The J. M. Strong House -- No. 41 West 54th Street

photo by Alice Lum

Wealthy real estate developer Joseph Montgomery Strong lived at No. 41 West 54^th Street in 1893.  The house was full of life—Strong and his wife, Elizabeth, known as Lizzie; had seven children and his mother-in-law lived here with the family.

The Strong mansion sat among a row of brownstone-fronted rowhouses built a generation earlier.  The eastern half of the block, towards Fifth Avenue, was dominated by the hulking St. Luke’s Hospital and grounds.  And although Strong’s residence was nearer to the grittier Sixth Avenue than the mansion-lined Fifth Avenue; the home of John D. Rockefeller, Sr. across the street more than atoned for the arguably-marginal location.

The Strong house stood out among the brownstone relics around it.  The Beaux Arts design and America basement plan were up-to-the-minute in architectural vogue.  The French-inspired five-story limestone house boasted all the features expected of a fashionable home in the exclusive neighborhood.

French doors would originally have opened onto the second floor balcony -- photo by Alice Lum

It was Lizzie who brought social pedigree to the home.  Strong was the son of Rev. Paschal N. Strong and his wife Cornelia; certainly a respectable family .   But Lizzie was a  Livingston; one of the oldest, wealthiest and most respected names in New York.  Her deceased father was Van Brugh Livingston who added a hint of old Dutch lineage to the Livingston name.

A partner in the firm of Strong & Ireland, Joseph Montgomery Strong was visible in the circle of millionaire businessmen.  He was a member of the New York Yacht, the Atlantic Yacht, the Oakland Golf and Badminton Clubs and the Society of Colonial Wars and Sons of the Revolution.  The family summered at Lenox, Massachusetts and it was here, in 1893 that trouble began to brew.

During the Lenox whirl of summer entertainments 18-year old daughter Mary Livingston Strong caught the eye of Harvey Spencer Jr.   The New York Times described Mary as “a member of a very old American family, being a descendant of the Livingstons who were among the early settlers of this country.  She is of a very attractive personality…For the last two or three years she has been well known in society, and has received much attention at the different entertainments she has attended.”

The attention that was lavished upon Mary now came from Harvey Spencer, who was about 15 years older than the girl.  Although Harvey was said to be “of good American lineage,” Mary’s parents were vocally against his romantic interests in their daughter.

The following spring, on Thursday March 1, 1894, Mary slipped out of the West 54^th Street mansion and did not return.  Five days later The New York Times reported the socially-shocking news.

"The marriage of Harvey Spencer, Jr., and Miss Mary Livingston Strong, which took place in the City Hall last Thursday, is still the subject of much discussion and gossip among society people.  Until Mr. and Mrs. Spencer return from their wedding trip little will be known regarding the details of the affair.

“It is certain, however, that Miss Strong’s parents, Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Montgomery Strong of 41 West Fifty-fourth Street, have opposed the match from the very first, and that the marriage was nothing less than an elopement.”

One can imagine the wringing of hands and the tears of Lizzle Strong and her mother, the dowager Mrs. Van Brugh Livingston, as the scandal spread through the drawing rooms of Fifth Avenue.

photo by Alice Lum

The family stayed on in the 54^th Street house through the turn of the century.  Mrs. V. B. Livingston was visible in her charity work, especially St. Rita’s Home for Friendless Women of the City of New York, of which she was secretary. 

By 1905, however, the mansion was home to the Edward Kemp family.  Kemp was a partner in Lanman & Kemp, wholesale dealers in drugs and perfumes.  With Kemp and his wife, the former Josephine de Mott, in the home were their daughters and two sons, Edward, Jr. and Van Horne Kemp, and daughters.

While most other wealthy businessmen were still relying on horse-drawn vehicles, Edward Kemp had moved on to the automobile.  Kemp’s luck with the motor cars was not always the best, however.

