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Short Hills Congregational Church, unbuilt

Version 6.4 of the list (pdf) is up.

New are the references to Wheeler’s two tenements for John F. Gleason (a consolidation of references to Gleason and “Mr. Mason”; not sure whether Gleason is the famous billiards man of that name); the sports pavilion at the Berkeley Oval (not the same as the Berkeley Oval Cottage, apparently); and a flamboyant unbuilt design for Short Hills Congregational Church.

The strange disjunction between the number of houses apparently built in Henderson Place, thirty-two, and the repeated reference to the Lamb & Rich project as containing forty houses might be closer to a solution. It turns out that a year or so before work began, Lamb & Wheeler filed plans for a dozen houses on a plot adjoining the site to the west, on East 86th Street. A hospital has occupied that site since the early 1900s, and it is difficult to tell whether this original dozen was built. It seems doubtful.

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Colonial Revival mania in Sharon, Connecticut

Sharon has a number of genuinely Colonial buildings, but it has more buildings erected in the Colonial style at the turn of the Twentieth Century.

While Lamb & Rich are known for the Romanesque monument on the Green in Sharon, the Wheeler Memorial Clock Tower, their other projects in town have not been identified.

The firm designed two houses and an addition to a Colonial house for Emily O. Wheeler, an addition for her sister Emily and her husband, Charles Comfort Tiffany, and projects for McClurg, Schuyler, and Van Renssalaer that might be located in Sharon.

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Lawrence Hall, precursor of Lawrence Woodmere Academy

The Lawrence element of Lawrence Woodmere Academy traces its history back to a private school established by the Lawrence Association in Lawrence, Long Island in 1891. Information on the Association’s original building, apparently a combination schoolroom and meeting hall called Lawrence Hall, is difficult to find.

The building was definitely built, however, and was supported by Association members Frederick B. Lord and George C. Rand. Lamb & Rich completed a school for Rand in 1891 that might be Lawrence Hall.

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Who designed Pine Tree Point?

Who designed the original “Pine Tree Point” house on Point Marguerite/Point Anthony at Alexandria Bay in the Thousand Islands, New York? John B. Taylor commissioned the imposing stone summer cottage in the early 1920s. It might have been Rich & Mathesius, since the firm referred to Taylor projects in 1920 and 1921.

The building seems to have burned several years after Taylor sold it. The current Pine Tree Point is a relatively recent replacement.

Version 6.3 of the list (pdf) has been posted. It contains a few changes and corrections.

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[Update 03.07.2013: Broken link to resort replaced.]
[Update 01.09.2011: Charles A. Rich definitely designed Pine Tree Point.]

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New version of catalog — Thomas House in Saratoga Springs

Version 6.2 of the list (pdf) includes several new attributions, including a tentative identification of the Thomas House at 72 Union Avenue in Saratoga Springs. It appears to have been built for George West, Jr. in 1903 and was used for a number of years as the Skidmore College administration building:


72 Union Avenue

The house was put up for sale in 2009, and there is a video showing a few interiors:


72 Union Avenue

The house was apparently owned for some time by Mary Harrison McKee, daughter of former president Benjamin Harrison.

Other new identifications will be posted this week. Updates on the Butler Manor situation will be posted as information comes in.

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Butler Manor demolition imminent

The SI Treasure Blog warns that Butler Manor, the 1908-1909 country house designed by Charles A. Rich, Architect for Elmer T. Butler on Staten Island, is scheduled for demolition in the extremely near future.

The only chance of even a temporary reprieve lies with the Landmarks Preservation Commission.

The house seems especially notable because it was a direct replacement for an 1890 frame building — same site, same client, same architects — that had been consumed by fire. The new building was built of tile, stucco, and probably other modern materials in an effort to make it fireproof.

Google’s aerial shows the L-shaped house, its remaining outbuildings, and encroaching development:



[Update 09.06.2010: Butler Manor has been demolished.]

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New version of catalog — Brighton Pier progress

The list (pdf) is up to about 685 projects, including those of related firms.

The firm’s records describe one 1897 project simply as “Brighton Pier.” This is now being interpreted to refer not to a pier in Brighton but to a project for the Brighton Pier & Navigation Co., the ferry operator and builder of the 1880s New Iron Pier at Coney Island.

It is speculated that George Tangeman’s 1900 commission likely refers to the completion or modification of Dr. Cornelius N. Hoagland’s house on Fresh Pond Avenue, Glen Cove (1896, C.P.H. Gilbert).

Information is being sought regarding Brooklyn sugar baron William Dick and his 1880s house at Islip, “Allen Winden.”

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W.L. Vandewirt of Oyster Bay

Before the house at Sagamore Hill, Lamb & Rich designed a frame house and stable in Oyster Bay for “Mr. W.L. Vandewirt.”[1] This name appears nowhere else and is very likely a misspelling, possibly an egregious one (the American Architect turned Talbot J. Taylor into “Albert J. Talbot”).

It seems possible that Roosevelt heard about the firm through a neighbor. One wonders whether there is a Long Island historian who knows Mr. Vandewirt’s true identity…

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[1] “Summary of the Week,” The American Architect and Building News 11:338 (17 June 1882), 289.

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New version of catalog — Henderson Place updated

The list (pdf) now numbers the houses of Henderson Place correctly.



View Larger Map

Henderson Place


The big project for John C. Henderson is always confusing, partly because eight of its houses have been demolished and others have been combined. Still, it is not clear that the historic district nomination got it right when it said there were originally thirty-two houses. The three building permits are for twelve, twelve, and six houses, a total of thirty, and the Sanborn maps of a few years later show only thirty houses (although one of them is given two numbers: 1 Henderson Place and 543 East 86th). The division of Henderson’s property following his death sets out these same thirty houses. To make matters worse, Charles Rich said or wrote in at least two places that there were forty houses. There is a gap on 87th where Henderson might have wanted to put houses, but that site couldn’t have held more than six of them.

Other new information:

  • The First National Bank of Sheffield, Alabama and other Wheeler projects.
  • A 1921 addition to the New Woodruff Hotel in Watertown, N.Y.
  • Houses of 1890 and 1908 for Elmer T. Butler on Staten Island. Thanks to those working to preserve the surviving second house, now the Staten Island Montessori School, for generously sharing information about this historic mansion.
  • A grand 1893 mansion (summer cottage) for Harley T. Procter, of Procter & Gamble, in Williamstown, Mass. This one was solved thanks to the detective work of the readers of Ephblog.
  • George Koyl’s design for the Woman’s Club of Ridgewood.

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[Update 11.10.2012: Broken link to school fixed, broken link to Ephblog removed.]