Butler Manor demolition imminent

By Editor | Published: 07.28.2010

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:



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New version of catalog — Brighton Pier progress

By Editor | Published: 06.14.2010

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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The Charles E. Mitchell house

By Editor | Published: 06.02.2010

Thanks to Historic Buildings of Connecticut for the citation regarding Mitchell’s second New Britain house, no longer extant. His surviving earlier house at 5 Hillside Place does not seem to have an architect attached.

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New version of catalog — Southern projects added

By Editor | Published: 06.01.2010

The list (pdf) includes more of Lorenzo Wheeler’s work in Atlanta and around the South.

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W.L. Vandewirt of Oyster Bay

By Editor | Published: 05.31.2010

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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Who was Lorenzo B. Wheeler?

By Editor | Published: 05.01.2010

What did he look like? What did the “B.” stand for?

The mystery man deserves his own book. He is probably more interesting to historians of modern architecture and Victorian America than either Hugh Lamb or Charles Rich.

Wheeler grew up in Danbury and moved to Newark in the 1870s. The best obituary claims that he studied under the great William Halsey Wood, which is possible, although the two were about the same age. Wheeler joined up with Lamb around 1877 and went solo in 1881. In 1883 he began a wide-spread series of mostly Flemo-Moorish buildings from offices (most successive, some concurrent) in New York; Atlanta; Decatur, Alabama; Memphis; allegedly Washington, D.C.; and St. Louis.

There is some confusion out there regarding Wheeler’s firms in St. Louis. He was the “Wheeler” in Wheeler & McClure of that city. Partner Craig McClure’s previous firm was Fuller & Wheeler of Albany, which was founded by William Arthur Wheeler and has no connection to the peripatetic Lorenzo.

Wheeler is credited with bringing the practice of interior design, if not Taste itself, to the city of Atlanta. He died at his brother’s house in Danbury in 1899.

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New version of catalog — Henderson Place updated

By Editor | Published: 04.25.2010

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



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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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Mount Morris Bank becomes a Romanesque ruin

By Editor | Published: 03.28.2010

Christopher Gray has been documenting the sad slow-motion destruction of the Mount Morris Bank at Park and 125th in his New York Times column. In 1987, the endangered building was still seven stories (“The Mount Morris Bank: A Derelict Is Freshened Up, But Its Fate Is Still Uncertain” (30 August 1987)), but today just two stories remain (“A Once Proud Bank, Brought Low” (17 March 2010)).

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New version of catalog posted

By Editor | Published: 03.28.2010

The list (pdf) now includes another four dozen buildings by the partners in their separate practices before and after their work with the main firm of Lamb & Wheeler/Rich.

The most interesting new entry is the Holland Building (1896, Wheeler & McClure), a notable early St. Louis skyscraper by Lorenzo B. Wheeler and Albany/St. Louis architect Craig McClure.

Another notable project is Hugh Lamb’s pair of apartment houses at 306-312 West 97th Street (1900). These large buildings are on the 2009 wish list (West End Avenue Study Area) of the Committee to Preserve the Upper West Side.



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The Queen Anne House: America’s Victorian Vernacular

By Editor | Published: 01.17.2010

Thanks to Janet W. Foster for detailed coverage of Lamb & Rich in The Queen Anne House: America’s Victorian Vernacular (Abrams, 2006).

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