Building History
The little house is more than a looker; it’s a landmark, although not designated as such. Older than all of its esteemed neighbors, Number 129 East 70th is, in fact, the oldest house on the block; what’s more, it’s the oldest in the entire Upper East Side Historic District, which ends at 79th Street.
Even to an untrained eye with scant knowledge of architectural history, Number 129 gives the impression of having survived, intact, for a very long time, while somehow managing to retain its youthful good looks. Architecture connoisseurs, however, know that maintaining such beauty and integrity is impossible without a façade lift; for them Number 129 is an outstanding example of historically correct building restoration. If an architectural restoration may be described as painterly, this one certainly is: great care was taken not only to recreate the stoop, but also to replicate what scholars believe to be the palette of the original Civil War-era façade, down to the tinted mortar and the dark, almost-black shade of green selected for the railings and fence.
No other building that we know of boasts this one’s unprecedented combination of architectural styles – Italianate and Ruskinian Gothic – because no formally trained architect would have dared to combine two such contradictory languages in one over-the-top, structural statement. Italianate architecture arose as an alternative to the Gothic style, which was in turn revived by the legendary British art critic John Ruskin; “Ruskinian Gothic” is a style rarely seen in residential architecture, as it was more commonly used in religious and academic buildings.
On Number 129’s façade, there is almost too much stonework per square foot; it’s a masonry folly. In architecture terminology, a folly is something constructed primarily for decoration – something ornamental that stands the test of time. Well, isn’t that what art is too? Not built for the taste of any one person, but as a monument to the stone mason’s craft, this little brick house is arguably a work of art unto itself. With Number 129 and its long-since-demolished sister buildings, the Thorps cemented their reputation as Michelangelos of masonry. And in the decades since 1862, Number 129’s fanciful façade has consistently served as a kind of welcome mat, beckoning art aficionados to cross the building’s threshold in many capacities: buyer, renter, decorator, restorer, researcher. The house became a haven for art: an aesthetic homestead.
Number 129 was built solidly and stylishly enough to catch the eye of people who knew their way around art and architecture. One was Mrs. Clarence Mackay, who was very well-versed in the fine and decorative arts. Née Katherine Duer and one of American society’s most eligible belles, at age eighteen she sat for painter Edmund Cartran; later, after her wedding to the Comstock Lode heir Clarence Mackay, noted portraitist John White Alexander – whose other subjects included Oliver Wendell Holmes and Walt Whitman – painted the brunette beauty as the mythic figure Phaedra. Mrs. Mackay had collaborated with Stanford White on the building and landscaping of Harbor Hill, her family’s legendary mansion on Long Island, as well as the Episcopal Trinity Church in Roslyn, New York, built to honor her mother; after separating from her husband, Mrs. Mackay rented Number 129 as her residence in 1913.
At one point in the 1940s, Number 129 was de-stooped. For architecture purists today, such an alteration is unfathomable, akin to unnecessary amputation. Evidently, with 70th Street becoming a block of stately mansions, the person who ordered this change felt compelled to keep pace with the architectural fashion of the day, which decreed de-stooping de rigueur. Happily, the house’s current custodian – and arguably its most ardent admirer – felt compelled to correct this unfortunate error upon purchasing Number 129 in November 2004. Christian Keesee – whose first reaction to the house was, “This is perfect” – could easily envision Number 129, restored to its original splendor, taking its rightful place amidst the grand architectural neighbors that surround it. Reflecting on this house and what it means to him, Keesee explains, “In a world where more and more people choose to live in anonymous residences—mansions-in-the-sky—here’s something individual and totally grounding. It’s as if it becomes more special and unique every day. I love the essence of the house too; it has good karma.”
Recognizing the historic significance of the building, and the importance of restoring the façade to the way it looked when it was first built, Keesee did not hesitate to initiate what would become a two-year renovation project. Taking a careful and curatorial approach, he commissioned Brooklyn-based architect Peter Brotherton, a 1991 graduate of the Yale School of Architecture, examples of whose work may be seen in Brooklyn Heights, Crown Heights, Park Slope, Greenwich Village, the Upper West Side, Connecticut, and Colorado. Known chiefly for his work in the modernist vernacular, yet always enthusiastic to take on “projects that involve beautiful, historic structures and their preservation,” Brotherton enlisted his associate, Jim Johnson and architectural historian Charles Lockwood, author of Bricks and Brownstone: The New York Row House, 1783-1929. Together, the renovation team applied itself to the project with a careful attention to historic detail.
They faced a few challenges. In vintage photographs, key details of the building’s façade were obscured; in one, it is blocked by an automobile inconveniently parked out front!
To achieve the most historically authentic possible recreation, the restoration team was obliged to do a great deal of decorative detective work. Ironically, to capture its historic essence, the team traveled beyond the boundaries of the house’s historic Upper East Side location – to areas of the city as far-flung as Brooklyn Heights, Boerum Hill, Cobble Hill, Harlem, and Greenwich Village – “all townhouse regions that have great housing stock and great style,” Brotherton explains. In what would be one of the last projects Lockwood completed before his death in 2012, he identified elements of similar brick structures – especially their front doors – in order to recommend the most authentic period details of wood, stone, metalwork, and historically-correct green paint. In a stroke of good fortune, the clue to the pattern for the stoop’s railing was found right on the premises; it turned out that portions of the original balustrade had been repurposed as a fence.
Meanwhile, the window that attracts so much attention from passersby is notable for its mahogany framework. “You can’t find that old-growth mahogany anymore,” Brotherton laments, so contemporary glass was fitted to the frame – one large piece of quarter- inch, double-paned glass in each sash, as opposed to individual panes. (For this part of the project, the architect consulted a Connecticut craftsman associated with Yale University.) That window admits an abundance of natural light to illuminate key holdings in the Art Collection–which, like Number 129 itself, spans the nineteenth to the twenty-first centuries. What follows is commentary by curator Julie Maguire on a few works in the collection.
-Julia Szabo