Tuesday, September 16, 2014

'Mayfair'

'Mayfair', the Elihu Root estate designed by Carrere & Hastings c. 1896 in Southampton.  Click HERE for more on 'Mayfair' and HERE to see the residence on bing.

3 comments:

Magnuspetrie said...

The curse of the "Hamptons": the houses keep getting bigger and the properties keep getting smaller.

The Ancient said...

My favorite Elihu Root story --

"At the northeast corner of Washington Square and Fifth Avenue is the James Boorman house, now, I believe, the residence of Mr. Eugene Delano. Helen W. Henderson, in " A Loiterer in New York," alludes to certain letters about old New York written by Mr. Boorman's niece. " She writes," says Miss Henderson, " of her sister having been sent to boarding school at Miss Green's, No. 1 Fifth Avenue, and of how she used to comfort herself, in her home-sickness for the family, at Scarborough-on-the-Hudson, by looking out of the side windows of her prison at her uncle, ` walking in his flower-garden in the rear of his house on Washington Square!'" When James Boorman built his house, it was all open country behind it. Mr. Boorman built also the houses Nos. 1 and 3 Fifth Avenue and the stables that were the nucleus of the Washington Mews of the present day. In the houses was opened, in 1835, a select school for young ladies, presided over at first by Mr. Boorman's only sister, Mrs. Esther Smith.

"Soon, from Worcester, Massachusetts, came a Miss Green, a girl of eighteen, to teach in the school. Another sister followed and in the course of a few years the establishment became the Misses Green School, which, for a long period, before and after the Civil War, was one of the most distinguished institutions of its kind in the city. Later it was carried on by the Misses Graham. There were educated the daughters of the commercial and social leaders of New York. Among the pupils were Fanny and Jenny Jerome, the latter afterwards to become Lady Randolph Churchill, and the mother of Winston Churchill. A brother of Lucy and Mary Green was Andrew H. Green, the " Father of Greater New York." He had for a time a share in the direction of the establishment, and in 1844, taught a class in American history. Some of the younger teachers came from the Union Theological Seminary in Washington Square. Among the men later to become distinguished, who lectured at the school, were Felix Foresti, professor at the University, and at Columbia College, Clarence Cook, Lyman Abbott, John Fiske, John Bigelow, teaching botany and charming the young ladies because he was " so handsome," and Elihu Root, then a youth fresh from college. To quote from Miss Henderson: " Miss Boorman has often told me of the amusement that the shy theological students and other young teachers afforded the girls in their classes, and how delighted these used to be to see instructors fall into a trap which was unconsciously prepared for them. The room in which the lectures were given had two doors, side by side, and exactly alike, one leading into the hall and the other into a closet. The young men having concluded their remarks, and feeling some relief at the successful termination of the ordeal, would tuck their books under their arms, bow gravely to the class, open the door, and walk briskly into the closet. Even Miss Green's discipline had its limits, and when the lecturer turned to find the proper exit he had to face a class of grinning schoolgirls not much younger than him-self, to his endless mortification. Elihu Root recently met at a dinner a lady who asked him if he remembered her as a member of his class at Miss Green's school. ` Do I remember you? ' the former secretary of State replied. ` You are one of the girls who used to laugh at me when I had to walk into the closet.' "

http://www.oldandsold.com/articles08/fifth-avenue-2.shtml

lil' gay boy said...

As has been previously mentioned here, this was the home of old guard interior designer Betty Sherrill, recently deceased.

The link is to the "Real Estalker" (Mark David -- our "Mama") whose home is now at Variety (terribly buggy site). Mama was kind enough to include a link to the previous post on Mayfair here on OLI in her article about Betty's One Sutton Place duplex, built by Amy Phipps.