Born on September 6, 1850, Harriet Mears Starin came from an old New York family; her ancestors first arriving in America in 1696.  Her father, John Henry Starin, had increased his already substantial fortune by organizing the first railroad agency for shipping freight, and establishing the Starin Line, a fleet of steamboats for the same purpose.  He purchased Glen Island in the Long Island Sound as the the family's summer estate; but then in 1890 with "a lavish expenditure of money," he transformed it to a pleasure resort.  The family mansion became its clubhouse.

Harriet married James Dyckman Spraker on December 14, 1870.  He ran a wholesale grocery business at No. 93 West Street, the success of which was reflected in his memberships in the Manhattan Club and New York Athletic Club.  The couple had three children, Laura Belle, Marguerite, and John Starin.  By 1888 they were living in an upscale home at No. 62 West 45th Street.

Laura Belle married the well-known journalist A. B. de Guerville in 1896.  The following year John Dyckman Spraker died.   With her significant inheritance, Harriet and her two teen-aged children (Marguerite was 19 and John was 17-years-old) continued to live comfortably in the 45th Street house.

Harriet's financial lot was increased through another misfortune  On March 22, 1909 her father died.  She inherited $10,000 outright (each of the children received $5,000); half interest in Starin Place, a 144-acre country estate in Fultonville, New York which she shared equally with her sister; and one-third of the balance of the estate, after bequests to charities.

Included in that "balance" was Glen Island.  On January 25, 1910 The Sun reported that Harriet, her sister Caroline and Caroline's husband had sold the property for about $600,000--in the neighborhood of $16 million today.  Three weeks later the Real Estate Record & Builders' Guide noted that Mrs. Hugh Gordon Miller had sold the four-story brownstone residence at No 14 East 73rd Street.  The unnamed buyer was Harriet Spraker.

She hired architect William A. Boring to remodel the out-of-date house into a modern residence.  His plans filed on March 18, called for front and rear extensions, new interior walls, and windows cut into the facade at a cost of $40,000.   Boring apparently left at least one of the original walls standing, because Department of Buildings documents still record the construction an "alteration."  But the result was arguably a new building.

Completed within the year, the limestone-faced mansion was now five stories tall.  Boring's restrained Beaux Arts design forewent the gushing ornamentation of some other homes in popular style, opting instead for quiet elegance.  A few steps above the sidewalk the centered double-doored entrance sat within a delicate carved frame.  Above the service entrance to the left was a handsome panel depicting an urn of flowers.

The close groupings of three openings at the second and third floors were fronted by dainty French grills.  A stone balcony with iron railings ran the width of the fourth floor windows which were united by a carved frieze and cornice.  Foliate-carved panels flanked the top floor openings, under a stone bracketed cornice.


The interior woodwork was fabricated by Theodore Hofstatter & Co., which may have also been responsible for some of the furnishings.  Like the similar firms of W. & J. Sloane & Co. and Herter Brothers, Theodore Hofstatter & Co. sometimes provided complete rooms--woodwork (like paneling, bookcases and even staircases), textiles and custom-made furniture.

Before ground had been broken John Starin Spraker married Helen Morgan Newcomb.  The wedding took place on January 20, 1910.   When the newlyweds returned from their honeymoon, they moved into the 73rd Street mansion with Harriet and Marguerite.

Some things apparently did not satisfy Harried in her new home.  In July 1911, only months after she moved in, the well-known architect John H. Duncan filed plans for "general alterations" costing $2000.

Harriet circulated in society.  Both she and her son were members of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and her name appeared in the social columns.  But interestingly, her entertainments never seem to have been held in the 73rd Street mansion.  The dinners and luncheons she hosted were held in fashionable restaurants like Delmonico's; and even when she gave a luncheon for Laura Bell on August 8, 1922, it was held at Sherry's.

It was Marguerite who finally had people in; but that was not until nearly two decades after the house was completed.  Still unmarried, she hosted a dinner here on February 27, 1931.  The New York Times reported that she would "afterward take her guests to the Pierre for supper and dancing."  One wonders if Harriet was displeased at the domestic upheaval; because that was the only mention of an entertainment in the residence by newspapers.

