The Lost Irving T. Bush Mansion -- No. 28 East 64th Street

Like an Elizabethan sore thumb, the new house starkly stood out between its Queen Anne neighbors -- 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=24UAYWNO1JL7&SMLS=1&RW=1280&RH=915

In 1881 developer and architect Theodore Weston began construction of four harmonious Queen Anne style residences stretching along East 64^th Street from the southwest corner of Madison Avenue towards Central Park.  The brick-and-brownstone mansions burst forth with the balconies, quirky dormers and turrets expected of the visually-entertaining style.

No. 28 had at least two owners before the turn of the century.  The Williams family was here in the 1880s and that of George Henry Warren was in the house in the 1890s.  The architectural harmony of Weston’s string of homes was about to come to an end when, on October 24, 1900, The New York Times reported that G. H. Warren had sold “to a Mr. Bush the four-story dwelling 28 East Sixty-fourth Street.”

The following day the mysterious Mr. Bush was identified as “Mr. G. A. Bush, who will occupy [the house] with his family."  In fact, both facts were wrong.  The buyer was Irving T. Bush and if he had any intentions at all of living in the Queen Anne mansion, they would be short-lived.

Irving T. Bush -- photograph Library of Congress

The 31-year old businessman was the son of wealthy industrialist and oil refinery owner Rufus T. Bush.  Like his father, Bush was an avid yachtsman and the two had circumnavigated the globe in 1888.  When Rufus Bush died two years later, leaving his wife and two sons an estate of about $2 million, Irving could have lived off his inheritance.  Instead, the 21-year old went to work for Standard Oil as a clerk.

The large bank account did not hurt, however.  In the mid-1890s Bush envisioned a gigantic warehouse, manufacturing and shipping complex on the site of his father’s Brooklyn oil refinery.  He constructed the Bush Terminal—the first industrial complex of its kind in New York and the largest multiple-tenant industrial park in the country.  It was his first personal business success.

The title to the 64^th Street property was not transferred until August 1901.  Bush put the mansion in his wife, Bella’s name, as was customary.  At the time of the transfer the New-York Tribune made note of the exclusive neighborhood.  In the corner mansion next door to the new Bush house, at No. 30, lived Seth Low, one of the city’s most recognized educators and politicians, and among its wealthiest.

If the Bush family lived in No. 28 at all, they had packed up by Christmas 1904 and were living at their Lakewood, New Jersey estate.  On December 24 that year the Real Estate Record & Builders’ Guide announced that the architectural firm of Kirby, Petit & Green was at work on plans for a 6-story dwelling costing $60,000 (about $1.5 million today).  The Guidehinted at the appearance, describing “a brick and terra cotta front, metal and glass skylights, tin roof, elevator, terra cotta cornices and coping, steam heat, electric light, etc.”  The out-of-date Queen Anne mansion was demolished and in its place rose an Edwardian dream home. 

Victorian houses obsessed with the damaging effects of sunlight on expensive textiles and artwork.  Interior shutters, window blinds and heavy velvet hangings shut out the direct rays of the sun, creating what must have been dusk-like interiors.  By now, however, doctors stressed fresh air and sunlight as the two major components of a healthful environment and the trend carried over into residential architecture.  The new Bush mansion was as much glass as it was masonry.

The architects drew heavily on Elizabethan country house designs, lining the brick façade with limestone quoins and clustering windows.  The deeply recessed entranceway sat behind four large stone columns on a porch just above the sidewalk.  Inside there were seven bedrooms and baths (three fewer than the number of servants bedrooms), a conservatory that extended to the rear, a 24 by 22 foot library, and an elevator.

The house was put on the market in 1908 (New-York Tribune, October 28, 1908 copyright expired)

For some unknown reason the mansion was put on the market in 1908 with the architects as brokers.  A sale never materialized, however, and the Bush family stayed on.  Irving and Bella maintained the expected routine of wealthy New Yorkers and in February 1915 newspapers noted they were spending the winter season in Pinehurst, North Carolina.  A month earlier they had announced the engagement of Bella’s daughter, Rose Howard Bush, to Arthur Tucker Ellsworth.  Rose had taken the Bush name when her widowed mother married Irving.

By now Europe was embroiled in world war and New York debutantes were volunteering for war relief work.  Rose’s sister, Maud, worked with the Red Cross and related causes as the United States was pulled into the conflict.  And like many other society girls doing such work, she fell in love with a dashing (and wealthy) military man.  On December 26, 1919 Irving and Bella announced Maud’s engagement to Ensign Arthur Lincoln McElroy. 

