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1929 1021 Park Avenue & 85th
– Anthony Campagna (Kelley Paterno page 287)
Featured in Andrew Alpern’s book The New York Apartment Houses of Rosario Candela and James Carpenter page 170
Located in Park Avenue Historic District designated 29 April 2014
Architect Rosario Candela; Supervising architect Kenneth M. Murchison; Builder Anthony Campagna – northeast corner 85th Street (Alpern Acanthus page 170)
1929
10
$900,000.00
PARK AV, 1021, 85TH ST, 105-109 E 14-sty f p apt, 148˙102
OWNER / OWNER ADDRESS
(o) Anthony Campagna / (o) 551 5th [Fifth] av COMMENTS
ARCHITECT / ARCHITECT ADDRESS
(a) Rosario Candela / (a) 578 Madison av (source)
1021 Park Avenue historic sales brochure
1021 Park Avenue (aka 101-109 East 85th Street)
Borough of Manhattan Tax Map Block 1514, Lot 1
Date: 1929 (NB 10-1929)
Architect/Builder: Rosario Candela
Original Owner: Anthony Campagna
Type: Apartment building
Style: Tudor Revival
Stories: 14 and penthouse
Material(s): Brick; stone; terra cotta
Decorative Metal Work: Possibly historic lights at entrances; historic grilles in small windows
Significant Architectural Features: Stone base with granite water table, one story at center, three stories at east and west; upper stories Flemish-bond brickwork except diaper patterned at second through fourth stories in center and at 14th stories on east and west; quoins; center section: Tudor arched main entrance with foliate spandrels, drip molding with grotesques; surround with rosettes; carved tympana with shield guarded by birds; secondary entrances with drip moldings; five round-arched windows with full surrounds featuring lozenge decorated pilasters with Ionic capitals, archivolt with bead-and-reel and leaf-and-tongue moldings and keystone, tympana with cartouches and balustrade spandrels at second story; band course at fifth story interrupted by balconies and windows with keyed surrounds and drip moldings; band course at 12th story with balustrade; two-story arcade at 12th and 13th stories, terra-cotta surrounds with quatrefoil decorated tympana and carved spandrel panels, molded lintels spring from stone imposts; arcaded corbel table; brick parapet with possibly historic fence; two-story tower, incorporating an enclosure for the water tank, with keyed surrounds, cartouche, and Tudor arched openings, gargoyles and crenellated parapet; east and west sections: entrances with drip moldings, cartouches, chamfered jambs with historic lights; selected windows at first story with drip moldings; small windows with historic grilles; one-story extension on east with crenellated parapet; entrance with molded surround with rosettes and drip molding; niche with historic light; windows at third story with drip molding and shields (west section only); balconies at third and 12th stories; windows at fourth, sixth and seventh (west section only), 12th and 14th stories with keyed surrounds and drip moldings; terra-cotta sill courses at fourth, 10th and 14th stories; crenellated parapets; stringcourse with gargoyles; chimneys; pergola on roof on east
Alterations: Through-wall air conditioners; some windows altered; marquee with mirrors;
siamese connection; spigot; sign; plaques; screen windows; non-historic security grilles, some altered for air conditioners, and doors except as noted
Building Notes: Entrance on East 85th Street, main display address is 1021 Park Avenue; the professional offices are numbered 101, 105 and 107 East 85th Street. The building underwent facade restoration around 2002; some of the gargoyles were replaced.
Reference(s): Christopher Gray, “A Luxury Co-op Building with an L-Shaped Plan,” New York
Times, August 18, 2002, K7.
Site Features: Pipes; grilles; metal plate with diamond plate insert
Notable History and Residents: In the late 1960s, singer/actress Barbara Streisand was rejected by the co-op board.
Reference(s): “State Will Examine Co-op’s Rejection of Miss Streisand,” New York Times,
December 4, 1969, 37.