John and Helen acquired their own country residence at Ardsley-on-Hudson; while his mother and sister continued to summer at Starin Place in Fultonville.  The women traveled there the last week of May 1933 to spend the summer.   Harriet, who had been in ill health for some time, died there on June 3 at the age of 83.

Interestingly, John and Marguerite left their home of two decades.  On December 3, 1934 The New York Times reported that they and Laura Belle had leased the mansion to William Kerrigan.  They continued to lease it until January 1943 when "an investor" bought it.  It was the end of the line for the mansion as a private home.

In 1945 renovations were completed that resulted in one apartment on the ground floor and two each above.  The grand double-doored entrance was closed off and a window inserted for the apartment.  A subsequent alteration in 1986 divided the ground floor into one apartment and a doctor's office, and joined the second and third floors as a duplex apartment.

In 1994 the newly-formed Simon Dickinson, Inc. gallery moved into the fourth floor.  Operated by Ian G. Kennedy and Simon Dickinson, both long-time executives at Christie's Fine Art Auctioneers, it specialized in old masters.  By 2004 the Salmon Lilian Gallery was here.

While some of Boring's interior details survive...

like this lonely but wonderful mantel on an upper floor...

most have been scrapped.  photos via streeteasy.com

Despite the abuse at ground level, the exterior of Harriet Spraker's mansion still exudes its 1910 elegance.  Inside is a different story.

photographs by the author

Max Nathan was born in Germany in 1829.  While he was still a boy his family traveled to American.  Unlike many German immigrants who settled in the Lower East Side, the Nathans continued on to the Midwest choosing Cincinnati as their new home.  In 1870, at the age of 41, Max relocated to New York City where he established the Nathan Manufacturing Company which made railroad equipment.  Within the next two decades he also headed The Sieberg Clinder Oil Cup Co. and had amassed a significant personal fortune.

Nathan erected a mansion at No. 32 East 72nd Street in the fashionable neighborhood steps from Fifth Avenue.  Wealthy home owners required private carriage houses for their vehicles and horses, and while a few erected them directly behind or next to their mansions, separated by lawns or gardens, the odors and noises were offensive to most.  As a result, "stable blocks" cropped up nearby--close enough to be convenient yet remote enough to be unobtrusive.  One such block was East 73rd Street between Lexington and Third Avenues.

The block had been lined with modest homes erected in the 1860's and '70s.  The one at No. 180 East 73rd Street was described as a "two-story frame (brick front) dwelling."  But that house, like almost all the others on the block, would not survive to the end of the century.  They were rapidly demolished to be replaced by handsome private stables as millionaires moved onto the blocks to the west.

On June 27, 1889 Max Nathan purchased No. 180 from John Vesey for $27,000.  The high price--around $742,000 today--reflected the value of the plot rather than the house itself as the block gained popularity for stables.

Nathan commissioned the prolific architectural firm William Schickel & Co. to design his carriage house.  Schickel, too, was a German immigrant (who arrived in New York City the same year as Nathan) and was responsible for scores of churches, business buildings and homes.

The stable, completed in 1891, was a handsome utilitarian take on Renaissance Revival, with a splash of Romanesque Revival at the ground floor.  Schickel faced the base in undressed granite  blocks.  It took on the expected stable configuration--a large carriage bay flanked by a doorway and window.  Above the bay an unfurled limestone banner was carved with the owner's initials.


Two floors clad in brick sat atop a molded stone cornice.  The architect deftly used three shades of brick to create dimension and architectural detailing--like the window surrounds and the quoin-like boarders of the facade.  The openings were trimmed terra cotta--leafy border tiles and graceful scrolled keystones.

Terra cotta was again used for the bracketed cornice.  The frieze directly below featured stylized anthemia, looking from the street almost like seashells.  They sat against a flame-like pattern of wavy lines.  Above it all sat a pyramidal brick parapet.