On the afternoon of September 19, 1905 Kemp and his family were on their way to visit friends in Boston.  In the tonneau, or passenger compartment, of the car were Mrs. Kemp and the two boys; Edward was riding up front with the chauffeur.  While riding in the country near Stamford, Connecticut the vehicle approached two buggies parked on either side of the road as it climbed Knapp’s Hill.  In one of the buggies was real estate developer Cornelius B. Fish and his daughter.

Suddenly, a speeding automobile appeared at the crest of the hill heading directly down the slope towards the Kemp vehicle.   Kemp’s chauffeur swerved to avoid the car.

“Mr. Kemp’s big motor car hit one of the buggies…containing C. B. Fish of 254 West Eighty-fourth Street, New York, and his daughter.  The buggy was hurled fifteen feet and reduced to small pieces.  Mr. Fish and his daughter were thrown out.  One of Mr. Fish’s ribs was broken, and he was badly shaken up, but his daughter was not much hurt,” reported The Times.

Kemp was tossed from the limousine “and the occupants of the tonneau made ready to jump.  Their car, traveling at a high speed to get over the steep grade, swerved wildly and bounced toward a four-foot ditch at the side of the road.  The chauffeur kept his head, and sticking to the wheel, brought the car to a standstill on the edge of the ditch.  The front wheel was broken and the hood was bent.”

The speeding auto that caused the accident continued on and disappeared.  Police later disclosed that just prior to the wreck that car had run down little Salvator Rose at the top of Knapp’s Hill, leaving him in the road with a “great gash on his head.”  The Times said “but the party, never heeding his cries, went on down the hill and just missed Mr. Kemp’s car.”

The following year, in May 1906, Kemp took his wife and eldest daughter on an afternoon “spin out on the island,” as reported in theBrooklyn Daily Standard Union on May 27.  Kemp had paid about $5,000 for his touring car—about $95,000 by today’s standards.  As the vehicle climbed a long hill in Long Island City, Kemp remarked to his chauffeur that he smelled something burning.

The chauffeur pulled the expensive vehicle to the curb.  “On jumping out he saw that the lower part of the automobile was on fire,” reported the Daily Standard.  Mrs. Kemp and her daughter had hardly been helped out of the car by Mr. Kemp and the chauffeur when the fire blazed up and the whole machine was in flames.  It is supposed that the engine tank leaked and that a spark set the liquid on fire.”

The fire department was called, but as the Kemp family looked on, their touring car was destroyed.  “Nothing was left of the automobile except the wheels,” reported the newspaper.

As the country entered World War I, 27-year old Edward Kemp, Jr. joined the First Motor Battery of New York.  The Army private shared his father’s love for motor vehicles; a passion that would end tragically on March 6, 1917.  Kemp was riding his motorcycle on Fifth Avenue near 96^thStreet that afternoon when it skidded. The Sun reported the following day that the cycle “crashed into the rear of a brewery truck.  Kemp was thrown several feet, landing on his head.”  The young private was instantly killed.

Like James M. Strong before him, Edward Kemp was a prominent yachtsman and well-known in private men’s clubs.  He held memberships to the Downtown, Automobile, Seawanhaka-Corinthian Yacht, Nassau Country, and Rumson Country Clubs and the Sons of the Revolution.  The Kemp summer home was on Rumson Road in Seabright, New Jersey.  But, as was also the case with the Strong family, social position and wealth could not defend against scandal.

Trouble had been brewing in the 54^th Street house in 1919 and by September of that year Kemp was staying in a bungalow on Green Island in Lake George.  On September 17 a knock on the door put Kemp face-to-face with a summons server.  Josephine had sued her husband for separation.

Josephine wasted no time in leaving the house.  Less than a month later, on November 12, she had rented the mansion to Mrs. Horace E. Andrews.  Notably, the notice in The Sun dropped Josephine’s married name, calling her Mrs. De Mott.

