The
Gazebo Gazette
Newsletter of the Larchmont Historical Society
Only the week before the Larch- mont Historical Society House Tour, spring had not yet touched most of our area, and we were enduring wind and rain. As a result, when the weekend of the house tour turned out to be sum- merlike and sunny, it was all the more appreciated.
As usual, the tour itself was a delight. ―Built to Last: Stories in Stone‖ was the theme of 2009.
Though the architectural styles included Tudor, Arts & Crafts and Colonial Revival, each in- corporated noteworthy stone- work in part of its construction.
Water and wonderful outdoor space were also notable at each
of the houses. One house is located on the water, another has a natural waterfall on the property, and a third was situated near the waterfall in Larchmont Gardens. The other two houses fea- tured ponds, in one case currently, the other in the past. At one home, the fish pond was added by the current owners as a fitting complement to their lovely yard; at the other home, the pond existed in earlier times and was a source of amusement for friends and family who used it to swim in the summer and skate in the winter.
Saturday‘s pre-tour lecture featured the landscaping team of Joe Eck and Wayne Winterrowd of North Hill Garden in Readsboro, Vermont. Eck and Winterrowd had planned the garden for the home on Cedar Island that featured boxwood parterres, beautiful flowers, and a traditional kitchen garden with herbs, vegetables, and fruits.
The post-tour reception was held at the Mamaroneck Artists Guild, now located in wonderful, newly-renovated retail space with great lighting and good street exposure (at the corner of the
Record Attendance for Annual House Tour Many Say It Was the Best Ever
Kudos to Susan Emery, House Tour Chair for Six Years, Retiring from Board
Boston Post Road and Larchmont Avenue).
Houlihan Lawrence under- wrote and organized the event. Throughout the afternoon a steady stream of visitors stopped in for a refreshing drink, a bite to eat, and the opportunity to catch up with friends and neighbors who had also gone on the tour.
As tour goers drifted home, their tour experi- ence was far from over.
Included in the price of the admission ticket is the Larchmont House Tour Journal, which provides several more hours of entertainment. Willing LHS volunteers carefully research the history of an area and a home‘s previous owners; notes are written to describe the house and its interior, and architectural research traces the design of the home and the changes that have been made at various times. The tour commit- tee also interviews the homeowners in order to present a bit about the people who currently inhabit the homes. The result is a journal that provides fascinating stories about Larchmont. The development of Larchmont Woods and the dredging of Larch- mont Lake (now commonly known as the Duck Pond) and the origin of the stage in the basement billiard room of the house on Ridge Road are just a few of the wonderful details that must have held readers‘ attention long after the tour ended.
From the more than 120 docents required to oversee the tour to the tour committee themselves, many members of the commu- nity work together to bring about this wonderful event that cele- brates Larchmont‘s present by honoring its past.
- Kate Kelly LHS Treasurer Jim Sweeney and fellow board member Ned Benton in Larchmont
Engine #1, where they sell tickets in front of 8 Bayard St.
Published by:
The Larchmont Historical Society P.O. Box 742, Larchmont, NY 10538
Hours:: Tuesday/Thursday 9 am to 2 pm
Editor: Nancy White Contributors: Stacy Caffrey, Lynne Crowley, Elaine Everhart, Kate Kely
Patti Roberts, Judith Doolin Spikes Officers and Board of Trustees:
Colette Rodbell, President Lauren Gottfried, 1
stVP, Membership
Patti Roberts, 2
ndVP, Programs Cate Jarrett, Recording Secretary
Jim Sweeney,Treasurer Ned Benton Peggy Kahn Stacy Jamar Caffrey Kate Kelly Erin Constabile Jim Levi
Barbara Coyne Stephen R. Rolandi Manuel Delgado Melissa Schoen
Susan Emery Margaret Takata Elaine Everhart Dee van Eyck Andrew Francella Roberta Warren Margi Gristina Nancy White Laura Hoffman Pier Witek
Lynne Crowley, Archivist
The Larchmont Historical Society was founded in 1980 and chartered in 1981 as a not-for-profit educational corpora- tion by the New York State Board of Regents to discover, preserve and dis- seminate information concerning the natural, social, and civic history of Larchmont, and to promote the preser- vation of local historical sites and struc- tures. The Society maintains an ar- chives in the Mamaroneck Town Cen- ter, 740 W. Boston Post Rd., Mamaroneck; publishes a newsletter;
offers programs; conducts tours for school children and adults; and offers outreach lectures to other community groups. The newsletter is published to provide news of the Society and occa- sional articles of related interest. Opin- ions expressed are those of their au- thors; publication should not be con- strued as endorsement by the Society.