South Facade: Designed (historic, patched)
Door(s): Possibly historic primary door; possibly historic doors at professional offices and
basement entrance; metal gate at service entrance
Windows: Mixed
Security Grilles: Mixed (upper stories)
Sidewalk Material(s): Concrete
Curb Material(s): Stone
East Facade: Not designed (historic) (partially visible)
Facade Notes: Red Flemish-bond brickwork with quoins; ell yellow brick; some brick replaced; windows mixed, some possibly historic multi-light sash; studio window and Palladian window in ell; two-story fire stair; fire escape; chimney with vent; through-wall air conditioners; nonhistoric grilles; fence across service entrance; roof garden
West Facade: Designed (historic)
Facade Notes: Three-story stone base topped by molding with rosettes; granite water table; professional office entrance with drip molding and chamfered jamb with historic light; cartouche above entrance; stone balcony; window above balcony with cable and drip moldings; shields; upper stories Flemish-bond and diaper-pattern brickwork; stone quoins; sill courses at 10th and 14th stories; keyed window surrounds at fourth, sixth and seventh (double height), 9th and 14th stories; balcony at 12th story; windows mixed, some possibly historic multi-light sash; small window with historic grille at first story; crenellated parapet with stringcourse and gargoyles; chimneys with multiple metal vents; penthouse; two-story water tank enclosure similar to south view. Alterations: some brick replaced, windows mixed; non-historic grille altered for air conditioner; through-wall air conditioners; metal railing on penthouse roof; roof garden; plaques at office. Ell (not designed, partially visible): Yellow brick, some replaced; round-arched windows with possibly historic sash, remaining windows mixed; through-wall air conditioners; railing and fence at roof; Site: siamese hydrant; spigot; grille; concrete sidewalk; stone curb, concrete with metal edge at corner
North Facade: Not designed (historic) (partially visible)
Facade Notes: Flemish-bond brickwork, some replaced; quoins at corner; chimney; windows mixed; bulkhead; railing and trellis at roof; water tank enclosure similar to south view (source)
The house was then valued at $210,000, of which $135,000 was land value. He died in 1925 at his country home in Locust Valley and left everything including his townhouse in Manhattan to his wife, Judith. She sold up just two years later to developers and in 1928 it was announced that Anthony Campagna would build a 14-story co-operative in its place that still stands today. PINCHOT HOUSE 1021 Park Avenue, Manhattan, New York
THIS summer the co-op at 1021 Park Avenue, at 85th Street, restored most of its distinctive Gothic-style facade, which contrasts sharply with its plain L-shaped rear section. The reason behind the unusual plan of this 1929 luxury apartment house, designed by Rosario Candela, can be traced back to 1906, when the Pinchot family began to build its mansion on the corner and tried to protect the homesite from undesirable neighbors — including apartment buildings like 1021 Park.
More than 60 years later, the co-op’s board didn’t find one would-be neighbor — Barbra Streisand — desirable, and rejected her as a shareholder.
Park Avenue was beginning to wake up in 1905 when Amos R. E. Pinchot, a Yale-educated lawyer from a prominent family, bought two old brownstones at the northeast corner of 85th Street. The avenue had been built up in the late 19th century as a middle-class boulevard of modest houses and apartment buildings, and the impending change from steam to electric power on the locomotives running in a tunnel up the middle of the boulevard promised to increase values.
Pinchot retained the architects Hunt & Hunt to design a chaste Renaissance-style town house, an architectural step up from the middle-class brownstones on the block. The census showed that Pinchot, his wife, Gertrude Minturn Pinchot, two children and nine servants were living in the town house. But the Pinchots were anything but conventionally upper class.
Although he was listed in the Social Register and was a member of Skull and Bones, the Yale secret society, as well as the Racquet and University Clubs in New York, Pinchot often held controversial views. He deserted the Republican Party in 1912 to help found the Progressive Party, supporting Theodore Roosevelt’s independent, unsuccessful run for the presidency.
In the 1940’s he was an outspoken member of the America First Committee, opposing American involvement in the war in Europe. Gertrude Pinchot advocated birth control and workers’ rights; in 1912 she visited striking factory workers in their tenements during a bitter strike in Lawrence, Mass., and wrote an article for The New York Sun warmly advocating their cause and relating how she had been pushed around by a policeman.
Pinchot, however, was like other wealthy men in wanting to maintain an environment suitable to his new house, and he bought up nearby land to prevent construction of stables, tenements and apartment buildings. In 1909 he resold the southwest corner of 85th and Park with a 20-year restriction requiring its use as a church. The South Reformed Church went up at the corner.