Antoinette Devereux Andrews was widow of railway mogul Horace Ellsworth Andrews who had died on December 1 the year before.   With her mourning period ending, the impressive mansion would make an appropriate stage for the social marketing of her two unmarried daughters, Dorothy and Margery. Five months after moving in Antoinette announced the engagement of Dorothy Devereux Andrews to a Navy man, Lieutenant Commander Emanuel A. Lofquist, who was stationed on the Pennsylvania, the flagship of the Atlantic fleet.

The lease on the 54^th Street house apparently expired in 1921.  The New York Times reported that Mrs. H. E. Andrews and Miss Margery Andrews have closed their town house, 41 West Fifth-fourth Street, and are at the Ambassador Hotel.  Within a year the former mansion was converted to a “boarding house/apartment.”  Department of Building records demanded “Not more than 15 sleeping rooms, not more than 2 families cooking independently on premises.”

While it sounds like a inglorious end, the neighborhood still lured high-end tenants.  In 1926 a German artist and her husband, Captain Alexander Ruemann, formerly of the German Imperial Navy were living here.  Madame Ruemann, as she preferred to be called, had spent a great deal of her life studying graphic arts and exhibitions of her work had been held in Berlin and Munich.

When a private viewing of her oil paintings and water colors was being staged by the Art Patrons of America, Inc. at No. 9 East 57^thStreet in January, 1927, Mrs. Ruemann’s former identity became known.

The New York Times reported on January 25 “Princess Alexandra Victoria Ruemann of Schleswig-Holstein, former wife of the German Kaiser’s son Prince August Wilhelm, who has been in the country incognito for the past month, disclosed her identity yesterday.”

The Princess explained her reluctance to expose her title.  “The difficulty in being a Princess and an artist at the same time lies in the anxiety of persons to pick flaws in one’s art for no other reason than that one is not known primarily as an artist.”

She explained that before the war it was considered “nice” for well-bred young ladies to paint; however “it was never regarded as anything more than a pastime.”

Since coming to New York the artist had been busy painting portraits of society women, including the Princess Braganza, Mrs. Cosmo Hamilton and others.  “Mrs. Hamilton is such a sweet, don’t you think?” she said to reporters.

On December 20, 1932 the Contemporary Arts gallery opened its new headquarters in the house.  One of New York’s leading galleries for modern artists, it hosted exhibitions here for years.  The gallery was followed in the late 1930s by Brussels Contemporary Arts.

In 2000 the former Joseph Montgomery Strong mansion was converted to offices on the first two floors with a staggering three-story residence above.  Although the multi-paned windows have been replaced, the exterior of the mansion remains largely unchanged—a reminder of a time when the homes of millionaires lined this now-bustling block of 54^th Street.

photo by Alice Lum

The 1896 James Goodwin Houses -- Nos. 9-11 West 54th Street

photo by Alice Lum

St. Luke’s Hospital had encompassed the Fifth Avenue block from 54^th to 55^th Streets for four decades when a new facility was erected in 1896 further uptown.  Now building plots were suddenly available in the residential neighborhood populated by Vanderbilts and Rockefellers.

It did not take long for impressive buildings to begin rising on the newly-cleared land.  That same year that the University Club began rising at the northwest corner of West 54^thStreet and Fifth Avenue and James Junius Goodwin started construction on his mansion that straddled Nos. 9 and 11 West 54^th.

The esteemed architectural firm of McKim, Mead & White were responsible for the design of both structures.  For Goodwin, the firm produced two separate residences deftly designed to appear as a single unit.   The final years of the 19^thcentury saw increased interest in things Colonial.  Goodwin himself was highly interested in the early history of the country.  The Goodwin family had arrived in Connecticut in the 17^th century and James was a life member of the New England Historic Genealogical Society, a member and vice-president of the Connecticut Historical Society, and the Society of Colonial Wars.   It is little wonder that for his new home the architects turned to Colonial American architecture.  They drew their inspiration from Charles Bulfinch’s 1806 Harrison Gray Otis house in Boston.