President’s Message:
As our year draws to a close, it is only natural to think back over the activities that have filled the LHS calendar in 2008-09. As I remember the cemetery restoration program, the speakeasy murder mystery gala, the antiques appraisal day, the women‘s history program, and the spectacular house tour, I think of the wonderful board members and volunteers who made all these activities possible. In addition to all the events they produced, there was also a great deal of behind-the-scenes work, such as the research involved in planning for the restoration of Engine One as well as century home club houses, the investigation into display space, and the regular volume of questions that come into the Archives and are handled cheer- fully by archivist Lynne Crowley.
What an honor it is to work with such an inspiring, fun, talented—and most of all—energetic!—group of individuals. Based on the accomplishments of 2008-09, I think we can look forward to an equally exciting and interesting 2009-10.
The magic ingredient, however, is new volunteers. If you‘ve thought about helping out for a couple of hours or joining a year-round committee, please get in touch!
We would love to have even more people involved. We welcome new ideas; they strengthen the Society.
And please visit our website: http://www.larchmonthistory.org/ for more infor- mation or to browse through an amazing collection of local photographs.
Enjoy the summer, and we‘ll see you in September! - Collette Rodbell
Mystery House of the Month
Identify the home in this photo Win a one-year LHS membership
Submit to Stacy Caffrey at [email protected]
We‘ve added a new resource to our archive! Recently, interns at LHS have scanned the Larchmont pages from directories located at the New Rochelle Library covering most of the years from 1901 to 1926.
These directories provide us with information about who was living here in Larchmont, though, of course, we can‘t say de- finitively that everyone living in Larchmont at a given time would be in the directory. Also, we can see generally where they lived; addresses would appear as ―Grove av‖ or ―Dean pl‖, maybe ―Chatsworth av c Franklin av‖ indicating the corner. In 1916 a few houses had street numbers and then in 1919 most of the addresses included them. In addition, there is information about the person‘s occupation or status.
As we can see in the picture of a page taken from the 1903 direc- tory, there are many occupations represented, from gardener, tailor and cashier to manager (mgr), banker and even sailor, which captures my fancy as I picture him standing at Umbrella Point in Manor Park, face turned towards the sea (well, the Sound, with Long Island visible – on a clear day, that is) waiting for his ship to come in… but, I digress.
Mr. William Brauer is identified with ―steamship line (N.Y.)‖.
I‘m assuming he was the owner of the line, rather than toiling in the bowels of a steamship, shoving coal into the voracious fur- naces. And Messrs. Barrett and Beck are listed with ―paper‖ and
―wall paper‖ respectively, making me wonder if there was a con- nection somehow…
Ellen G. Bentz was ―wid Peter‖ forever casting her in my mind draped in widow‘s weeds. And speaking of the color black, we see that Richard Bradley and Mary Brooks are identified as
―(col) steward‖ and ―(col) domestic)‖. Hmmm. Well, that‘s history. It looks like that practice stopped by the 1919 directory.
Incidentally, there are no directories for 1917 and 1918, I specu- late because of WWI.
One final note on the directories for now: we can see how the population of Larchmont expanded by the increase in the num- ber of pages of the directories. Population really began to grow after 1913 in which year about 760 names were listed. In 1915 there were 920 names, in 1922 there were 1722 names and in the last book we have, 1926, there were 2,814 names listed. So, if my trusty and trusted intern, Rebecca Zell can be relied upon for her math skills, between 1913 and 1926, the population of Larchmont increased by 27%.
