Lawrence Park Historic District is a national historic district located at Bronxville, Westchester County, New York. The district contains 94 contributing buildings, the majority of which are architecturally or historically significant. Developed in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century on twenty acres of land closely associated with the historical evolution of the surrounding community, the area attracted as residents many prominent artists and writers of the period. The Park structures were built on a wooded hillside, along winding roads. While in close proximity to one another, they achieve a feeling of seclusion and privacy. Few of the houses have had major alterations, and today Lawrence Park retains much of its original character.
Lawrence Park was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1980.[1] The district is primarily residential and representative of early suburban growth outside New York City. Bordering Lawrence Park to the south and west is the commercial section of the Village of Bronxville, or village center, with Pondfield Road running down the center. Newer residential areas lie north and east of the district, sharply delineated by changes in terrain.
Significance
Lawrence Park Historic District is architecturally, historically, and culturally significant. William Van Duzer Lawrence, Lawrence Park's developer, personally oversaw the design and construction of the first homes in Lawrence Park and encouraged well-known artists and writers to make Lawrence Park their home, including artists Otto Henry Bacher, Hobart Nichols, and William Thomas Smedley, and writers Tudor Jenks, Kate Douglas Wiggin, Edmund Clarence Stedman, and Alice Wellington Rollins.[2] Many of these residents were also prominent in the cultural, social, and political realm of the Village of Bronxville. In spite of intrusions and alterations to buildings within the district over time, the ambiance of Lawrence Park has not changed. Lawrence Park still retains the coherence and character of an architecturally distinctive turn-of-the-century suburban development.
History
The twenty acres now included in the boundaries of Lawrence Park, which is within the Village of Bronxville, Town of Eastchester, are a part of a large parcel of land deeded to Thomas Pell. Pell received it from four chiefs of the Mohican tribe — Gramatan, Annale, Wariatipus, and Wampage — and he in turn deeded it, in 1664, to ten families from Fairfield, Connecticut. Laws for the area were established in 1665 under an agreement called the Eastchester Covenant. This document, unusual for its time, made provisions for the education of children, the disposition and upkeep of property, the support of a minister, and the regulation of all public affairs.[3]
During the eighteenth century a community began to grow because of the proximity of the Bronx River, a source of power and transportation. Pre-Revolutionary settlers included the Underhill family who originally owned much of the land in the west part of what is now the Village and operated a saw and grist mill on the river. From this family came the community's first name — Underhill's Crossing. In the 1820s, a vein of fine white marble was discovered in nearby Tuckahoe, attracting more people to the area. Underhill's Crossing's rapid development was stimulated by the arrival of the railroad in 1844. The former Underhill mill was purchased by James Swain, whose father-in-law, James Minot Prescott, bought farm land on Sunset Hill — 86 acres of the original Underhill holdings. Prescott built the Manor House on his land in 1845.
Lawrence Park was created by William Van Duzer Lawrence (1842-1927), who, in 1890, purchased the 86 acre Prescott farm, with the idea of subdivision and development. He commissioned William A. Bates to design several houses on speculation. The first new houses in Lawrence Park were completed in 1891 and were built in a variety of revival styles including Colonial Revival, Classical Revival, Shingle and Tudor Revival.[4]
Lawrence, who founded Bronxville's Sarah Lawrence College in 1928 in memory of his wife, had become a millionaire through astute business dealings in the pharmaceutical trade. Charmed by the rural character of a village only fifteen miles from New York City, he initially bought the land as a long-term property investment. A year later, however, he engaged an engineer to prepare maps, a necessary preliminary to putting buildings on the site. Lawrence took great personal care, as roads were surveyed and lots plotted, to protect the large trees and other natural features of the property. He then chose four of the most picturesque sites and hired the architect William A. Bates, who had just successfully completed a group of "cottages" at Tuxedo Park, to design four houses to be built on speculation.
