The second of two posts on pseudonyms in William I. Russell’s autobiography has been updated to reflect the identification of “Ned Banford” as Edward F. Sanford, thanks to a reader.

• 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:

• 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:

There is no longer any need to use the cumbersome process outlined in this 2009 post. The OMH Manhattan N.B. Database remains the only place to look up building permits directly, and it covers 1900 to 1986.

Part of the confusion comes from the suggestion in a recent Greenwich book that Charles Mallory’s son Clifford replaced Charles’s original 1885 house, “Clifton.” One of Charles’s sons, probably Robert, apparently did replace “Clifton,” but it was not Clifford Day Mallory. Clifford was the grandson of Charles Mallory and the son of Henry R. Mallory, the one whose house survives.

(Compare the recent Sotheby’s catalog, which claimed that “Clifton” still stood. The site of “Clifton” is visible to the north of the Henry R. Mallory house in the photo above.)

The house is now the recreation center for a condo complex (see top photo, bottom photo).

Martin’s Villa (Fairmount?), Chatham, N.J.

This might be the grand mansion built on Long Hill (Fairmount Avenue) by William A. Martin of New York, a wholesale liquor dealer (or tea importer?). It does not look like Fairview House, the long-time hotel apparently established by a William Martin.

Incidentally, Lamb first appears — as an architect — in Newark in a directory published in 1868. He seems to have been a draftsman, but the directories do not indicate which firm he was with. He would have been only 19 or 20.

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.

[Manufacturing jeweler "Ned Banford"] said his own capital was very small and a wealthy friend, a Mr. Viedler, was backing him, and at that time had ten thousand dollars in his business. He enlarged on the liberality of this friend, saying, amongst other things, that when he went to him for money he never asked anything further than, “How much do you want, Ned”? and then writing a cheque would hand it to him.

He also told me that his business was very profitable and the only disadvantage he labored under was Mr. Viedler’s frequent absence. . . .

It was with our New York friends that most of our social life was passed. The circle there had been enlarged by the addition of many pleasant people, although the close intimacy still rested where it had started, with, however, the addition of Mr. and Mrs. William Viedler.

Mr. Viedler, a multi-millionaire at that time, has since largely increased his fortune and is now the controlling interest in a prominent trust of comparatively recent formation. They had been Brooklynites but bought a fine house on Fifth Avenue. We first met them on the occasion of a dinner given in their honor by Mr. and Mrs. Curtice, to welcome them to New York. Mr. Curtice is a nephew of Mrs. Viedler. . . . [The inner circle] comprised Mr. and Mrs. Curtice, Mr. and Mrs. Todd, Mr. and Mrs. Banford, Mr. and Mrs Viedler, and ourselves Curtice was our poet laureate[.]

Russell, 157-161.

It seems likely that:

• “Viedler” is George Frederick Vietor (1839-1910);
• his wife, the former Miss “Curtice,” is Anna Margaretha (Achelis) Veitor (1847-1927); and
• her “nephew” “Will Curtice” is actually her brother Fritz Achelis, with his wife Bertha.
  • Anna Vietor’s real nephew was Frederic George Achelis, who married Helen Bruff Achelis, but he was a child in the early 1890s when the book’s events are taking place.

It is not clear who “Ned Banford” was.

[Update 09.18.2011: Thanks to a generous reader, "Ned Banford" has been identified as Edward F. Sanford of E.F. Sanford & Co., jewelers or diamond dealers. His wife Anna M. Sanford was a prominent golfer during the early 1900s.]