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Murray Hill, Manhattan

This elegant residence was built in 1909-11 for the New York socialite, Mrs. Adelaide Townsend Douglas, in the Murray Rill section of New York. Designed in the French Classic style of Louis XVI by architect Horace Trumbauer of Philadelphia, it is a fine example of his residential work in New York City.

Murray Hill had begun to be developed with residences in the mid-19th century. The area took its name from the country estate of Robert and Mary Murray.

According to legend, during the Revolutionary War, Mary Murray had detained General Howe at the family house on their country estate, thus allowing George Washington to escape further northward.^ Following the opening of Lexington and Fourth Avenues through the area in 1848, rows of brownstone residences were quickly built along the side streets. Socially prominent and wealthy residents, such as A.T. Stewart and J.P. Morgan, moved into the area, concentrating their residences along Fifth and Madison Avenues. Although by the turn of the century commercial development was beginning to encroach upon Fifth Avenue, the streets to the east of Madison still remained fashionable, due in large part to the efforts of J.P. Morgan. Park Avenue, south of the new Grand Central Terminal—which was under construction between 1903 and 1913—and north of 34th Street, was an elegant residential thoroughfare.

Consequently in 1909 Adelaide T. Douglas purchased a choice site on Park Avenue with the intention co building an elegant Manhattan residence.

Adelaide L. Townsend Douglas (1852-1935) was the wife of William Proctor Douglas (1842-1919), a vice-commodore of the New York Yacht Club. Douglas owned the schooner "Sappho" which successfully defended the America's Cup against the British challenger "Livonia" in 1871. In 1835 Douglas's father, George Douglas, had purchased a large portion of the Wynant Van Zandt estate in the Little Neck section of Queens County, Long Island. These holdings passed to William P. Douglas in 1862; several years later he married Adelaide L. Tcwnsend of New York and Bayside (also in Queens County, just west of Little Neck).

The location was particularly advantageous for Douglas's yachting activities. When Douglas donated land and a building for a station to the North Shore Railroad in 1867, the area became known as Douglaston. °

As land values in the area rose, Douglas decided to have the family estate surveyed and sold for suburban real estate development; sales began, in 1906, under the name of Douglas Manor. The impressive family residence known as Douglas Manor, which originally had been built for Wynant Van Zandt, became the Douglas Manor Inn in 1906; in 1921 it was sold to the Douglaston Country Club and still survives today. Mr. and Mrs. Douglas had maintained a Manhattan residence as well as the Douglas Manor, but in 1908 the couple separated. The following year Mrs. Douglas commissioned the fashionable Philadelphia architect, Horace Trumbauer, to design a house.

The house Trumbauer designed for Adelaide Douglas falls into this node. Working within the restraints imposed by the standard 25-foot wide New York City rowhouse, Trumbauer was able to create an elegant design based on the French Classic style of Louis XVI. Six stories high and faced with granite and limestone, the house rests on a rusticated base which forms the ground floor. It is pierced by segmental-arched openings with bracketed keystones. The grooves of the brackets are adorned with bell-flowers . Unfortunately the original doorway has been replaced but an original molding may be seen in the vestibule. A graceful wrought-iron fence encloses the areaway. Above the ground floor an impressive cornice, which also serves as a balcony, sets off the main portion of the facade at the second and third stories. This cornice is supported on heavy, paired guttae-adorned modillions which in turn are linked by swags.

The cornice is surmounted by a delicate wrought-iron railing which shields the French doors at the second floor. These openings are flanked by pilasters which rise to the third floor. Carved stone panels in relief are set above the-transoms over the French doors.

They depict classically-inspired figures of children singing and playing musical instruments. The casement windows at the third floor are flanked by ornate incense burners with swags and boukrania, also carved in relief, which rest on the tops of the pilasters. Wrought-iron railings shield the windows. The fourth story rises above a modillioned cornice with a grooved frieze decorated with bellflowers. This story takes the form of a colonnade with arched window openings set back from the columns. Wrought-iron railings also shield these windows. A den tilled cornice and parapet set off the slate-covered mansard roof which forms the fifth story. The roof has a decorative copper coping, and it is pierced by three copper-clad pedimented dormers.

The sixth story is set ba

This image illustrates the fragile balance between beauty and potential environmental damage. The oil rigs on shore and off-shore silhouetted in the beauty of sunset light at Huntington Beach California. The helicopter in the image is "connecting" the on-shore oil work with the "Off-shore" oil rig. Hence the title of the image.

Taken in 1985. Digitally scanned from a Kodachrome 64 slide. Nikon F3 24 mm Nikkor lens f16.

© Lawrence Goldman 2009, All Rights Reserved
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