Version 7.2 of the list (pdf) includes clearer identifications of neighboring 1887 houses in Riverdale for Edmund Titus (below) and Frederick M. Adams (bottom).
Martin’s Villa or Fairmount, Chatham, N.J.
Version 7.1 of the list (pdf) has only a few new buildings, by far the most interesting of which is one that Hugh Lamb advertised on the back of the 1877 Newark city directory:
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.
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.
More pseudonyms in Short Hills
William I. Russell’s 1913 autobiography The Romance and Tragedy of a Widely Known Business Man of New York uses pseudonyms almost exclusively. Some people’s identities may be figured out based on the proximity of their houses in Short Hills, New Jersey. Others depend on characterization:
[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.]
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.]
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.
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.”
New version of catalog — Southern projects added
The list (pdf) includes more of Lorenzo Wheeler’s work in Atlanta and around the South.
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.
Who was Lorenzo B. Wheeler?
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.
[Update 01.09.2011: A good guess for Wheeler’s middle name would be Birdsall.]