Presented by the Deanna Kory TeamCorcoran Group Real Estate

52 East 64th StreetAn Architectural History

Written by Francis MorroneAmerican Architectural Historian & Acclaimed Author

of "The Architectural Guidebook to New York City"

52 East 64th: An Architectural History

The house at 52 East 64th Street was originally a four-story, brownstone-fronted house built in

or before 1878. The earliest recorded use of the house is as Miss Edwards' School in 1878. It

is possible that the house is slightly older than this. (See New York Evening Post,

September 5, 1878.) The house was remodeled and dramatically transformed in 1916-17.

The last owner of the house before its transformation into what we see today was the German-born

psychiatrist and neurologist Dr. William Hirsch (1858-1937), one of the "alienists" consulted in the

murder case against Harry Thaw, the shooter of the architect Stanford White, in 1906. Dr. Hirsch

hired the prominent architect Harry Allan Jacobs to design a rear addition to the house in 1901.

The house was sold by Dr. Hirsch to the lawyer Foster Crampton of

935 Park Avenue in 1916. Crampton (d. 1926) was a noted sportsman,

commodore of the Westhampton Yacht Club, president of the

Westhampton Country Club, and life member of the Crescent

Athletic Club. (His obituary appeared in the Times on April 23, 1926.)

A January 4, 1916, item in the New York Times places Mr. and Mrs.

Foster Crampton at the Greenbrier Hotel in White Sulphur Springs,

West Virginia. That would have been only a few weeks before Foster

Crampton purchased 52 East 64th Street and hired the Greenbrier's

architect, Frederick Sterner, to remodel the house.

Crampton, however, never lived in the house. He bought it and renovated it as an investment property,

and rented it out, furnished, to a succession of well-heeled tenants. On September 29, 1917, Real Estate

Record reported "Douglas L. Elliman & Co. leased, furnished, for Foster Crampton, the 5-sty

American basement house at 52 East 64th St....which he recently purchased and remodeled, to Mrs.

Russell G. Colt."

The Greenbrier Hotel

52 East 64th: An Architectural History

Mrs. Russell Griswold Colt was better known as Ethel

Barrymore, at the time the most famous actress in America.

Ethel Barrymore was born on August 16, 1879, into theatrical

royalty in Philadelphia. Her father was a well-known actor,

the English-born Maurice Barrymore, and her mother a well-

known actress, Georgiana Drew. Ethel's brothers, Lionel and

John, became world-famous actors. Ethel was very close to her maternal grandmother, Louisa Lane

Drew, one of the most famous actresses in 19th-century America. Ethel began acting professionally, in

Philadelphia, at the age of thirteen. Her big break came when she was fifteen and had been introduced

to the producer Charles Frohman by her maternal uncle John Drew, one of the leading stars of the day.

After understudying on Broadway for Elsie de Wolfe (the actress who would later go on to a hugely

successful career as an interior decorator), Ethel was chosen by Frohman for the role in the touring

company. She first appeared on the stage in London in 1897, to immense acclaim. Something about

Ethel struck a chord in the English, and she would thereafter enjoy tremendous popularity there. In

England she dated the young Winston Churchill, who unsuccessfully sought her hand in marriage.

(Ethel and Winston remained lifelong friends.)

By 1900 she was as great a star as there was on the New York stage, and she enjoyed a spectacular

run working for Charles Frohman until his death in 1915. In 1909 she married Russell G. Colt, a New

York socialite, and the couple produced three children. It was not a great marriage (there was

speculation that Colt was an abusive husband), and would end in divorce in 1923. By the time Mrs.

Colt moved into 52 East 64th Street, she and her husband were not living together. (She had filed

divorce papers as early as 1911.) She resided in the house with her three children. (It was Ethel

Barrymore's only marriage.)

During the time she lived at 52 East 64th Street, Ethel Barrymore appeared in three plays at the

Empire Theatre on West 42nd Street: "The Lady of the Camellias" by Alexandre Dumas fils, "The Off

Chance" by R.C. Carton, and "Belinda" by A.A. Milne.

She would enjoy her greatest successes in 1919, in "Déclassé" by Zoë Akins, and in 1924 in "The

Constant Wife" by W. Somerset Maugham. In 1928 the Shubert brothers built her own 1,000-seat

theater, named the Ethel Barrymore Theatre, still going strong at 243 West 47th Street.