Keep your eyes on our website, www.larchmonthistory.org. We look forward to putting these documents in JPEG format there
soon. - Lynne Crowley
A photocopy of a directory page from 1903. MHS interns have completed scanning all the directories from 1901 to 1926 and they are now available at the archive.
From the Archives….
Century Homes Club:
A Work In Progress
It has been a tremendously exciting and rewarding year for the Century Homes Club! We set a goal for the year of creating an infrastructure to facilitate more complete and ultimately stream- lined research, and we have moved a long way towards our goals. And along the way we have had the good fortune to un- earth fabulous information on several houses that have been awarded plaques and joined the Century Homes Club. Our in- ductees for the 2008-09 season to date are One Fountain Square - The Davis Cottage and 20 Oak Avenue, The Gilder Cottage.
And we are in the final stages of half a dozen or so additional homes. We look forward to returning to research in earnest in the fall and hope to have a plethora of new applications into which our researchers to delve with renewed vigor.
98 Larchmont Avenue( pictured above) is proving to be another fascinating research quest that is close to joining the CHC ranks.
Based upon historic maps, we know that there was no house on this spot, which is on the west side of Larchmont Avenue, one house north of Elm, in 1901. However the residence was pre- sent by 1904. During this time frame, the property was owned by Frederick W. Flint, son of Thompson J.S. Flint, founder of the Larchmont Manor Company. Over the years the Flint heirs owned, built, rented and sold numerous houses in our town.
Helena Flint (elder sister of Fred) even rented out her ‗mansion‘
as it was deemed by the press upon completion, Cherry Tree cottage, from time to time! Cherry Tree, which was completed in around March, 1895, being described as ‗one of the prettiest places in Larchmont,‘ was rented out the very next summer. In April 1896, Miss Helena Flint ‗has rented her residence on Larchmont Avenue to Hugh Baxter of Fifth Avenue, NY. Noth- ing in the Village commands so high a rental, the per annum being $3,000.‘
Fred Flint was born in 1852, the youngest of 7 children. His first marriage to Jessie Lamson in 1879, ended with her death in
December, 1887, presumably in childbirth with their fourth child, William Hasty, who was born Dec 10, 1887. Fred remarried Elizabeth DeVisser, known as Lizzie S., and they had two children, Harold Lusk and Elizabeth James.
We are quite fortunate to have a wonderful collection of Flint family correspondence, some of which illuminates family relationships and interaction. From these letters we learn that there was little love lost between the second Mrs.
Fred Flint and the remainder of the family. We also learn, sadly, the final years of Fred‘s life were characterized by self-induced decline through excessive consumption.
Upon his death on March 19, 1908, Lizzie was left a lump sum of $50,000 in cash, and the remainder of his estate, largely real estate holdings, were split between his six chil- dren. Upon the settlement of the estate in 1909, Lizzie purchased the property now known as 98 Larchmont Ave from the children, for roughly $23,000 ($13,000 cash and
$10,000 mortgage), and we believe used it as her primary residence until here death in 1916. The house was left to her son Harold, who sold it promptly upon settlement of her estate.
The Fred Flints owned a number of residences in Larch- mont, but we believe they resided in the ‗family place‘ on Beach Avenue, as his obituary references it as his residence at time of decease. And we know that the house was rented to C.C. Gould at the time of Fred‘s death in 1908, based upon estate documents, and at the time was refer- enced as ‗Gould Cottage.‗ We were very close to terming this property, ‗Gould Cottage,‘ however further perusal of historic newspapers revealed the identity of an earlier ten- ant. In March, 1907, the cottage T.J.S. Flint ‗leased the Flint cottage on Larchmont Avenue, now occupied by David Rait, to C.C. Gould of Manhattan.‘
Over time we may or may not uncover more names and personalities associated with this fascinating story. But given how much we have unearthed, this is likely a case that we will decide to close this properties plaque research with incomplete information. Either way, once again in our quest to unearth the story of this prominent home in Larchmont‘s history, it has provided us with many more chapter‘s in the ongoing growth of our living Larchmont
narrative. -Stacy Caffrey
1-NR Paragraph, Mar 23, 1895 2-NR Paragraph, Apr 4, 1896 3-NR Paragraph, Mar 1, 1907
Textile conservator Kenneth Loyal Smith recently retired as curator of the Old Merchant‘s House Museum in lower Man- hattan. He was previously a costume curator at the Museum of the City of New York and at the Brooklyn Museum of Art.