Bulfinch's 1806 Harrison Gray Otis House provided inspiration fo the Goodwin mansion -- photograph by Daderot

The completed Goodwin mansion at No. 11 was three bays wide—one third larger than the house at No. 9 intended as rental income.  By positioning the portico to the far right of No. 11 and downplaying the entrance of No. 9, the doorway of No. 11 became centered within the mass of the structures.  Balance was achieved and only a close inspection revealed the separate homes.

McKim, Mead & White drew on traditional 18^thcentury elements—small iron balconies, splayed lintels and paneled keystones.  The interesting window enframements of the second story were particularly similar to those found in the Otis house.

Two years after the house was completed work was still being done on the street -- photo for 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=24UP1GGAK5SH&SMLS=1&RW=1280&RH=894

Goodwin had just retired a year earlier.  For a decade he had been the business partner of his cousin, J. Pierpont Morgan.   Retirement did not significantly slow down his business involvement, however.  He maintained interests in the Connecticut Mutual Life Insurance Company, the Hartford Fire Insurance Company, the Collins Company, the Connecticut Trust and Safe Deposit Company, the Holyoke Water Power Company and the New York, Lake Erie and Western Railroad.

Twenty-three years earlier Goodwin had married Josephine Sarah Lippincott who, like her husband, was descended from early New England settlers.   The couple had three sons—Walter Lippincott, James Lippincott and Philip Lippincott.  A fourth son died in infancy.

Pollution has eroded the white marble detailing of the portico capitals -- photo by Alice Lum

The Goodwins maintained a Connecticut home on Asylum Avenue in Hartford and spent a great deal of time in that state.  In 1910 he was mentioned as a Republican candidate for Governor of Connecticut.  Nevertheless, the Goodwins spent enough time on West 54^thStreet that James established himself in the city’s most exclusive men’s clubs—including the Union, Century and Metropolitan.

The block filled with financiers and physicians and in 1915 the Goodwins were leasing No. 9 to Dr. William S. Bryant.   That same year a three year legal battle was coming to an end for ex-Police Lieutenant Charles Becker.  The former cop had been head of the NYPD Vice Squad and added to his income by accepting bribes from illegal gambling clubs.  When the owner of a Broadway gambling house, gangster Herman Rosenthal, known as “the Black Ace,” got in Becker's way, the cop had him murdered.

Now, at 3:45 in the morning on July 30, 1915 Dr. Bryant stepped from a car onto the grounds of Sing Sing Prison.  He and two other official witnesses, Dr. Joseph C. Stammers and Milton Schnaer, a sanitary engineer, were here to view the electrocution of Becker.

A month earlier, on June 23, James Junius Goodwin had died in the Hartford home at the age of 80.  His $25 million fortune was divided among his sons and Josephine.  “Mrs. Josephine Goodwin, of 11 West Fifty-fourth Street, widow of Mr. Goodwin, was left all her husband’s wearing apparel, jewelry, personal effects and silverware as well as his library, paintings, horses, automobiles, conservatories and greenhouses,” reported the New-York Tribune on July 4, 1915.

Museums, hospitals and orphanages who had been waiting hopefully for the reading of the will were disappointed.  “Rumors soon after the death of Mr. Goodwin that a large share of the estate would go to charities were unfounded.”

Josephine continued to use the 54^th Street house.  By 1928 she was leasing No. 9 to wealthy real estate developer Francis de Ruyter Wissman and his wife.  Mrs. Wissman was marginally socially connected in that her brother, Sidney Jones Colford, Jr. had been married to the former Mrs. Reginald C. Vanderbilt prior to her death in June 1927.  The couple was still here two years later when they set sail on the Aquitania to summer in Europe.

By now most of the Midtown mansions had been razed or converted for business purposes.  Yet, although the south side of the block had been obliterated for the Museum of Modern Art, the north side retained many of its private residences.  Included were Josephine Goodwin’s dignified brick residence.