Irving T. Bush retained ownership of the house on East 64^thStreet; but he and Bella moved on.  By early 1921 he had converted the mansion to apartments with a gallery space at street level.  On March 20 that year the New-York Tribune reported “There is a new gallery to be added to the already long list in the city, the Mesnard gallery, at 28 East Sixty-fourth Street.  It makes a creditable start, with American paintings among which good examples of Emil Carlsen, Childe Hassam and the late William M. Chase are conspicuous.” 

Irving Bush sold the house in 1927 to Roland Moore who intended to move his Chinese antiques business into the mansion.  But after owning the property for a year, he decided to remain at his East 57^th Street location.  When he sold No. 28 to Halsey & Flint in September 1928, the new owners already controlled the adjoining property at the corner of Madison Avenue.

The end of the line for the Irving T. Bush house was on the horizon.  In 1932 construction began on architect Morrell Smith’s neo-Georgian Bank of the Manhattan Company building, which survives today.  The last slice of Theodore Weston’s 1882 Queen Anne row remains at No. 26—Bush’s former next door neighbor—sadly altered and out of context.

A handsome bank structure replaces both  the Bush mansion and the corner house.  No. 26, the last slice of Theodore Weston's row still stands.  (photo by the author)

The 1882 Tillinghast House -- No. 26 East 64th Street

Renovations are underway in 2013 -- photo by Alice Lum

By 1881 Central Park had been officially completed for nearly a decade and the blocks to the east of Fifth Avenue were quickly filling with comfortable rowhouses.   That year Theodore Weston began construction of four similar Queen Anne style residences stretching from the southwest corner of Madison Avenue, at No. 30 East 64th Street, to No. 24 closer to the park.

Weston served as his own architect for the upscale speculative homes and their up-to-the-minute design melded brick and brownstone, terra cotta and tile in a profusion of angles and asymmetrical bays and quirky dog-leg stoops.  Six years later he would be called upon for his most distinguished commission.  A founder and trustee of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, he would design its south wing addition in 1888.

The houses were completed in 1882 and No. 26 was purchased by another Museum trustee, William H. Tillinghast and his wife, the former Phoebe Wyckoff.   The highly-successful railroad executive was President and Director of the Cherry Valley, Sharon and Albany Railroad Company; a Director of the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company; and a Director of the Albany and Susquehanna Railroad.

With memberships in exclusive clubs like the Metropolitan and Knickerbocker Clubs, the millionaire hob-knobbed with the city’s wealthiest citizens.  He shared membership in the New York Society Archaeological Institute with names like Cornelius and William K. Vanderbilt, Louis Comfort Tiffany and his father, Henry Villard, Stanford White, A. Ernest Vanderpoel, and Hamilton Twombly.

William and Phoebe had no children and their social lives centered around the Metropolitan Opera, lavish charity events for the Metropolitan Museum, and fashionable summer resorts.  Then, exactly two decades after moving into their new home, Phoebe died here on Wednesday morning, March 9, 1892.

William’s mourning was short lived and a year later, on October 18, 1893 , The New York Times reported “The acquaintances of William H. Tillinghast have heard with great pleasure that he is soon to marry Mrs. Edmund D. Stanton.”  Louise Babcock Stanton had been widowed for 20 years and was well-known among Newport, Southampton and New York society.

The aging newlyweds continued to live on in the Tillinghast house on East 64^th Street.  As the years passed, William’s fortune grew as he diversified.  By the turn of the century he had added the Adirondack Railway Company and New York and Canada Railroad Company to his list of Directorships.  By now he also held a seat on the board of the Plaza Bank, was a trustee of the Bank for Savings and the Metropolitan Trust Company, and had co-founded the brokerage firm of Tillinghast & Benedict.

On December 9, 1902 William Tillinghast died in the house at the age of 77.  Louise suffered quietly and when the expected year of mourning passed she threw herself back into the social circuit of summer resorts and winter parties.  In 1913 the 79-year old widow was still going strong.  That year she rented the cottage of James Henry Pierson in Southampton, Long Island for the summer.  It would be the last summer social season for Louise Babcock Stanton Tillinghast, however.

