A lawyer from Albany, New York, Bradley Martin (December 18, 1841–February 5, 1913) married Cornelia Sherman (d. October 24, 1920), whose father left her an inheritance of almost $6 million in 1881. Financially secure, they studied the social mountain to determine the best method of climbing, reaching the summit with their famous, though controversial, ball of February 10, 1897.
In the 1880s they established addresses on both sides of the Atlantic. Between 1881 and 1883 they remodeled and transformed the adjacent houses of 20 and 22 West 20th Street into a single residence 52′ wide. In 1882 the Martins bought a house in London and two years later became country gentry by leasing a fine hunting preserve in Scotland called “Bal Macaan.”
The climbing strategy of the Martins was a simple one—stage a major event periodically and invite large numbers of very important people. On January 26, 1885 they invited 400 guests to a dinner dance. To accommodate the crowd, they commissioned a temporary banquet hall (68′ × 25′) for the rear of their house. It was a unique occasion, described by the Times reporter as “the most superb dance that has ever been given in New York or in America.”
The Martins gained additional social points on February 8, 1890, when they entertained 300 guests at a cotillion dinner at Delmonico’s. Again, the Times was ecstatic: “the most magnificent dinner probably ever given in New York.” Their standing was further improved when their 16-year-old daughter Cornelia married the impoverished Earl of Craven in 1893.
Mrs. Martin’s long-promised attempt to surpass in splendor the celebrated Vanderbilt ball of 1883 was held at the Waldorf Hotel on the night of February 10–11, 1897. For weeks New York’s milliners, dressmakers and wig makers had been besieged with requests for authentic costumes of personalities from German, French and British history. From 11:00 P.M. until 6:30 A.M., 600 guests danced and feasted, consuming 61 cases of champagne and $369,000 of the Martins’ fortune. Though a dazzling spectacle that became a landmark in the social history of New York, it was also tainted. Led by Dr. Rev. William Rainsford of St. George Episcopal Church, critics condemned the irresponsibility and insensitivity of wealth. Mrs. Martin fired back that during an economic recession it had been “an impetus to trade.” A year later the Martins settled permanently in Great Britain.
69. Drawing room, Bradley Martin house, 22 West 20th Street, New York, New York; architect unknown, date unknown; demolished. This salon, like the Martins’ public posture, was costly, pretentious, contrived and dependent on association. The “unity” of this setting was neither the result of functional considerations nor the quest for stylistic integrity despite the reminders of the period of Louis XIII. This room was held together by the pedigree or source of its objects. Since guests might not know the European background of each item, the Martins had to talk in order to bring this “unity” to life. Even if each item was genuine, the easy familiarity with history that the Martins conveyed was not. In exploiting the past to enhance their image, they created a skillful display of expensive kitsch.
70, 71. Dining room, Bradley Martin house. Judging from this room, the Martins’ ambition to acquire and exhibit was ultimately frustrated by the limits of their space. They also appear to have abhorred a vacuum. The wainscot and ceiling were paneled and carved in English bog oak. Beauvais tapestries covered the walls and were used for the window hangings. The impressive portieres that separated the dining room and the music room were made out of Mexican saddle cloths and Spanish altar cloths, their silver and gold threads set off against a ground of garnet plush. In the ornate niche above the fireplace was a portrait of one of their two daughters, probably Cornelia, by the French painter Carolus-Duran (1837–1917). On the chair backs the family coat-of-arms was embroidered in silver and gold. Fragments of tapestries edged the tablecloth.
72. Main room, Oswald Ottendorfer pavilion, between West 135th and 136th Streets on Riverside Drive, New York, New York; William Schickel, architect, 1879; demolished. The 1880 edition of the guidebook Hudson River by Daylight referred to a recently erected pavilion that had become one of the landmarks for riverboat passengers. Oswald Ottendorfer (February 26, 1826–Decem-ber 15, 1900) and his wife, Anna Behr Uhl Ottendorfer (February 13, 1815–April 1, 1884), had built the unusual $30,000 structure on the high bluffs overlooking the Hudson on the property where they had a weekend and summer house. Designed in the then-popular Moorish style, the one-story pavilion was approximately 36′ × 42′ on its exterior and on the west had an open piazza that provided panoramic views of the river.
This photograph shows the central space of the building, measuring 25′ × 34′ with a ceiling 32′ high. It was defined as Moorish because of the geometric character of its surface decoration applied in an allover manner, the horseshoe arches resting on dosseret blocks supported by slender columns, the mihrab or prayer niche in the corner of the room, and the incipient stalactite vaulting of the upper section of the walls. However, this was an age in which consistency was not necessarily a requirement in restating a style. Definitely un-Moorish were the shield of stars and stripes above the horseshoe arch of the doorway, the flocked paper of the walls and a lengthy passage in German on the ceiling.
The Ottendorfers were the premier citizens of New York’s immigrant German community at this time. She was a much-beloved philanthropist and former manager of the leading German newspaper of the country, the Staats-Zeitung, and he the editor of that newspaper since 1858, a year before their marriage. He was also a political reformer of unblemished reputation.
73. Dining room, Robert Treat Paine, Jr., house, 6 Joy Street, Boston, Massachusetts; Alexander Parris, architect, 1824; standing. Lydia Lyman Paine (April 29, 1837–March 9, 1897) grew up in this house, built by her father in the 1820s. She had been married to Robert Treat Paine, Jr. (October 28, 1835–August 11, 1910) for almost 20 years when she returned here with her husband and children after her father’s death in 1881. To meet the needs of their family and their social obligations, they added this dining room, 35′ × 30′, to the original structure. Oak was used generously in the resolute mantelpiece and also in the high-relief ceiling. The author of Artistic Houses reached the conclusion: “The intention of the architect seems to have been to combine utmost quietude and reserve of effect with a lavish expenditure of material and decoration ….”
