Lamb & Rich, Architects, and Related Firms » Building information

Julian Mitchell’s house in Long Branch, N.J.

Editor — Sat, 06 Aug 2011 23:49:57 +0000

Version 8.1 of the list (pdf) includes minor corrections and goes out on a limb to attribute Julian Mitchell’s Long Branch, N.J. house to the firm:

Photo of Mitchell house in Helen-Chantal Pike, Images of America: West Long Branch Revisited (Charleston, S.C.: Arcadia Publishing, 2007), 54.

The house was the Monmouth County Junior League Designer Show House in 1997. Around that time, apparently, Stanford White began to be named as the architect. There are several reasons to believe that Charles A. Rich was the architect, including the appearance of the house.

The Trident Apartments, New Rochelle

Editor — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 10:00:20 +0000

The Trident Apartments in New Rochelle were built in two phases, the first in 1911-1912. How do we know when the building opened? The New Rochelle Pioneer ran a pleasant little item called “Hello People” that reported the name of every new subscriber to the phone company. The June 1 edition of 1912 welcomed the Trident Apartment.

Frederick Mathesius, who would run the Trident Realty Co. for decades, was already involved with the company by at least 1912, so it makes sense to assume that he was the architect. He did not join Rich’s firm until 1913.

The side facade of the building’s 1920 second phase, above, looks a bit like the side facade of South Fayerweather Hall at Dartmouth (1906), below:

Douglas Sloane’s house in Rye survives

Editor — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 10:00:38 +0000

Douglas Sloane “the carpet manufacturer” had the firm build a house in Rye, N.Y. around 1888. The house has been altered and the grounds subdivided, but the main structure is still there:

It is possible that the carriage house survives as well.

Rich buildings at Smith are being renovated

Editor — Sat, 16 Jul 2011 10:00:35 +0000

The Smith College news service has photos of the renovations of Northrop and Gillett Houses (1910-1911) and Burton Hall (1913).

During the early-twentieth century building boom that created those buildings, Smith College President Laurenus Seelye retired and commissioned a house near the campus from Charles Rich:

President Seelye’s house (1909)

The entry porch is somewhat similar to that of the firm’s contemporary Baldwin House, a few blocks away:

Baldwin House (1908)

A Poughkeepsie project

Editor — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 10:00:13 +0000

For some time the list of buildings on this site erroneously attributed Christ Episcopal Church in Poughkeepsie (1887, William A. Potter) to the firm. Version 7.7 of the list, posted 06.12.2011, reflected only the correction of this error.

What the firm did design for the church was its Albert Tower, Jr. Memorial Rectory (1903):

Danbury Library

Editor — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 10:00:49 +0000

Lorenzo Wheeler formed a firm with Hugh Lamb in 1877 for the immediate purpose of completing the designs for a library in Danbury, Connecticut:

The Wheeler sisters in Sharon, Connecticut

Editor — Sun, 10 Jul 2011 16:44:08 +0000

Version 8.0 of the list (pdf) now credits the firm with:

A whole series of projects in Sharon, Connecticut for the Wheelers, McClurgs, and Tiffanys, including works at 32, 36, and 44 South Main Street.
The Old Guard Armory at 49th Street in Manhattan: Nathaniel Witherell was a co-owner of the commercial building.
Charles T. Root’s house in East Orange.
Judge Beattie’s house in Warwick, N.Y.
The Sparks house in Greenwich, which turns out to be well identified and well preserved.
Charles Greer’s four rental cottages on Evergreen Avenue in Rye, N.Y. Here is one of them:

Mystery houses of East Orange identified

Editor — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 00:40:01 +0000

What’s new in version 7.7 of the list? (pdf)

Two unidentified photos published in the Inland Architect a century ago and recently put on line as part of the Ryerson & Burnham Digital Collections of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago have been identified: the Georgian brick house (SAIC image) was built for Charles Hathaway at 155 Prospect Street (1896), while the “Renaissance” stone house (SAIC image) was built at 92 Harrison Street (1901). Neither stands today.
Lorenzo Wheeler’s and Herbert Chivers’s unbuilt design for the Cote Brilliante Presbyterian Church in St. Louis is now mentioned.
Corrections: W.H.H. Jones’s name has been corrected from James, and Mount Morris Bank is now correctly sited in Manhattan instead of Brooklyn.
Caroline and Gustav Schwab’s cottage in Tuxedo Park has been identified, and it appears to stand today on West Lake Road at Mountain Farm Road (aerial below). This can’t be confirmed using Google Street View, of course:

Tenements for a billiards man

Editor — Mon, 16 May 2011 01:06:49 +0000

It is not reflected in the short version of the building list, but the client for Wheeler’s two tenements at 159 and 161 East 90th has been identified: John F. Gleason, the well-known billiards man and keeper of one of the city’s best pool rooms, in the Bowery. The 1880 Census describes his occupation as “liquors,” but everywhere else he was a “roomkeeper.” He lived next door to his building project.

Version 7.6 of the list (pdf) also incorporates this new information:

Wheeler’s design of a house at 35 East 68th Street (past two typos in the source and an 1899 demolition);
a tentative attribution of Charles A. Frank’s 1904 “Charlou House” in Glen Cove; and
a confirmation (via Howard Major’s later work) of the firm’s design of William Dick’s 1888 house in Islip, “Allen Winden” or “Allen Winden Farm.”

A house for William Ledyard Vandervoort in South Oyster Bay

Editor — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 01:54:56 +0000

Vandervoort bought the property around 1880; the author of his 1882 house has now been identified. This project could suggest the means by which Theodore Roosevelt learned about the firm before he built his house in Oyster Bay.

Version 7.5 of the list (pdf) also identifies the six houses the firm designed for Gerald L. Schuyler at 307 West 83rd Street and 481-489 West End Avenue. At least two of these survive, one of which is mentioned by Christopher Gray in “The School of the Stepped Gables,” New York Times (30 January 2009).

Other new citations include:

an alteration to Elizabeth Milbank’s house at 6 East 38th by her daughter, Elizabeth M. Anderson;
some interesting hotel alterations at 53-59 West 42nd Street for the New York Real Estate and Building Improvement Company, another Ferdinand Fish production; and
a confirmation of the firm’s 1916 alteration of the Educational Building, now apparently the Sheila C. Johnson Design Center of the Parsons School of Design.