Bates, born in 1853 in Michigan, came to New York City at the age of nineteen to train as an architect, while working as a draftsman in the offices of Herter Brothers. By 1880 his designs for houses were appearing in architectural journals around the country. An article in the May, 1970, issue the Bronxville Women's Club magazine "The Villager" states, "Bates belonged to...the school of architects who worked in what one writer terms the "High Victorian Picturesque Eclectic" manner, drawing details from French and Spanish Romanesque, late French Gothic, Victorian Gothic of Italian inspiration, sixteenth-century castles on the Loire, Second Empire Norman, even early Christian Syrian monuments. Bates' early work was said to be very English... But his Bronxville tower houses seem to be more French than English...the important thing is not the historical accuracy of the design but the architect's art in harmonizing whatever his fancy leads him to, with itself and with its surroundings."[5]
The first four houses sold quickly and the new owners were in residence by June, 1891. Lawrence then had Bates renovate and modernize the Manor House, and it became an Inn. Rooms at the Manor House were available to prospective purchasers of Lawrence Park lots, to people who had bought land and wanted to stay nearby while their houses were being built; and to friends and guests of Lawrence Park residents. A second amenity for Park dwellers was the now-demolished Bates-designed Casino, used for meetings and social gatherings of all kinds. Interest in the Park was high, the Manor House was full, and Bates, under Lawrence's direction, continued to design. As the houses sold, it was found that the area was meeting a housing demand from artists and authors of New York City. Studios and libraries had to be added to existing houses and incorporated into the plans for new ones for artists such as William Henry Howe, Herman T. Schladermundt, William T. Smedley, a well-known illustrator and Otto Bacher.
With such a concentration of persons in the arts, it was not long before Lawrence Park acquired the reputation of being "an exclusive literary and artistic development." In 1896, Mrs. George Custer, widow of the general and interested in becoming part of this exclusive development, bought a lot and commissioned Bates to design the first of the two houses she eventually built in Lawrence Park. Some of the houses Lawrence built were put up for political, not social or economic reasons. When he discovered that the taxes paid by Bronxville residents were being used by the Town of Eastchester to develop Tuckahoe, Lawrence recognized that Bronxville had to be incorporated to have its own government. In order to accomplish incorporation, the Village had to give evidence of three hundred people within its boundaries. Heads were counted, but the population was not sufficient; so in the winter of 1897 Lawrence built seven larger houses for big families that would require many servants. When the new homes had been sold, noses were again counted, and Bronxville was able to incorporate.[6]
The great charm of the development lay primarily in the architecture of the houses and their relationship to the environment. In a 1904 article in Architectural Record, Theodore Tuttle stated "The houses belong where they are placed, as if they had grown there and were content to remain, and the general effect is tranquil refinement."[7] These houses, taken as a group, today represent in practically unspoiled form all the major styles that were in fashion at the turn of the century. Romantic and fanciful, they were designed for a time of more leisurely living. "Among them are examples of the traditional half timber and stucco, the Colonial Revival, and the now famous 'Shingle Style,' which reflects the spirit, if not the letter, of Henry Hobson Richardson's Romanesque Revival. Translated into wood, Romanesque, which is essentially an architecture of stone, becomes picturesque, rambling, and varied. Its salient features are high roofs and high gables, often with half timbering, wide porches, and corner towers, all of which can be observed in various combinations in houses in Lawrence Park."[8]
By 1901, a good number of the houses in the Park were completed. The greater portion were designed by Bates, whose "...designs were meant for country living, with their wood and stone constructions suited admirable to their lovely hillside settings. Strung along narrow winding roads and perched on rocky ledges, they offered their owners the advantage of privacy combined with great natural beauty."[9] Bates' influence in Bronxville extended beyond the Park. He was responsible for the design of much of the commercial area of the Village, as well as the Mission style Hotel Gramatan, of which only the shopping arcade now remains, on which he collaborated with A.E. Barlow.[10]
Residences and Artists
25 Prescott Avenue
Typical of the early homes built in the Park is the residence at 25 Prescott Avenue, built in 1891. The home was designed by Bates and serves as a fine example of the Shingle style with its undulating surfaces, diamond-paned fenestration, and gable roof. It was first acquired by Will Hicok Low, noted figure painter, muralist, and designer of stained glass. The house features a trap door in the floor of Will Low's former studio, which was useful to the artist in working on top sections of his paintings without using a ladder, as well as for canvas storage. The studio itself boasts large windows allowing for natural light. Within the chimney of the fireplace within the studio, there is a plaster medallion created by American sculptor Augustus St. Gaudens depicting the novelist Robert Louis Stevenson, who wrote many infamous works such as Treasure Island. Low had previously connected Stevenson and St. Gaudens. Below the medallion is a poem by Robert Louis Stevenson entitled "Lines to Will H. Low". Family friends have remembered visiting the home and seeing "murals spread across the studio floor",[11] as well as "[the studio] was covered from floor to ceiling - you couldn't even see the wallpaper."[12] The house was lived in continuously by artists until 1965.