The rug was Indian and the wall covered with paper that looked like stamped leather. The wide mantel was the focal point. Below the shelf the woodwork continued the pattern of the wainscoting of the walls; above the shelf on each side was a shallow niche, ensconcing an Apollo Belvedere on the left and an Amazon on the right. At the rounded corners of the overmantel were open shelves framed by small panes of glass. In front of the mirror of beveled glass was a statue of Aristides. Below it was a lion’s head carved on the cornice of the mantel shelf and at the rear of the fire opening a cast-iron head designed by Elihu Vedder (1836–1923). Paine had retired from his law practice at the age of 35 to devote his energies and time to social and international problems.
74. Hall, William I. Russell house, corner Knollwood Road and Wells Lane, Short Hills, New Jersey; Lamb and Rich, architects, 1881–82; destroyed by fire 1934. Russell (ca. 1850–March 5, 1925) described his personal peaks and valleys in a frank, nostalgic autobiography entitled The Romance and Tragedy of a Widely Known Business Man of New York (1922). One of the leading metal dealers of New York until 1894, he suffered financial problems and tried to commit suicide in January 1903.
An early resident of Short Hills, a planned community adjacent to Millburn, New Jersey, Russell recounted his family’s happy life at their first home in Short Hills, “Sunnyside,” and their enthusiasm for this their second and larger home, “Redstone”:
[“Redstone”] was a delight to the eye…. Through a massive doorway one enters a hall of baronial character … finished in oak, with open-beam ceiling, and above the high wainscot a rough wall in Pompeian red.
Two features of the hall are the great stone fireplace with its old-fashioned crane and huge wrought iron andirons and the stained-glass window on the staircase, a life-sized figure of a “Knight of Old.”
This imaginative, asymmetrical space easily accepted stuffed animals, a bust, medieval weapons, Oriental ceramics, a colonial settee and a recent painting of Arab horsemen.
75. Drawing room, Edward N. Dickerson house, 64 East 34th Street, New York, New York; McKim, Mead and Bigelow, architects, 1877–79; standing. The Dickerson house was the earliest urban house of McKim, Mead and Bigelow. A century ago, however, critics discussed it primarily for its mechanical innovations, many of them conceived by the owner, and for its interior decoration. Dickerson’s ideas improved the economy and efficiency of operation. He devised a way to flush water so forcefully through the toilet bowl that candles held near the toilet fluttered in the instant breeze. He claimed to have taken steps to reduce the number of tons of coal required in a year to heat this house. He had also patented safety devices that prevented the elevator of the house from moving with the doors open or opening except at specific floors.
In her article praising recent New York interiors (Harper’s New Monthly Magazine, October 1882), Mrs. M. E. W. Sherwood included the Dickerson house. A new artistic age had begun: “We can not look through the tasteful and artistic interiors of New York without a pleasurable sense of having lived through a very dark night, to be rewarded with an exceedingly fresh and brilliant morning.” She thought the stained-glass windows and subtle color scheme of this drawing room were proof of this dawn. (Sheldon was also impressed with its quiet tonal harmonies—the woodwork and furniture of satinwood, the light blue satin damask wall panels and the ceiling’s gold pattern on a pale gray ground.)
This room illustrated a number of Mrs. Sherwood’s arguments. She encouraged “caprices,” meaning the willingness to experiment. The Dickersons had mixed their collection of Japanese pottery with a painting of an Eastern European peasant girl and a Louis XV mantel centerpiece of silverwork on blue porcelain. She also would have approved of their accents and highlights. There were no heavy scrolls or weighty furniture here; the scene was bright, lively, eccentric. She liked rooms “festooned with pink and blue silk… all roses and blue ribbons” combined with a few straight-backed chairs, long mirrors and portieres suggesting days of old.
76. Library, Edward N. Dickerson house. Dickerson (February 11, 1824–December 12, 1889) graduated from Princeton with honors at 18 and was admitted to the bar when he was 21. He married Caroline Nystrom on October 11, 1848; they had three children—two daughters and one son. He was a busy patent lawyer, a Sunday scientist and an authority on the efficiency of steam engines. In 1864 he argued before the Supreme Court against a decision of the Secretary of the Navy in planning a new steam navy. His laboratory for optical and electrical experiments was directly above this library. On the roof was his observatory.
Visual evidence suggests that Dickerson used this library constantly. There were sufficient shelves for his large collection, special drawers for folio volumes, a central table with adequate space for taking notes and comfortable chairs to read in. The character of the room was carried mainly by the dark surfaces, the black walnut and French walnut paneling, the embossed-leather ceiling and the carefully crafted woodwork of the fireplace. This was a study in which bric-a-brac gave way to books.
77. Dining room, Edward N. Dickerson house. Mrs. Sherwood also admired the dining room of the Dickerson house, especially the stamped-leather walls, the carved buffet that contained a blue Bohemian glass punch bowl (reportedly purchased by Thomas Jefferson in Paris) and the sixteenth-century brass sconces. Her endorsement of eclecticism was based on the assumption that, if they were well made, pieces of varied cultures and periods could be combined.
The most publicized feature of this room was a carved Oriental screen (not visible in this photograph) that had been exhibited at the Philadelphia Centennial. Ventilators, hidden below and in the decorated panels of the ceiling, could remove after-dinner cigar smoke.
This four-story house (25′ × 100′) was projected to cost about $30,000. Montgomery Schuyler (American Architect and Building News, April 23, 1881) called it “the first of the distinctively Queen Anne houses.”