While the vehicles and horses were housed on the ground floor, the second floor would have been used partly as storage--for hay and tackle, for instance.  The rest of the second floor and all of the third would have held living accommodations for stable staff.  Behind the building was the manure pit, an odious but necessary element.

Carriages from the East 73rd Street building quite possibly took the Nathans to their country estate, Fairlawn, in Yonkers.  The family also maintained a summer residence in Long Branch, New Jersey.

Nathan was highly involved in charitable works.  He sat on the building committee of Mt. Sinai Hospital and was one of its trustees for three decades, and was a major benefactor of the Trudeau Sanitarium in Saranac, New York.

In 1912 Nathan retired.  He died at the age of 93 on April 19, 1922.  Four months later, on August 14, the New-York Tribune reported that that Nathan estate had sold what was now described as a "three-story private garage."  The article noted that the buyer was "a well known New Yorker."

Indeed he was.  George Dunton Widener, Jr. was born into a massively wealthy and prominent Philadelphia family,  He inherited a fortune through tragedy.

In February 1912 Widener's father sailed to England on business.  George's mother, the former Eleanor Elkins, accompanied him, partially to attend the opening of the London Museum.  She had presented to the museum 30 silver plates once owned by Nell Gwyn.  Along on the trip was George's older brother, Harry Elkins Widener.

When their purposes complete, the Wideners booked passage back to New York on the recently christened R.M.S. Titanic.  On the night the ship hit the iceberg, the Wideners gathered on deck with the other panicked passengers.  George Sr. helped his wife and her maid onto a life boat and watched as it was lowered into the icy waters.  Then he and Harry stood on deck and awaited the inevitable.  Their bodies were never identified.

George, Jr. married the divorcee Jessie Sloane Dodge--daughter of Henry T. and Jessie Sloane--in 1917.  Like Nathan, the couple lived nearby in a mansion at No. 5 East 70th Street, directly behind the palatial Henry C. Frick residence facing Fifth Avenue.

In 1923 Widener had "renovations" done on the 73rd Street building.  Although the plans are vague, the alterations most likely made the former stable more car-friendly.  But while the Wideners got around town in automobiles, George in no way turned his back on horses.

George Widener was less known for his business interests than for his passion for horse racing.  He maintained a 446-acre estate, Erdenheim Farm, outside of Philadelphia where his stable of thoroughbreds were housed and bred.

Widener's horses raced in the most illustrious events.   He was dealt a severe blow in the spring of 1924.  The New York Times reported "George D. Widener's St. James, three-year-old son of Ambassador IV. and Bobolink II. and the hope of the East for the Preakness Stakes and the Kentucky Golden Jubilee Derby, pulled up lame after his Preakness workout at the Belmont Park track yesterday morning and will not be shipped to Baltimore for the Pimlico classic."

The setback could not dampen Widener's love for the sport.  Later that year, in August, he attended the annual yearling auction at Saratoga Springs in order to add to his stable.  On the fourth day of the sale he purchased Calamint for $5,200, nearly $75,000 in today's money.

Jockeys in the 1920's were, for the most part, teen-aged boys who did not weigh as much as even slender adults.  But work on a horse farm got in the way of schooling.  As The New York Times explained on October 14, 1925, "Horses must be exercised and cared for in the morning, which unfortunately happens to be school time."

To remedy the conflict, Widener established a school on the property of Erdenheim Farm.  Now, after the boys had completed their tasks with stable foreman Bert Muholland, "Mrs. Clinton Aldred occupies their afternoons with training in every subject from arithmetic and English to current events and civics."  There were seven boys in the original class, ranging from 14- to 17-years-old, several of whom came from Long Island.

While George concentrated on racing, Jessie mingled among the top echelon of New York socialites.  She worked with Mrs. Vincent Astor for more than a month on preparations for a recital in the Astor's ballroom to benefit the Mental Hygiene Committee of the State Charities Aid Association on January 7, 1926.