From 1988 to 1994, Ken was one of five conservators com- missioned by the Pitti Palace in Rome to conserve and repro- duce de Medici burial clothing.
He stands in this photo beside the reproduction silk burial gown of Eleanora de Medici.
The reproduction silk was woven on 16th-century looms, and the English Needlework Society spent 10 years repro- ducing the gold lace.
1.
Go to <larchmonthistory.org> and click on ―Photographs‖at the top of the page
2.
―Larchmont Virtual History Museum‖ page will come up;click on ―Larchmont Images‖
3.
a list will come up, with most items preceded by a letter of the alphabet, in alphabetical order; scroll down and click on ―R:June Freeman Allen Costume Collection‖
4.
up will come several pages of photo thumbnails of the items along with their accession numbers; click on the title under each item to see a brief descriptionsave these instructions for any future visits!
A Call For Volunteers
Come Help Catalog the June Allen Costume Collection
How to Find the June Allen Costume Collection Online
Background: The JFACC, donated to the society in 1996, con- sists of approximately 100 items of women‘s clothing worn between 1860 and 1939 by four generations of the same fam- ily (White-Freeman-Allen), who lived in the same house in Larchmont Manor from 1891 to 1996. In 1996, the society hired a consultant who, with the assistance of two volunteers from the society, accessioned the items, stored them according to basic archival principles, and produced a study catalog of the collection and made recommendations for future work.
In 2007, the LHS board approved an expenditure of up to
$1,500 for phase two of this project, to address the oldest items in the collection (1860-1899). A committee was formed at that time, but the project stalled for lack of a professional consultant. Just a few weeks ago, quite unexpectedly, a distin- guished textile conservator/costume curator offered to guide this project without compensation. This will make it possible for us to use the full $1,500 for materials and thus further the conservation of many more items than originally planned.
However, it appears that most of those who were interested in this project two years ago are unable to participate at this time.
I hope that some new members will step forward. Simple sew- ing skills are a plus (for making basic rolls and forms to sup- port the costumes in their storage boxes, not for working on the costumes themselves) but not essential. The committee would also welcome anyone interested in working on a pro- gram, video, or exhibit to enable us to share this treasure with the community.
And you are also welcome to join if only to sit with the rest of us and Ken Smith, the conservator, as he explains in detail how the items were made, where the various materials came from, and the occasions on which they would have been worn.
Just as various authors have over the past couple of dec- ades written the history of the world as seen from the per- spective of nutmeg, gunpowder, and other specific items, when Ken describes a dress or cloak, the description in- cludes a lesson in world history.
If you would like to be advised of future activities of the com- mittee, or if you would like more information, please contact me at 834-5136 or [email protected] Working with Ken is a fabulous opportunity that I hope to be able to share with you.
-Judith Spikes Doolin
Blast from the Past:
Local History Fest" will be held at the New Rochelle Library Sat. Aug. 1, from 11 am - 2 pm.
This will feature Images of America: New Rochelle by Barbara Davis; authors of other books in the Arcadia series will also be signing their books on Larchmont, Irvington, Yonkers, and Mt. Vernon. There will also be
an exhibit and an "Attic Sale" of surplus copies of historical brochures, postcards, and other items.
About Kenneth Loyal Smith...
a gun club was an unsettling thought, so we kept digging. We soon learned that Larchmont Gardens had decreed no hunting or shooting in the area, which buttressed our instincts. But we were still looking for an explanation for why the house had an airy, high-ceilinged slightly formal first floor with a much more compact second floor above. This rather unusual distribution of space was partially responsible for the interpretation that the house might have been a club.