In 1903 the Goodwins had the shades pulled to protect upholstery and other fabrics from the damaging rays of the sun -- photo by Wurts Bros.from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York, http://collections.mcny.org/Collection/11-West-54th-Street,-general-exterior.-2F3XC5LRHP.html

Josephine Sarah Lippincott Goodwin died in 1931.  In 1940 the mansion become the Inter-America House, deemed by the American Import and Export Bulletin “one of the outstanding centers of International Trade at the 1940 New York World’s Fair.”  The house was used for a variety of events intended to foster good will between the United States and South American countries.

In 1941 The New York Times reported that “Many miles from home, fourteen Girl Guides from American republics and twenty-nine visiting Venezuelan Boy Scouts met yesterday at Inter-American House at 11 West Fifty-fourth Street.  They were outnumbered by the hundred New York Boy and Girl Scouts who were their hosts, but they lost no time in turning a quiet afternoon into a gay fete with authentic South American flavor.”

The same year a reception was held in honor of seven Latin American “Coffee Queens” who were on a good-will tour; and 60 women from eighteen Latin-American countries offered their services as volunteer seamstresses to the Red Cross three days after the U.S. entered World War II.

photo by Alice Lum

In 1943 No. 9 was owned by the Museum of the Modern Art, called the “Annex.”  It was converted hat year to the museum’s new photography center.

A banner announces the Rhodes School on June 6, 1945, seen from the roof of the Museum of Modern Art across the street -- photograph 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=24UP1GGBAIM4&SMLS=1&RW=1280&RH=894

The following year the Goodwin house was sold to the Parsonage Point Realty Co., which leased the building to the Rhodes Preparatory School in 1946.  The private facility taught students from 7^th grade through 12^th, drawing privileged pupils from the world over.  The school would remain in the house until 1979 when the United State Trust Company purchased the building.

The bank’s embracing of the historic and handsome building was an unusually early example of purposeful recycling of vintage architecture.  Ada Louise Huxtable remarked “After investigating prestigious new buildings at prime avenue locations, with virtually no restrictions on price of choice the bank chose the 54^th Street houses specifically for their architectural and landmark qualities.  The decision was made with equal recognition of the unique ambiance they would provide, the gesture to the street and the city that their use and preservation would make.”

Miraculously, a row of six mansions survives virtually unchanged along W. 54th Street -- photo by Alice Lum

In November 2009, the property was purchased by J. D. Carlisle Development for $29 million.  It sits among a row of rare, essentially untouched mansions built in the last years of the 19^th century when bankers and doctors rushed to build on the newly-available St. Luke’s Hospital grounds.

The Walter Tower Rosen House -- No. 35 West 54th Street

When 10-year old Walter Tower Rosen came to the United States in 1885 from his native Berlin, the block of West 54^th Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues was only partially developed.   John D. Rockefeller was settling into the old mansion he purchased at No. 4 on the south side of the street; while half of the block on the northern side was taken up by the sprawling 1867 St. Luke’s Hospital.

Behind the Hospital the western portion of the block was lined with nearly-identical brownstone rowhouses built shortly after the Civil War.  While respectable and comfortable; they paled in comparison to the lavish mansions that were appearing down the block on Fifth Avenue.

Among these was No. 35, a four-story house sitting high above an English basement.  The Italianate home was the pinnacle of taste in residential architecture when built.  As the 19^th century faded, it was home to wealthy businessman Edward Scheitlin, member of the firm Edward Scheitlin & Co.    The company imported hosiery and gloves.

Only a month after Scheitlin’s death in the house on February 9, 1902 it was purchased by Frank V. Bertram.  The Bertram family quickly resold it in November the following year.

By now the 54^th street block was dramatically changing.  In 1896 demolition of the old hospital  suddenly made building lots available in the most exclusive of New York neighborhoods.  That half of the block now saw rapid development as the modern mansions of prominent bankers and physicians rose in stark contrast to the brownstones of a generation earlier.