Around the time of Tillinghast's death, changes were already coming to the row.  No. 28 had been remodeled, creating a stark interuption in the row.  The Tillinghast house is at the right. -- photo from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

On New Year’s Eve 1913 Louise died in the house on East 64^thStreet.   Her funeral was held in the parlor on Friday afternoon at 4:30 on January 2.

Dr. Godfrey R. Pisek and his wife leased the Tillinghast house.   He was professor of pediatrics at the New York Post-Graduate Hospital and wrote a textbook on the diseases of children.   A graduate in 1897 of New York University’s Medical School he was President of the Physicians’ Mutual Aid Society, a member of the Academy of Medicine, the County Medical Society and the American Pediatric Society. 

The Piseks had three children.  After living in the house for a few years, the doctor purchased it in December 1920.   A month after the papers were signed, on January 20, 1921, Dr. Pisek was waiting for his train on the Third Avenue elevated train station at 18^th Street that would take him home.  He would never make it.

The 48-year old physician suddenly suffered a heart attack and before an ambulance from Bellevue Hospital could arrive, he was dead.

The Pisek family moved out of the house and on March 28, 1922 the New-York Tribune announced that Cordelia De Ronde, owner of Mme. Beaudry, Inc., a high-end dressmaker, had purchased the house “for her business and residence.”   The business had, until now, been located at No. 715 Madison Avenue and was named for Cordelia’s mother, Marie Louise Beaudry who moved into the 15-room house with her daughter.

Mme. Beaudry, Inc. fashioned elegant clothing for New York’s socialites from the basement level for years.  Marie Louise Beaudry died in the house on May 20, 1936.  By now the block had greatly changed and No. 26, now half a century old and still little altered, was the last of the Queen Anne row to remain.

But change was looming on the horizon.

In January 1944 public relations executives Edward L. Bernays and his wife, Doris Elsa Fleischman purchased the house with intentions “to occupy it about May for [Bernays’s] offices” according to The New York Times.  Bernays had paid cash for the house and already had commissioned architects Francis Keally and Alfred Rheinstein to renovate it.

When Bernays purchased the house in January 1944 it retained all its original detailing. (above)  By May (below) the pyramidal roof section and much of the Victorian ornament was gone.--photosgraphs from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

Doris E. Fleischman was a member of the Lucy Stone League, a feminist group that encouraged women not to take their husband’s surname.  And so she kept hers.  She was the first woman in the United States to obtain a passport in her maiden name.

Despite the ambitious architect’s plans little was accomplished other than a few exterior alterations.  A new front entrance was installed and windows replaced. 

Although the architects drew up the above alterations for Bernays in February 1944, they were never carried out -- from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

Eleven years after purchasing the house, The New York Timesnoted that “Mr. Bernays and his wife, Doris E. Fleischman, plan extensive alterations for their building at 26 East Sixty-fourth Street.  They will convert the upper part for their use as an apartment and will continue to occupy their present quarters there for their professional activities in public relations.”

Eight years later, in 1963, Bernays gave up on renovations and sold the house.  The Times named the buyer as “Bernard Bohle, who plans to renovate the building and occupy it as a beauty salon.”

Bohle did well in the new location and on January 15, 1966 announced he would open a men’s salon in the building.  The Times called it “A salon designed for men with thick wallets and thin hair.”   The new department at street level “will specialize in hair pieces and coloring for men  It will be a separate division of the establishment that already styles the coiffures of many of the city’s fashionable women,” said the newspaper.

Suggesting that Americans were behind the times, the stylist defended the somewhat unconventional concept of a men’s hair salon.  “In Europe it is common to do the hair of the whole family.”  And then he added a financially-logical reason to patronize his shop.  “Many men consider hair pieces and coloring a business investment.  Youth is so important in this country…many men have trouble finding or changing jobs if they look old.”

By the early 1989 the hair salon was gone and a trendy restaurant soon took its place.  New York Magazine, on August 17, 1992, called Frederick’s “the new tearoom-bar-hangout” a “feast for the eyes.”  The magazine suggested that it was patronized by “fashion’s darlings.”

Among the most noticable changes in 2013 is the reappearance of the roof pyramid -- photo by Alice Lum

Today, in an amazing act of architectural restoration, some of Edward Nernays’s 1944 alterations have been reversed.  Offices fill the upper stories where the Tillinghasts lived for three decades and a restaurant fills the basement level.   The sole survivor of Theodore Weston’s eye-catching Queen Anne row, it still causes the passerby to pause.

photo by Alice Lum