By the 1960's the Wideners had moved permanently to Erdenheim Farm.  (Their 70th Street mansion was later demolished for an extension to the Frick Collection.)  In 1965 at least three tenants were living in the former grooms' apartments above the East 73rd Street stables.  Marion A. Dexter, and Marie and Marion Martin were listed at No. 180.

Change came in 1976 when J. H. Guttmann converted the former carriage house for his picture framing shop on the ground floor and part of the second.  A "private art gallery" shared part of the second floor.  The top floor housed a single apartment, presumably home to owner Jakob Guttmann.  The only noticeable exterior change was the carriage bay, now converted to a show window.

The J. H. Guttmann Picture Frame Corp. was no run-of-the-mill frame store.  Its patrons were, according to The New York Times on September 16, 1979 "museums, fine-art dealers and collectors, as well as the average customer."  The article called Guttman one of the three top framing houses in New York and noted it maintained a stock of antique frames "generally ranging fro early Renaissance to 19th-century American."

Guttman's clients include art museums in Los Angeles, Cleveland, St. Louis, Fort Worth and New York.  His services included restoring and regilding frames, and shortening or enlarging them to fit paintings.  Although J. H. Guttman remained in the building at least through the 1980's, it was sold in December 1981, and then again in March 2002.



The Nathan carriage house was put on the market in 2018 for $16,750,000.  Like several of the amazingly-surviving private stable buildings on the block, a private residence is most likely in the building's future.

photographs by the author

The last survivors of the row of houses flank the carriage house. No. 171 at left retains its cast iron veranda.

Shortly after James Lenox began selling off his father's 30-acre farm as building plots in 1864, a row of 20-foot wide Italianate rowhouses appeared on the north side of East 73rd Street, between Third and Lexington Avenues.  Three stories tall above English basements, each brick-faced home featured a handsome cast iron veranda.

The owners of No. 173 took in at least one boarder in 1879.  The fact that the well-educated woman preferred to barter tutoring for rent may have caused problems, however.  On September 28 that year she was looking for other accommodations.  Her advertisement read: "A lady with highest testimonials desires Board in exchange for music, German or English lessons."

Change to the respectable, if not fashionable, block began as millionaires began filling the Fifth Avenue neighborhood across from Central Park with lavish mansions.  Property on what would become "stable blocks" was simultaneously purchased for the erection of private carriage houses to quarter their teams of horses, several vehicles and certain stable employees.  The East 73rd Street block became on of those stable blocks before the turn of the century.

In 1893 No. 173 was replaced by a three-story stable designed by Hobart H. Walker.  Clad in gray brick and trimmed in limestone, it was a late interpretation of the Romanesque Revival style.  Hobart creatively used the brick at the ground floor to imitate rusticated stone, and then turned them on their sides to produce a sunburst of voussoirs over the bay doors.  Above the arched openings of the third floor a brick parapet with recessed panels was crowned by a cornice.

The carriage house was owned by Gustave Reismon.  Following his death his family sold the property in April 1903 to J. Henry Alexandre, owner of the Alexandre Steamship Line and vice-president of the National Hunt and Steeple Chase Association.   The carriage house was conveniently close (but far enough away that the odors and noises did not create an offense) to the Alexandre mansion at No. 35 East 67th Street, which he had purchased just three months earlier. .

Alexandre and his wife, the former Elizabeth Lawrence, had five children, J. Henry, Jr., Mary, Elizabeth, Virginia, and Frederick.  The family's summer estate, Valleybrook Farm, was in Old Brookville, Long Island.  There Alexandre kept a stable of thoroughbreds.  And while many millionaires dabbled in horse racing, J. Henry Alexandre was equally involved in the aristocratic sport of polo.

Elizabeth Alexandre died on January 3, 1906.  Three months later J. Henry's stable manager, I. Brennan, was looking for a new coachman for his boss.  His advertisement on March 24 in the New-York Tribune reflected Alexandre's interests.  "Coachman--Young man; good driver and rider; understands polo ponies; 10 years' experience."