Mary and Will Low
FThe Saint-Gaudens medallion depicting Robert Louis Stevenson; Built into the chimney of Low's studio at 25 Prescott Avenue
In 1897, Will Low worked on a wall panel for the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in NYC, which was his first major commission. The mural was set to be installed on the ceiling of the hotel, and was a lofty 34' by 26'. It is said that Will Low's final painting, a mural he created to be gifted to the local Bronxville School, was completed hours before his passing.[13]
"Roses and Lilies" by Mary Fairchild MacMonnies Low
Will Low's second wife, Mary MacMonnies Low, was also a prominent figure in the art world. Following a divorce from her first husband, Scottish-American sculptor Frederick MacMonnies, Mary married Will Low, who had been an admirer of hers for some time. She moved from Paris to America with her daughters in 1910, and lived at 25 Prescott Avenue with her new husband for the rest of her life. In her youth, she studied at the St. Louis School of Fine Arts, eventually being awarded a three-year scholarship at the Academie Julian. In 1901, she was elected president of the American Woman's Art Association. While married to her first husband Frederick MacMonnies, she lived in a home at Giverny, often remembered as the grounds of impressionist artist Claude Monet. The home was known for its landscaping and workshops. The home's aesthetics influenced many of her impressionist paintings from this era of her life. In 1902, she was awarded the Julia Shaw prize from the Society of American Artists. Four years later in 1906, she became an Associate of the National Academy of Design.[14]
Mary's marriage to Will Low was described as a happy one. Will's second autobiography, A Painter's Progress, writes to Mary, "This is the life we have chosen well, the choice was mad, but I should make it again." The couple lived in the Lawrence Park home until they died, with Will passing first in 1932, and Mary over a decade later in 1946.[15] w
26 Prescott Avenue
26 Prescott Avenue, a Victorian Tudor home, was built in 1896 out of stone and wood. Its earliest resident was William Winthrop Kent, an architect. The home was designed strategically for the lot, as it was mostly rocky terrain; most of the rooms face South, as to best capture shade and sunshine at various times of the year. It featured an oval-shaped dining room, as well as bottle glass windows. It was first called Oak Ridge Cottage, though, has been re-remembered as the Owl House, due to the large owl figurine that sits atop the roof. The huge pieces of stone in the lower part of the structure are said to have been quarried by men who were paid by the cubic foot. According to Tuttle in the Record, "Oak Ridge...while not the most pretentious in appearance, probably excites interest more than any other house in the park, and more firmly impresses itself on the mind. It is a beautiful structure, irregular and rambling, as it should be, but so well held together, withal, that it may be viewed and judged in its entirety."[16] Years later, when artist William Thomas Smedley moved in, he added a second large studio onto the house. He maintained a studio in New York City and his home in Bronxville with two studios. In 1916 Smedley added a garage to the home which was one of the first to be built in Lawrence Park. He also had Kent, both the architect and former resident, add in a secret passage leading from one of the main rooms to his studio. Allegedly, this allowed him a quick escape during his wife's frequent parties.[13] Since Smedley's death in 1920, "Owl House" has been lived in by prominent writers, most recently Brendan Gill of the New Yorker.
"One Day in June" by William Thomas Smedley, 1909
William Thomas Smedley
William Thomas Smedley was a resident of Bronxville between the years of 1896 and 1920. During these time, he lived at 26 Prescott Avenue. He was recognized for his illustrations in the beginning of his career, and by the end, was an infamous commission painter for the wealthy residents of nearby New York City. He was born into a religious family, the son of a Quaker minister. In 1873, he was sent to Westchester, Pennsylvania to work at a local news outlet. There, he was encouraged by executives of the paper to take his talents to Philadelphia's Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. There, he studied under Thomas Eakins, an American painter and photographer.[17] He also studied in Paris at the Academie Julian under Jean Pail Laurens. His works included several portraits of Congress members, as well as Supreme Court Justices. Some of his works have been included in the Library of Congress, as well as the National Gallery of Art.[18][13] Smedley was elected to the National Academy in 1905.
12 Sunset Avenue
"Gray Arches" at 12 Sunset Avenue was designed by Bates and built in 1891. The house is sited on one of the highest points in Lawrence Park Historic District and derives its name from the unusual design of the stone work on the porch which rests solidly on an outcropping of granite, overlooking the valley. The house and its environment provide a prime example of how the natural landscape has been treated with reverence, giving the homes an organic compatibility with their wooded surroundings. In 1892 "Grey Arches" was the summer home of the Lawrence family, and during the winter of 1894, it was the home of Kate Douglas Wiggin, author of Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, who described it in her autobiography as "...a beautiful house."[19]
28 Valley Road
At 28 Valley Road is the "Pacesetter House," designed by architect Henry Eggers in 1952. It was built on the site of the 1895 William Kent residence, who designed the Bronxville Village Hall as well as several houses in the Park. The Kent House was in the Shingle style and the newer residence, which won the 1953 House Beautiful award[20] is also constructed of shingles with the pitched roof and rambling lines of the surrounding neighborhood architecture. The original Kent barn was used as a garage and decorative motifs from the barn are a notable feature of the interior design of the Eggers house.