Then we found that the second owner of the land was Michael Staub, an Italian whom Stacy discovered was a contractor/
builder who had come to the United States in 1880. In 1914, Staub bought the land where 126 Hickory Grove Drive East now sits. The house appears to be Arts and Crafts style from the exterior (the guidelines for houses built in early Larchmont Gar- dens stipulated that they must be bungalow-style and no more than one-and-a-half stories in height), but we began to realize that there was another understandable explanation for the inte- rior design. Staub was Italian, and the house is actually built as if it has a piano nobile, or a formal primary floor. The piano nobile is taken from classical Italian architecture, and it is the floor in a house that contains the principle public, or reception rooms. The main floor has the symmetry of classical Italian architecture, with an airy high-ceilinged first floor, embracing a central courtyard, and a more compact second floor. The Hick- ory Grove Drive house is actually very Monticello-like from the inside, in that both have a central entrance hall open to the sec- ond floor, with a balcony above. Additionally, both houses have their formal rooms flanking the entrance hall in a symmetrical layout, and the second floor rooms are rather low-ceilinged and small in comparison. The bulk of the building space is used for the public areas in both.
What do you think the significance of the house tour is for the community? Certainly, tour goers enjoy what have gener- ally been beautiful spring days for touring various parts of their community, but on a deeper level, I think the tour reminds us all of the history of Larchmont and its inhabitants, and it offers a perfect opportunity to celebrate the spirit of our past.
Kate Kelly House Tour Chair Susan Emery and LHS VP, Programs Patti Roberts discuss the upcoming lecture with speakers Joe Eck and Wayne Win- terrowd of North Hill Garden in Readsboro, VT.
The conclusion of the annual meeting this month marks the end of Susan Emery‘s six-year stint as a board member of the Larchmont Historical Society, and this brings to an end her service as a leading member of the house tour committee. Dur- ing the course of her two terms on the board, she has worked on five tours. In 2004 and 2005, she served as co-chair with Meredith Brawer, and then in 2006 and 2008 she took on the daunting task of chairing the committee alone. In 2009, she was joined by a committee to split the tasks; Margi Gristina, Patti Roberts, and Pier Witek ably helped mount the very suc- cessful 2009 tour, ―Built to Last: Stories in Stone.‖ We took a few moments of Susan‘s time to ask her about the work in- volved.
What is the most challenging part of organizing the House Tour each year? There are many attractive and interesting houses around Larchmont, but it takes special homeowners to be willing to open their houses to the community. Finding those homeowners and reassuring them about our process is always challenging. The Larchmont Historical Society sells tour tickets primarily to its members and their guests and we have a docent in every single room throughout the tour. Many homeowners look at it as an opportunity to finish those house- hold projects they have been intending to complete, and a good number are very excited about having our volunteer research- ers delve into exploring the history of their houses. It‘s an exciting process.
What part of the experience is most gratifying? The most gratifying moment is when I follow up with homeowners on the Monday morning after the tour and I hear such positive feedback. They invariably say, ―My house was in perfect shape when we got home...‖ The docents are always highly praised, and even the homeowners who were a bit apprehen- sive about the process are also delighted. I am very pleased to report that I have never had a disgruntled homeowner, which speaks well for the community, as well as for the Historical Society.
I know there have been many exciting discoveries as infor- mation about the houses is uncovered. Do you have a par- ticular tour or a particular discovery that you expect to long remember? Every year is amazing, and perhaps be- cause I am just coming away from this year‘s tour, I rather think it may be most memorable for me. One of our big puz- zles this year was 126 Hickory Grove Drive East, the only 2009 house that had been on an earlier tour. Today, however, researchers have much better access to old documents and newspapers because so much is now available online, and Stacy Caffrey, our Century Homes Club researcher who was working on some deeds relating to the area, noted some addi- tional information on this house. We were troubled by the re- search that was done many years ago that speculated the bun- galow-style house might have been a gun club with the second floor terrace area used for skeet shooting. The idea that Larch- mont Gardens, with the Waterfall House (built as the develop- ment‘s original clubhouse) only two doors away and tennis courts on the property below the terrace, would have supported
Walking Tour for Larchmont Newcomer’s Club
On Saturday, May 16th after a rainy start about 11 families, including 17 children, par- ents and grandparents alike gathered in front of the Larchmont Public Library. Pier Witek began what we hope will hope will be the first of many future walking tours for members of the Larchmont Newcomer‘s Club.