J. Henry Alexandre died in 1912; however his family retained ownership of the stable.  In 1938 they hired architect Irving Kudroff to convert it for business.  His plans called for a garage for three cars "and shop" on the ground floor, a shop and office on the second, and a one-family apartment on the top floor.

By the time the Alexandre family sold No. 173 in 1951 actor Martin Kosleck and his wife, Eleonora Mendelssohn, lived in the apartment.   He had fled Germany in 1931 after being placed on the Gestapo's list of "undesirables."   His intense hatred of Adolph Hitler and the Nazis resulted in his convincingly playing several Nazi villains in motion pictures.  He was also successful in television and on the stage.  Eleonora was an actress and the great-granddaughter of composer Felix Mendelssohn.

Martin Kosleck (right) with Erich von Stroheim in the 1943 The North Star (RKO screenshot in public domain)

Eleonora had been best known on the German stage.  The couple first met in 1931 when they both appeared in the Berlin production of A Woman's Sacrifice.  They married in the U.S. in 1947.

On January 3, 1951 Kosleck and a friend, Christopher Drake, talked late into the night in the living room after Eleonora went to bed.  Shortly after Drake left at around 3:00 a.m. Kosleck attempted to adjust a window which apparently was letting in the cold winter air.  He lost his balance and fell out, catching the window sill with his fingers.  Drake had made it only a few feet down the street and rushed back, hearing Kosleck's calls.  But before he could make it back to the apartment, Kosleck lost his grip.  He was taken to the Metropolitan Hospital with a fractured leg, broken spine and internal injuries.

Her husband's condition weighed heavily on Eleonora.  The 51-year old actress had trouble sleeping.  For emotional support a friend, actor and director Hans Heinrich von Twardowski, moved in while Kosleck was hospitalized.  To help her fall asleep Eleonora depended on sleeping pills and ether--a somewhat commonplace, if dangerous, method at the time.

At 10:00 on the morning of January 24 Twardowski found her dead in her bed.  The New York Times reported "He said she had soaked a cotton pad with ether, placed it over her face, and had covered the pad with a towel and a bath mat."  The newspaper added "Mr. Kosleck, who is in Metropolitan Hospital, was not informed of the death of his wife."

Ironically, Kosleck recovered from his severe injuries and went on to appear in more than 80 motion picture and television roles.  He died at the age of 89 in January 1994. 

Kosleck gave up the 73rd Street apartment.  On July 26, 1952 The New York Times reported that Kathleen Dell Mauck had married Cabot Ward Low the previous day.  The bridegroom was the grand-nephew of former mayor of New York, Seth Low.  Both he and his new wife came from socially prominent families.  The newspaper noted "After a wedding trip, the couple will reside at 173 East Seventy-third Street."

Early in 1964 the car shop and garage became home to Gallery PVI.  The Times art critic Brian O'Doherty gave it disappointing coverage.  On February 29 he wrote that the gallery "looks like it could be a lively place, although the art there at the moment is more promising that fulfilling."  He complimented on piece, saying "There is also a brilliant piece of movable sculpture by Philippe Hiquily, whose motion depends on the transfer of a metal bubble through a series of dipping arms shaped like cestas, jai alai baskets."

The original cornice was removed sometime in the 20th century.

Like many of the former carriage houses along the remarkable block, No. 173 was converted to a single family resident in 2006.  The ground floor which once housed horses, then cars, then artworks, was renovated as the family's two-car garage--a rare Manhattan convenience.

photographs by the author

In 1864, 25 years after Robert Lenox's death, his son James Lenox began partitioning off his 30-acre farm into building lots.  He sold them at an average of $5,575 each--just under $90,000 today.

Before long a row of brick-faced Italianate-style homes was completed on East 73rd Street, between Lexington and Third Avenues.  At 20-feet wide they were intended for financially-comfortable, albeit not wealthy, families.  Three stories tall above an English basement, the houses could claim no outstanding architectural elements--other than their striking cast iron verandas at the parlor level.  A noticeable scar on the facade of No. 175 (one of the last two survivors of the row) suggests that the entire group had the charming detail.