16/18 Prescott Avenue
16/18 Prescott Avenue was designed by William A. Bates and Kenneth How. It is a Tudor Revival home. The two addresses are mirrors of each other, and were three stories high in the front, but six stories high in the back. The backs of the homes featured private gardens. During the 1950s, an elevator was added into the 18 Prescott Avenue side, along with the addition of a private driveway. It is considered one of the more unusual homes in Lawrence Park. It was built on top of where the Prescott estate barn had previously stood. William Van Duzer Lawrence at one point gifted 16 Prescott to Anna Lawrence Bisland and 18 Prescott to Louise Lawrence Meigs, his two daughters. Though, they never moved in. Forty years later the home was separately purchased by Louise Lawrence Meigs' daughters, Lytle and Lucia Andrews, who then lived in the home next to each other.[13]
Bronxville is a village in Westchester County, New York, United States, located approximately 15 miles (24 km) north of Midtown Manhattan. It is part of the town of Eastchester. The village comprises one square mile (2.5 km2) of land in its entirety, approximately 20% of the town of Eastchester. As of the 2020 U.S. census, Bronxville had a population of 6,656. In 2016, Bronxville was rated by CNBC as the most expensive suburb of any of the U.S. ten largest cities, with a median home value of $2.33 million. It was ranked eighth in Bloomberg's "America's 100 Richest Places" in 2017 and 2018 and ninth in 2019 and is the second-richest town in the state of New York behind Scarsdale.
Eastchester is a town in southern Westchester County, New York, United States. The population was over 34,641 at the 2020 United States census over 32,363 at the 2010 census. There are two villages within the town: Bronxville and Tuckahoe. The town contains a census-designated place also named Eastchester, which is the whole town of Eastchester excluding Bronxville and Tuckahoe.
Sarah Lawrence College is a private liberal arts college in Yonkers, New York. Originally a women's college, Sarah Lawrence became coeducational in 1968. A Sarah Lawrence scholarship, particularly in the humanities, performing arts, and writing, places high value on independent study.
Frederick William MacMonnies was the best known expatriate American sculptor of the Beaux-Arts school, as successful and lauded in France as he was in the United States. He was also a highly accomplished painter and portraitist. He was born in Brooklyn Heights, Brooklyn, New York and died in New York City.
Prairie School is a late 19th and early 20th-century architectural style, most common in the Midwestern United States. The style is usually marked by horizontal lines, flat or hipped roofs with broad overhanging eaves, windows grouped in horizontal bands, integration with the landscape, solid construction, craftsmanship, and discipline in the use of ornament. Horizontal lines were thought to evoke and relate to the wide, flat, treeless expanses of America's native prairie landscape.
Alexander Jackson Davis was an American architect known particularly for his association with the Gothic Revival style.
William Van Duzer Lawrence (1842–1927) was an American millionaire real-estate and pharmaceutical mogul who is best known for having founded Sarah Lawrence College in 1926 and Lawrence Hospital in 1909. He played a critical role in the development of the community of Bronxville, New York, an affluent suburb of New York City defined by magnificent homes and charming garden apartments in a country-like setting. His name is attached to the Lawrence Park Historic District and real estate brokerage Houlihan Lawrence. Lawrence is buried at the Kensico Cemetery in Valhalla, New York.
Storybook architecture or fairytale architecture is a style popularized in the 1920s in England and the United States. Houses built in this style may be referred to as storybook houses.
Bronxville station is a commuter rail stop on the Metro-North Railroad's Harlem Line, located in the village of Bronxville, New York, in Westchester County.
Charles Lewis Bowman was an American architect.
The shingle style is an American architectural style made popular by the rise of the New England school of architecture, which eschewed the highly ornamented patterns of the Eastlake style in Queen Anne architecture. In the shingle style, English influence was combined with the renewed interest in Colonial American architecture which followed the 1876 celebration of the Centennial. The plain, shingled surfaces of colonial buildings were adopted, and their massing emulated.
Bronxville Women's Club is a historic women's club located in Bronxville, Westchester County, New York. Its building was constructed from 1927 to 1928 in the Colonial Revival style and was designed by noted local architect Penrose Stout (1887–1934). Its layout is that of a T-shape, constructed of stuccoed brick on a poured concrete foundation. The front elevation is one and one half stories with a central pavilion flanked by two smaller, recessed pavilions. It has a prominent slate-covered gable roof. The rear of the front section is two and one half stories tall. Most of the ground floor is occupied by an auditorium. The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2007.