She had made her first appearance in films in 1914, and appeared frequently in films in the 1930s. The

1932 "Rasputin and the Empress" marked the one and only time that Ethel, Lionel, and John Barrymore

Ethel Barrymore - 1896

52 East 64th: An Architectural History

ever acted together professionally. In 1944 she won an Academy

Award for best supporting actress for "None But the Lonely

Heart." (She received further best supporting actress

nominations for "The Spiral Staircase" in 1946, Alfred

Hitchcock's "The Paradine Case" in 1947, and "Pinky" in

1949.) Although she had a successful career in Hollywood,

most of her films were made after she turned fifty, and she

was cast in supporting or "character" roles that left a

generation of filmgoers unaware that she had been the

leading lady of the New York stage and one of America's

greatest and most emulated beauties when she was in

her twenties and thirties.

She died in Hollywood on June 18, 1959. (Her grand-

niece, Drew Barrymore, is a star of more recent years.)

On June 14, 1919, Real Estate Record reported that Douglas L. Elliman & Co. had leased the house,

furnished, to Oscar Cooper, president of the New York County National Bank. (That bank's

headquarters was in the stately classical building still standing at 77 Eighth Avenue at 14th Street,

built in 1906-07.)

In 1936, an elevator was installed in the building, and a 1937 Certificate of Occupancy shows that the

house had been divided into seven apartments: two in the basement, one each on floors one to three,

and two on the fourth floor. In 1961, the two basement apartments were replaced by Dr. Lewis H.

Berman's Park East Animal Hospital. Dr. Berman, according to a profile of him that appeared in the

June 2012 issue of Town & Country, is veterinarian to the stars. Clients who have brought their pets

to be examined by Dr. Berman at 52 East 64th Street include Jacqueline Onassis, Rex Harrison, Julie

Andrews, Henry Fonda, Andy Warhol, Lauren Bacall, Tennessee Williams, John F. Kennedy Jr., and

Ralph Lauren.

The original house was likely not identical to No. 50 next door (built 1883-84), but no doubt bore

enough similarities that we can get a sense of just what Sterner did to make the house new in 1916-17.

For example, like No. 50, No. 52 would have been set well back from the lot line behind a high, wide

stoop and a small front garden. Sterner greatly disliked traditional New York row house stoops. By

removing the stoop of No. 52, he was able to extend the house front to the lot line, thus significantly

Rasputin and the Empress movie poster - 1932

52 East 64th: An Architectural History

increasing the square footage of the house's floor area

(which had already been increased by Dr. Hirsch's

1901 rear addition). In place of the stoop, traditionally

placed to the far left or far right side of the house

front, Sterner created a "basement entrance," down a

couple of steps leading to the house's garden level (as

opposed to the stoop entrance leading to the parlor

floor). He placed the entrance dead center, between two piers with molded capitals. There are openings

in the basement façade on the outer sides of the piers. Placed before these openings are stone planters

holding topiary trees. We do not know if these were put there by Sterner, but they are very much the

sort of thing he liked to do.

Sterner replaced the brownstone front with one of a smooth white limestone. The windows retain a

traditional feeling with their multi-pane sash, but all surrounding moldings have been removed, for a

starker, more "modern" look. The house is topped off by a denticulated cornice and a balustrade. These

are very similar to the ones on the house next door at No. 54, which was built in 1906-07 by the well-

known architects Flagg & Chambers. It thus seems likely that Sterner sought to bring his house into

harmony with that one, which is also built out to the lot line.

Who was Frederick Sterner that he should take such liberties with a brownstone house?

Not a lot is known of his early background. We know he was born in London in 1862, and at the age of

16 moved with his family to Chicago. There he went to work as an architect in the office of Frank E.

Edbrooke. When Edbrooke left Chicago for the boom town of Denver, Colorado, Sterner went with

him. Sterner was in the employ of Edbrooke when he designed the famous Brown Palace Hotel (1889-

92). After forming his own firm, Sterner designed some of the most notable buildings in Denver. These

include the Denver Club (1889, demolished), the University Club (1895), the Denver Athletic Club

(1899), and the Daniels and Fisher Tower (1910, once the tallest building in Denver). In 1901 Sterner

designed the Antlers Hotel in Colorado Springs; once one of the best-known resorts in America, it

was demolished in 1964. In 1913, he designed another of the most renowned resort hotels in the country,

the Greenbrier, in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia.

This is an impressive résumé for any architect, and it may be said that by the time Sterner moved to

New York City, in 1906, he was already one of the country's leading architects. What he did in New

York, however, was nothing less than to revolutionize the urban row house.

52 East 64th Street facade

52 East 64th: An Architectural History

In 1908, Sterner purchased a tired 1840s brick-fronted Greek Revival row house at 139 East 19th Street,

between Irving Place and Third Avenue in a neighborhood that had seen better days. By 1908 Irving

Place was lined by loft buildings, and Third Avenue was home to the elevated railway. But Sterner

was among the small number of people who saw the writing on the wall of New York real estate.