Two houses away, No. 171 became home to Edwin L. Hodgson, who was listed under the catch-all description "merchant."  The relocation to the still mostly undeveloped district must have seemed to the family as if they were moving to the country.  They previously lived on Oliver Street in the crowded, noisy Lower East Side.

The Hodgsons remained in the house until the summer of 1885.  Edwin sold it that year to Jonathan and Caroline Southward.   The couple had a son, also named Jonathan, and like the Hodgson family would stay at No. 171 for decades, finally selling it in June 1911 to millionaire George J. Gould.

As the mansions of Manhattan's wealthiest citizens had crept up Fifth Avenue along Central Park, private carriage houses cropped up along blocks far enough away to not be a smelly nuisance; but close enough for convenience.  At the turn of the century the East 73rd Street block which included No. 171 had essentially become a "stable block."  Prim residences were demolished for the lavish carriage houses of millionaires like Henry Harper Benedict, Charles Hudson, and J. B. Layng.

In reporting the sale, the Real Estate Record & Guide noted "Mr. Gould's garage occupies the adjoining property at Nos. 167 and 169."  The purchase may have originally been intended to provide extra housing for Gould's garage staff.

Most of the block was lined with handsome carriages houses in 1911.  The Gould stable-turned-garage (right) nestled up against No. 171 East 73rd Street.  photo by Alice Lum

Gould was travelling in France when he suffered a fatal heart attack in May 1923.  The brick house on East 73rd Street was purchased by well-known and influential architect Electus Darwin Litchfield.

Born in New York City in 1872, Litchfield had worked in several architectural firms, like Carrère & Hastings and Lord & Hewlett.  He and his wife, Elizabeth, had two children, Elizabeth and Burnham.

Unlike many architects who moved into vintage houses, Litchfield did not alter the Victorian facade.  It was a surprising decision, given that in 1920 he had initiated a dramatic re-make of a group of vintage homes in the neighborhood.  On February 20 The Sun reported that he had "purchased twelve old fashioned houses" on 68th Street between Second and Third Avenues, "and will alter them into the modern American basement type."  The newspaper deemed that the project would result in "a new society neighborhood."

The changes which Litchfield did make to No. 171 were a protective brick and iron wall at the property line in 1924, and the division of the interior to what today would be termed two duplexes.  The Litchfield family lived in the lower two floors and leased the upper to upscale tenants.

A 1940 tax photo shows Litchfield's intimidating wall. photo NYC Department of Records

The Litchfields spent their summers in Stockbridge, Massachusetts; although Electus, like many busy heads of families, seems to have been there mostly on weekends or for short visits.   Yearly announcements in society columns included mentions like that in the New-York Tribune on September 24, 1922.  "Arrivals at Heaton Hall in Stockbridge include Mrs. Electus Darwin Litchfield, Miss Elizabeth and Master Burnham Litchfield."

Litchfield made his mark not only as a designer of public buildings--the National Armory in Washington, the Denver Post Office and Courthouse and the Public Library in St. Paul, Minnesota among them--but of monuments, such as the Lewis and Clark memorial in Astoria, Oregon.  He designed entire communities, as well.  He was responsible for Yorkship Village, and World War I industrial town of 2,000 homes for shipbuilders near Camden, New Jersey; and was the architect of the Red Hook housing project which replaced slums.

As president of the Municipal Art Society in the 1930's he vehemently fought against Park Commissioner John Sheehy's proposal to convert 32 acres of Central Park into athletic fields.  Some of his ideas were surprising.  When John L. Nagle, Chief of Design of the Bureau of National Parks, suggested cleaning up the grounds of Liberty Island in December 1933 by removing "barracks and storehouses" that surrounded the base of the Statue of Liberty, Litchfield bristled.  He cautioned Nagle "these ancient buildings, with their easily distinguishable doors and windows, are extremely valuable," since they provided a comparison of scale to the monument.