Larchmont is rich with history and the hardest part was selecting the area and route for the tour. Pier Witek explained how Larchmont was first settled and how it developed while pointing out the earliest houses, churches and summer residences in our area. She explained the eclectic mix of architectural styles found in the Manor, from Queen Anne gingerbread to Tudor revival.
We hope to offer this and other tours to interested groups in the area. Please contact Pier Witek at [email protected].
When I first began my internship working on the Barker-Quaker cemetery project, I was intent on discovering something about the lives of those people buried there. Their names were famil- iar, but who were they? What did they do? What were they like? To answer my questions I had to learn about early Ameri- can history, early Westchester history and the Quaker faith, cus- toms and rituals.
Believing that tracing these Larchmont/Mamaroneck Quakers would open up an avenue of support for our burial grounds, I spend a great deal of time on the genealogies of those people we had names for. I am confident that the names of those who have blank or missing headstones are listed on the ancestral charts and family group sheets that I have created. This work is by no means complete. My ultimate goal is to learn the names of their descendants so that they can be contacted and told of our Ceme- tery Conservation Project.
To begin the process, I utilized the U.S. Federal Census records from the first enumeration in 1790 through the most recently available from 1930. The census is a great way to outline a
―people‖ search over many years. Next year, 2010 will bring a great opportunity to those who will continue this project because the 1940 census will become accessible for the first time. That new information will put us ten years closer to the people, the living descendants of our Quakers, whom we need to find to help us preserve and protect the burial grounds.
Using my library card and my home computer, I was able to access The New York Times‘ full text articles for the years 1851 to 2005. I found not only the obituaries for some of our Quakers and their children and grandchildren but also marriage an- nouncements, business articles and social columns. Another great source that I came across was Archive.org, a digital reposi- tory for out-of-print or hard-to-get texts. The complete minutes for the Purchase, NY Monthly Meeting, the place where our Quakers worshiped, were online! The birth, marriages and deaths for many of our Quakers were neatly transcribed and
bound in 1912 but were not readily accessible. Unfortunately, the Mamaroneck Preparative Meeting minutes are only available at the Friends Historical Library on the campus of Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania. I think a road trip may be in order this summer…
Some actual trips to the local libraries were inevitable but proved to be fruitful. The early city directories, Turner‘s 1897, covering Larchmont, New Rochelle and Pelham, and Polk‘s 1927 and 1930, covering Mamaroneck, Larchmont, Harrison and Rye, had many listings of interest. J. Thomas Scharf‘s His- tory of Westchester County, N.Y. , two hefty volumes published in 1886, was made easier to navigate by using E.G. Fuller‘s In- dex of Personal Names in Scharf’s History of Westchester County. The local history ―room‖ at the Larchmont Public Li- brary yielded some hidden treasures, too.
To organize all the genealogical information that I came across, I entered the data, the names, dates and places, into the software program Family Tree Maker. This program can generate family group sheets, a variety of charts, timelines and detailed reports.
Scanned photos, maps and documents can be attached to indi- viduals and families to illustrate their lives. All of this could then be placed on the LHS website.
All of the supporting documents, materials and research aids have been digitized and are now on a CD which will be given to our archivist. My hope is that, going forward, anyone needing this information can access it easily.
It has been my pleasure to work on the Cemetery Conservation Project, whether in the burial grounds surveying headstones, in the libraries pouring over dusty volumes or at my computer surf- ing the internet for clues about the lives of our Quakers. Now when I drive around the county and see the familiar names that first intrigues me, I feel like I know who they were and they will not be forgotten.
- Stephen James van Eyck
The Cemetery Report: Discovering our Quakers
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