Penrose Stout (1887–1934) was an American architect, best known for designing many Westchester County, New York residences and buildings. Among his many notable designs in Bronxville, New York are Merestone Terrace (1924), Brooklands (1927), Normandy Terrace Townhouses (1928) and the Bronxville Women's Club, (1928) added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2007,
Bolton Priory is a historic home built in 1838 for the Reverend Robert Bolton and his family, in the Village of Pelham Manor in Westchester County, New York. The home stands upon a wooded tract of land overlooking Pelham Bay; the once large estate surrounding it has now diminished to 3.7 acres. Influenced by the Romantic Movement in England, Bolton chose to design the house in the Romantic idiom. The building was designed to appear as if it had been constructed over a period of time; stone was used in one section and brick in another, to give the impression of various additions.
Plashbourne Estate is a historic estate located in the Lawrence Park West section of Yonkers, Westchester County, New York. It was designed in 1911 by the architectural firm of Carrère and Hastings and built for artist Violet Oakley (1874–1961) in the Tudor Revival style. It is a 2+1⁄2-story stone building with an irregular compound plan and cross-gabled roofline. After 1915, it became the home of Anna Lawrence Bisland (1872–1950), third daughter of William Van Duzer Lawrence, who resided there until her death. Grayson L. Kirk (1903–1997) resided at Plashbourne Estate from 1973 until his death.
Charles Alling Gifford was an American architect and a partner in the New York City firm of Gifford & Bates. He is best remembered for his resort hotels, but also designed houses, churches, and five armories for the New Jersey National Guard.
The Church of St. Joseph is a Roman Catholic church located in the Village of Bronxville in Westchester County, New York. Officially founded as a parish of the Archdiocese of New York in 1922, the Church of St. Joseph consists of the parish church, adjacent parochial St. Joseph School, rectory, and parish center. It serves residents of Bronxville as well as residents of nearby neighborhoods in Eastchester and Yonkers. St. Joseph's has a permanent chaplain to serve the needs of nearby Lawrence Hospital.
Spencer Baird Nichols was an American portrait painter, illustrator and muralist. While he received much recognition and was quite prolific in his time, much of his creative work was ultimately destroyed, lost or unattributed to him. What survives are a handful of easel paintings and some commercial work, particularly book illustrations and murals.
Cedar Knolls is a neighborhood of the city of Yonkers in New York's Westchester Countyknown for the neoclassical-style architecture of its houses, which give it a "frozen in time" look of an early-20th century town. It shares a zip code and postal address with the neighboring village of Bronxville, New York.
Buttrick White & Burtis was an architecture firm established in New York City in 1981 by the architects Harold Buttrick, Samuel G. White, and Theodore A. Burtis III. The firm remained active until 2002. Harold Buttrick left in 1998 to form Murphy Burnham & Buttrick. The architect Jean P. Phifer was a partner of the firm from 1989 until 1996, after which she served as president of the New York City Public Design Commission from 1998 to 2003. The architect Michael Dwyer was associated with the firm from 1981 to 1996. The architect and educator William W. Braham was associated with the firm from 1983 to 1989. In 2002, Buttrick White & Burtis merged with Platt Byard Dovell to become Platt Byard Dovell White.
↑ Van Hook, Bailey. Violet Oakley: An Artist’s Life. University of Delaware Press, 2016, p. 177.
↑ League of Women Voters, Welcome to Eastchester: Founded 1664 (Eastchester, New York: League of Women Voters, Printed 1960, Revised and Reprinted 1966), p.6.
↑ Marjorie Wilson DeLello, "William A. Bates — One of Bronxville's First Architects," The Villager (Bronxville, New York: The Bronxville Printery Corporation, vol. XLII, N.8), inside cover.
↑ Anna Lawrence Bisland, "Biographical Sketch of William Van Duzer Lawrence, Founder of the Village of Bronxville," The Villager (Nov., 1943), p.11.
↑ Theodore Tuttle, "A Picturesque American Suburb," Architectural Record (New York: McGraw Hill Publishing Company, September, 1904), Vol. XVI, No. 3
↑ Jean Bartlett, "The Houses of Lawrence Park: 1891-1901" (Bronxville, New York, 1976), ms. n.p
↑ Rollins, Alice Wellington. Story of Lawrence Park. New York, New York: Knickerbocker Press, 1894; reprint ed., Bronxville, New York: Lawrence Park Hilltop Association, 1944.
↑ "How to Build a MODERN House in an OLD Neighborhood," House Beautiful, November, 1953, p.210.
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