Manhattan had run out of land. Even the wealthiest New Yorkers were moving

into apartments. No one was building row houses any longer. Any New Yorker

who wished to live in a row house was going to have to do something that, at least

for the well-to-do, had only a few years earlier seemed unimaginable: buy a pre-

owned house. Sterner felt there were houses all over Manhattan that could be

transformed, as one person put it, from ugly ducklings to swans. He made his own

house, 139 East 19th Street, into a model of what he wanted to show people could

be done with old houses.

He had no interest in restoring old houses to their original appearance. He wished

to imbue them with a whole new spirit: lighter, airier, less stuffy, more relaxed, more

functional. This was in keeping with a trend of the 1910s and 1920s evident in

everything from women's clothing (which was becoming notably freer and less

constraining) to fairy-tale-like garden suburbs (like Forest Hills Gardens).

At 139 East 19th Street, Sterner removed the stoop. He said of New York row house stoops that they

were "great pompous things that would suit houses 100 feet wide." Around the new basement entrance-

-down a couple of steps leading to the garden level of the house--he placed glazed art tiles. He covered

the red-brick house front with stucco painted a light cream color, and placed against it vibrantly green

wooden shutters (retaining the house's original sills and lintels). He replaced the original flat roof with

a sloping roof of red tiles. He transformed a dilapidated old house into a sprightly Mediterranean

fantasy. And why not? New York, after all, is a southern city--on the latitude of Madrid and Rome.

But because we'd been settled by northerners (the Dutch and the English) we had a dark, northern

architecture.

Sterner brilliantly orchestrated the publicity for his renovated

house. Articles about it appeared in American Architect (1909),

Real Estate Record and Guide (1910), House Beautiful (1911, and

again in 1914), Arts and Decoration (1911), and American Homes

and Gardens (1914). In its 1911 article about the house, House

Beautiful asked "Why does anyone build a city house when a

remodeled one can be made so fascinating?" With his friend the

139 East 19th Street facade

"Why does anyone build a city house when a remodeled one can be made so fascinating?"

Presented by:The Deanna Kory TeamThe Corcoran Group Real Estate660 Madison Avenue, NY, NY 10065(212) 937-7011 www.deannakory.com

All information furnished regarding the above property is from sources deemed reliable, but no warranty or representation is made as to the accuracy thereof and same is submitted subject to error, omissions, changes, prior sale, lease or financing or withdrawal without notice.

corcorancorcoran group real estate

banker and aesthete Joseph B. Thomas, Sterner bought up other properties

on the block and set about a block-long row house transformation, leading

American Homes and Gardens in 1914 to dub this block of 19th Street the

"Block Beautiful."

Sterner then set his sights on the East 60s. In 1915 he moved from 139 East

19th Street to an old house at 154 East 63rd Street, which he dramatically

remodeled. Earlier, in 1912, he renovated 46 East 70th Street into a Tudor

fantasy for Stephen C. Clark, the Singer Sewing Machine Company heir.

In 1920 he and Elsie de Wolfe collaborated on the William Ziegler house at

2 East 63rd Street. His remodeling of 153 East 63rd Street, for Cyril and Barbara Rutherford Hatch,

was done in 1917-19, immediately following 52 East 64th Street. This house has been much in the news

since being put up for sale for $32 million by its owner, film director Spike Lee. In 1922, Sterner moved to

a house he renovated at the southwest corner of Lexington Avenue and 65th Street. He called the

renovated house the "Parge House," after the method of stucco used on the outside of the house.

Many others followed Sterner, and the 1910s and 1920s became a time of row house renovations all over

Manhattan (and parts of Brooklyn). In the course of it all, new neighborhoods were opened up to

wealthy house buyers: Yorkville, Gramercy Park, Sutton Place, Beekman Place, the South Village, the

West Village, Chelsea, Brooklyn Heights. The term "gentrification" was not coined until 1964 by the

British sociologist Ruth Glass in reference to Islington, in London. But the 1910s and 1920s was the

golden age of gentrification in New York, and the row house renovations of Frederick J. Sterner, not

least 52 East 64th Street, define the era. In 1925, Sterner moved back to his native London. In 1931, he

died, at the age of 69, in Rome.

In a remarkable article in the New York Times on December 11, 1921, Helen Bullitt Lowry wrote:

"For the first time in the history of respectable cities...the millionaires are moving

into the cheap old dwelling houses that were foreordained at their beginnings to

harbor, in the relaxation of their evening suspender, middle-class filing clerks and

floor-walkers with tired feet."

She then added:

"Frederick Sterner is the architect who deserves the credit of seeing the architectural

possibilities...for making, as it were, a silk purse out of a sow's ear."

154 East 63rd Street facade