In 1910 he resold three old brownstones just to the north of his corner house to the composer Reginald DeKoven, but with a restriction on building anything but a private house until 1940 — and the house was not to be built any nearer than three feet from his north windows. DeKoven, whose works included a light opera called ”Robin Hood,” then built the Elizabethan-style 1025 Park Avenue, which still survives.
In 1913 Pinchot resold the southeast corner of 85th and Park to Lewis Gouverneur Morris — a Wall Street broker and direct descendant of Gouverneur Morris, a principal drafter and signer of the Constitution in 1787 — restricting the land through 1934 to private-house use, although with the proviso that the restriction would be void if Pinchot’s house was used for business or apartments. Morris then built the slim brick building at 1014 Park Avenue.
Pinchot and his wife were divorced in 1918; he was living at the Yale Club in 1917 when he sold the house to Edward Stettinius, a partner at J. P. Morgan. Stettinius expanded on Pinchot’s protective buying, acquiring property running east on 85th Street, wrapping around behind the DeKoven house. In 1921 he resold part of the rear parcel to DeKoven but required that DeKoven keep the easterly 12 1/2 feet open, to benefit the Pinchot house.
IN 1928 the Stettinius family sold the house and its L-shaped lot to the builder Anthony Campagna without any restrictions, except for those on the adjacent properties. The developer was then building the superluxury 960 Fifth Avenue, at 77th Street, and had finished other buildings, like 1115 and 1120 Fifth Avenue, at 93rd Street. Campagna retained Candela, the architect, to design a new co-op building covering the L-shaped lot.
Candela, who designed many lavish Park Avenue apartment buildings, gave the red brick street facades a picturesque neo-Gothic look he did not often use, with a crenelated parapet around the penthouse and projecting gargoyle figures and heraldic shields. For the rear facades he used the customary light-colored brick — a common convention to provide more reflected light to the lower floors on the interior — but with an irregular window pattern, reflecting the complex interlocking simplex and duplex apartments.
One of the selling points was the view over what The New York Times called ”the naturalistic garden of Mrs. Reginald DeKoven, part of which is permanently restricted.” The DeKoven, Morris and church buildings still survive. More than half of the apartments in the Candela building were sold within the first five weeks.
Many of the new shareholders were prominent in finance. They included Ellery James, a member of Brown Brothers Harriman, who bought a 19-room duplex, and John Rhoades, who founded the investment firm that later became Loeb, Rhoades, and who had a similar apartment. But not everyone worked on Wall Street. Ferruccio Vitale, who bought an 11-room apartment, had been born in Florence to a titled family and was one of America’s most famous landscape architects. His work includes Longwood Gardens in Pennsylvania.
The 1930 census had several new questions. One was the value of the respondents’ dwellings. James said his apartment was worth $90,000, Rhoades said his was worth $100,000, and Vitale said his was worth $40,000. Another question was whether each household had a radio: the Jameses and Rhoadeses said yes; the Vitales said no.
Although Campagna ran many ads selling apartments in 1929, by the mid-1930’s things had changed. Many apartments were for rent, among them one with eight rooms for $5,500 a year. In 1969 the co-op market had returned somewhat. That was when Ms. Streisand’s application to buy a 20-room apartment for $240,000 was rejected by the co-op’s board, with no explanation.
This summer the building finished a facade restoration campaign. John Sicree, a senior vice president at Brown Harris Stevens, the building’s managing agent, said that the project cost just under $1 million and that it included rebuilding deteriorated lintels, cleaning brickwork and replacing damaged brick, terra cotta and parapets.
Mr. Sicree said that five of the projecting gargoyles were so damaged that they, along with one that was missing, were reproduced in a terra cotta substitute, concrete reinforced with fiberglass.
Correction: Sept. 8, 2002
The Streetscapes column on Aug. 18, about the apartment building at 1021 Park Avenue, misstated the address of the mansion on the opposite side of 85th Street. It is 1015 Park Avenue, not 1014.”
Daytonian in Manhattan: The Lost Amos Pinchot House – 1021 Park Avenue