Electus Darwin Litchfield.  from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

And in 1935 he may have surprised parents when, as reported by The New York Times on January 28, he sent a letter to every public school in the city "asking the help of the pupils in keeping the streets and parks clean and in preventing defacement of the city's monuments."  (He was not suggesting that the children do free-lance sanitation work; but that they be aware of littering and vandalism.)

In the meantime, the Litchfields' upstairs tenants were well-to-do.  Stock broker Webster Tilton was here in 1939, followed by socialite Enid Locke Gillett and her daughter, also named Enid.  Mrs. Gillette was the widow of Lowry Gillett.  When Enid, her only child, married Peter Irving, Jr. in St James' Episcopal Church on May 3, 1941, the event made headlines on the society pages.

Electus Darwin Litchfield died on November 27, 1952 at the age of 80.   His obituary in The New York Times summed up his illustrious career, saying he "was a member of many private and city organizations, championed civic-improvement causes including slum-clearance and housing projects.  He was a devotee of municipal beautification."

Elizabeth Litchfield sold the house to Samuel Nirenstein in December 1953.  When he sold it six months later it was described as a "four-story apartment house;" but in fact it still had just the two duplexes that Litchfield had configured.

In November 1958 the lower portion became home to the Chilean Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Daniel Schweitzer.   Four months later the 64-year-old bachelor suffered a terrifying incident.

At around 6:20 on the night of February 13, 1960 three men, ranging from about 20- to 30-years-old, managed to breach the protective wall out front.  Schweitzer was in his parlor floor study when he heard the breaking of glass at the front door.  He was suddenly confronted by the burglars who demanded money while holding their hands in their pockets to suggest they had guns.

Schweitzer turned over all his cash--$181.  In an odd gesture of compassion, when he asked them if he could have $5 back, they agreed.  It would be their only kindly act. 

One of the men, who spoke to one another in what Schweitzer thought was Hungarian, asked him "Are you a Jew?"  When the diplomat said he was, the man ordered "Let's hear you say 'Heil Hitler' and give the salute."  The thugs forced him to repeat the humiliating act several times before fleeing.

Schweitzer went upstairs where Dorothy Wilson and two sons, 12- and 13-years-old, lived.  He told her what had happened and she urged him to call the police.  But Schweitzer was so terrorized that he refused to call for help until 7:00, as the intruders had ordered.

At the time Stephen McKenzie DuBrul, Jr. had been married to the former Antonia Paepcke for three years.  Born in 1929, DeBrul had already made a name for himself.  At only 26-years-old he had been named a partner of Lehman Brothers.

The DuBruls were living at No. 171 East 73rd Street--now once again a single family home--when son Nicholas was born in March 1966.   Their second child, Jennifer, would be born six years later.

Stephen's astounding career continued to evolve.  From 1961 to 1965 he served as a part-time consultant to the President's Council on Economic Advisers.  In 1970 he was elected to the board of the Continental Can Co.; and two years later, after having been with Lehman Brothers 16 years, he joined the prestigious brokerage house of Lazard Frère.   Then, while at the White House "on a business matter" in October 1975 Douglas P. Bennett, the White House recruiter, asked him if he would be interested in becoming head of the Export-Import Bank.

In reporting on the appointment two months later, The New York Times mentioned No. 171, getting the construction date slightly wrong. "They own an 1850 red brick house on 73d Street in Manhattan."

The DuBruls stayed on in that red brick house at least through the 1980's.  By the time the house was again placed on the market in 2011 the interiors familiar to the Southwards and Litchfields were gone, replaced by open, modern spaces.  But the brick wall outside still remained, prompting Curbed New York's headline on May 1 that year to comment "Gated UES House Kept the Poor Away Before Madonna Made it Cool."

photo via Curbed New York

Unseen from the street, a sizable extension to the rear had transformed what had been built for an upper-middle class family 150 years earlier to a 6,500-square foot residence with six bedrooms, five and a half baths, and a 33-foot living room under a skylight.  The asking price in 2011 was $6.375 million.

Electus D. Litchfield's protective wall has been removed, bringing the house back to its charming 1860 appearance.  




photographs by the author