No. 35 became the home of the esteemed pediatrician, Dr. Allan M. Thomas.  Along with Dr. William C. Denning, Thomas had headed the maternity ward of the State Emigrant Hospital on Ward’s Island.  The doctors co-designed a three-foot by three-foot “hatching cradle" in 1888—the precursor of today’s incubator.  Warmed by fifteen gallons of water, it was first used for the tiny 2-pound, 7-ounce Edith Eleanor McLean who was born on September 7 of that year.

The new mansions down the block prompted Dr. Thomas to give his residence a much-needed a make-over.  The facade was stripped off and replace with an up-to-date brick and limestone Beaux Arts front that held its own among the fashionable newcomers.

By 1907 the block was being called the “Rockefeller Block” and was fully developed with fine mansions.  The artwork, jewelry and silver inside them were tempting loot for sneak thieves.  For several days in early April the residents were terrified by robberies and attempted break-ins.   Burglars made off with $7,000 in jewelry from the home of Dr. Moses Allen Starr down the block at No. 5.  And in the early hours of April 14 a thief would visit the Thomas house.

The family and the doctor’s household staff were all asleep around 1:30 a.m. when a maid, Christina Gustavson, was awakened by the sound of her window being opened. “She saw a main swing himself in from a rope ladder hung from the roof,” reported The New York Times the following day. “The man held a small electric lamp in his hand. When he saw that she was awake, she said, he whispered to her: ‘If you make the slightest noise I’ll kill you.’”

When the burglar heard movement below the stairs, he slipped back out the window and up the ladder. The terrified maid shrieked for help.

Dr. Thomas was irate and readied himself for action.  The New York Timesreported “Detectives Beeron and Baer went to the doctor’s house.  They found Dr. Thomas and his butler, both armed with revolvers, in a very angry state of mind.”

The doctor and his wife, the former Anna O’Neill, lived in the house until 1916 when it was sold to attorney Ferdinand S. Crosley.   Crosley bought the property on behalf of “a client” who paid cash.  Although the house was assessed at $95,000, the asking price was “well over $100,000,” according to The New York Times—about $1.5 million today.  The newspaper commented that “This is one of the modern houses in the block.”

The buyer was Walter Tower Rosen.  The little boy who had come to the United States with his parents 31 years ago had graduated from Harvard in 1901—the youngest in his class—and immediately joined the international banking firm of Ladenburg, Thalmann and Company.  Rosen was a lawyer as well as a banker; and an exceptionally fine pianist.

During his Harvard years, his playing was noticed by the widowed Mrs. Jack Gardener who invited him to practice at Fenway Court—her museum that was yet to be opened.  Perhaps it was here, surrounded by the masterpieces of what would be known as Isabella Stewart Gardener Museum, that Rosen acquired his passion for art and collecting.

In 1914 Rosen had married the beautiful Lucie Bigelow Dodge, another musician.  The artistic list of well-wishers at the time included Rosen’s good friend Pablo Casals.  The Rosens had a son, Walter Bigelow, born in 1915 and another child, Anne Bigelow Rosen, would be born in 1917.

Lucie Bigelow Dodge Rosen with her son, Walter -- photo metmuseum.org

The Rosens traveled extensively, amassing an substantial art collection.  Entertainments in the Rosen townhouse most often included music, often with the hosts as soloists, and No. 35 West 54^th Street was familiar nationwide among musicians and music lovers.

In 1929 Lucie suggested to her husband that “a little place in the country” would be nice.  There the family could escape the hot New York City summers.   The "little place" took ten years to complete and in 1939 the sprawling Caramoor—now a museum and home to the annual Caramoor Music Festival—became the Rosens’ main home.

