the contents of the Fifth Avenue mansion.  On March 13 the public was invited to the American Art Galleries to view the “costly antique and modern furniture, Oriental rugs and other objects of household embellishment and utility belonging to the estate of the late Mrs. Mary Burton Harrison.”  The following year, on April 21, 1921, he sold “the three-story garage” to Amy H. Weatherbee.

Amy was the widow of Edwin H. Weatherbee, the former head of the dry goods firm Arnold, Constable & Co.  Weatherbee’s position with the emporium was no doubt influenced by the fact that his wife was the daughter of Arnold Constable.  The Weatherbees had been highly conspicuous in society.  Until his death in 1912 Edwin bred and raced thoroughbreds and was a member of the Chamber of Commerce, New York yacht Club, Riding Club, Metropolitan Club, Union League and the Yale Club.

Throughout the 20^th century the block of 77^thStreet between Lexington and Park Avenues changed greatly.  Lenox Hill Hospital expanded and enlarged until it engulfed the entire block across the street.  And yet the three-story carriage house remained essentially unchanged above the ground floor.

Today the picturesque little building is part of Lenox Hill Hospital—an unlikely survivor of a time when an emerging literary giant housed her horses and elegant carriages here.

photographs taken by the author