While Caramoor was being constructed outside of Katonah, New York, Lucie was coming into her own as an accomplished musician of an unusual instrument.   She became entranced with the aetherphone/etherhone, a somewhat bizarre electronic musical instrument developed by Russian inventor Leon Theremin.  Theremin patented the device in 1928.  The instrument was controlled by the player without any physical contact.  Although it is now known mainly for eerie music like the soundtracks for Spellbound, The Lost Weekend, and The Day the Earth Stood Still, it was originally intended as a concert instrument for avant-garde 20^th century music.

Lucie became a virtuoso on the instrument that became generally known as the teremin.   In 1930 she was part of a 10-person ensemble that performed on the stage of Carnegie Hall with Leon Theremin (the inventor had been in the United States in 1927).

Shortly after the Carnegie Hall concert they offered the struggling Russian inventor a room in their home at a low rent.

On August 1, 1936 Walter and Lucie announced Anne’s engagement.  Perhaps not surprisingly, there was a musical connection.  The Times gushed on about Anne’s pedigree—“granddaughter of the Hon. Mrs. Lionel Guest of Ferring, England, and of Charles Stuart Dodge of this city, and a great-granddaughter of John Bigelow, American Minister to France under President Lincoln.  She is a niece of Colonel John Bigelow Dodge of London, or Mrs. Maurice Magre of Paris and of Felix Rosen of New York.”

Anne’s fiancé was Janos Scholz of Sopron-Oedenburg, Hungary.  While he was the eldest son of the late Major Julian Scholz of the Royal Hungarian Artillery, The Times noted that he “is best known in Europe and this country as the cellist of the Roth Quartet of Budapest.  His family for generations has included distinguished military officers and musicians, and his grandmother was a friend of Franz Schubert, who dedicated one of his compositions to her.”

When the couple was married in St. George’s Church on Stuyvesant Square the following January, the ceremony was followed by a reception in the 54^th Street house.  

In 1938 Walter Rosen came to the aid of Leon Theremin one last time.  The same year that The New York Times said “Lucie Bigelow Rosen continues to serve as a high priestess of the electrical instrument that Theremin developed and that bears his name,” the inventor needed money to return to Russia.  Rosen struck a deal.  He paid Theremin $10,000 to create a new machine for Lucie, along with all the schematics and rights to produce more “for personal use only.”

Music was uncharacteristically not part of a gathering in the Rosen townhouse in January 1941.  With the war raging in Europe and England, the British explorer and writer Mrs. Rosita Forbes was briefly a house guest on her way to the Bahamas.  There Mrs. Forbes owned a plantation and “will engage in the production of food on Eleutheria Island…and has obtained charge of three others for the same purpose,” explained The Times.

On January 19 it was not a group of socialites or art and music lovers who assembled at No. 35; but members of the press.   They came to hear of conditions in London, despite the weary writer’s having just disembarked from a 14-day voyage from Liverpool to Halifax on a 3,000-ton cargo ship.

Rosita Forbes described conditions for the British in the most positive light.  “The whole standard of life is completely changed.  Money can’t buy anything anymore.  Health is better because everybody walks—driving is impossible at night—and cocktails hardly exist anymore.  Pleasures are much simpler, and there is much more family life.”

The terrors of World War II would soon reach the Rosen house.  Walter Bigelow Rosen left to fight for the Allied Forces, becoming a flying officer with the Royal Air Force.  He was killed in action in 1944.   His father established a foundation in his memory, to which Caramoor would eventually belong, “as a Center for Music and the Arts for the Town of Bedford and the State of New York.”  Lucie established a chair professorship in music at Harvard in his memory.

Walter Tower Rosen died on October 16, 1951, still active as a senior partner of Ladenburg, Thalmann and Company.  Lucie Bigelow Rosen lived on in the house and at Caramoor until November 27, 1968.  She died in the 54^th Street house at the age of 78.

In 1977 the mansion was converted to apartments.  Little on the outside has changed since it was updated just after the turn of the century.   It stands as an elegant reminder of the first phase of development of the stretch of 54th Street that become known as the Rockefeller Block.

photographs taken by the author (sorry!  it was raining!)