The

FALL 2005
The grave marker of MAJOR GENERAL GEORGE A. CUSTER, Civil War leader and Indian fighter, who died at the Battle of Little Big Horn, June 25, 1876. Conservancy members paid honor to this legendary figure at West Point Cemetery where he and his wife, Elizabeth, a former Bronxville resident, are buried.

Chronicle

The Bronxville Historical Conservancy

Bronxville, New York

A Publication of

A Bowman Beauty

INSIDE
This Old House. Stock-broker tudor architects studio featured in the 7th Annual House Tour. Threes a charm. A sneak peek into the third volume of The Bronxville Journal. You got the Point. Snaps and memories of a fabulous fall tour of historic West Point and beyond. Ramshackle old Bronxville. Our inauspicious beginnings.

PLUS... Open the Gates! A new exhibit on its way.

Hundred percent effort for Bronxville Library Birthday.

The studio and home of Bronxville architect Lewis Bowman

Revving up for a vintage addition to Bronxvilles Memorial Day celebration.

t one of the busiest intersections in the village, Pondfield and White Plains Roads, the implausible sight of what appears to be a centuries-old Cotswold cottage emerges above high garden walls. The mellow stone gables and rosy red terra cotta roofs provoke many a passerby to attempt a better glimpse through the iron gates. This enchanting anomaly was once the studio, and sometime home, of architect Lewis Bowman. Priscilla Newman and Ron Cappello, the fortunate owners of charming 330 Pondfield Road, were the gracious hosts of this years Conservancy Historic House Tour on Sunday, the thirteenth of November. More than 160 members took the opportunity to tour the inside of this lovely dwelling before heading to the Bronxville Field Club for a reception and the Conservancys annual meeting.
More inside...

This (fabulous) Old House.

Lewis Bowman

Bowman, who grew up in neighboring Mount Vernon, designed more than fifty Bronxville houses, each a testimony to his avid attention to historic detail in whatever genre he was working. The desires of the affluent homebuyers in the 1920s often dictated grander, more magnificent houses, but it was the cozy Cotswold style that captured his affection.
House Tour Organizer Carolyn Martin

House owners Ron Capello & Priscilla Newman

Bill Murphy

Carolyn Martin Mary Huber

Wendy Riggs and Corky Frost

Nancy and Don Hubert

Patty Dohrenwend & Mayor Mary Marvin

John Hill and Liz Murphy

The Third Times a Charm

From the delightful toy boats that sail across the cover to the memories of a small boy growing up in Bronxville, this third volume of The Bronxville Journal is filled with charming stories of our villages past. It will arrive in the new year, says Marilynn Wood Hill, dedicated editor of this Conservancy publication. Heres a peek at what youll find inside:
BY MARILYNN WOOD HILL

Art for the Village: Restoring Bronxville's Artistic Legacy

by Jayne S. Warman As the Bronxville Historical Conservancy builds its collection of local artists' works, villagers are reminded of our vibrant turn-ofthe-century art colony that brought recognition and renown to Bronxville.

Front cover: Detail from Mary Fairchild Low, Childrens Regatta at Bronxville Lake, 1924

by Marcia Manning Lee For more than eighty years the Lawrence family had been a leading force in the affairs of Bronxville - influencing its landscape, institutions, and culture - until an unforeseen, perhaps unavoidable, change in the direction of the Lawrence agenda placed them at odds with the majority of the community.

When the Lawrences Left: Turbulent and Perplexing Times in Bronxville, 1971-1974

Growing Up in Bronxville During World War II

by Eliot N. Vestner, Jr. Some sixty years later a Bronxville native remembers the daily experiences of a small boy, a soldier father, and a valiant mother as their lives were turned up side down, and yet saved, by the advent of the terrible war that followed the Great Depression.

With Whistler in Venice: Recollections of Bronxville Artist Otto H. Bacher

by Meg Hausberg A fortunate encounter on the sunlit banks of the canals of Venice brought together the young American art student Otto Bacher and the expatriate James McNeill Whistler, and so began a friendship that enhanced the careers of both men.

The Vietnam Peace Movement in Bronxville: From Student Unrest to Mothers' March

by Sarah Mollman Underhill Elsewhere the streets were overflowing with strident voices decrying Vietnam, the Cambodian invasion, and the deaths at Kent State, but Bronxville residents took a different path that ultimately brought together students and their elders in community dialogues, and inspired mothers to march in the street -- in silence.
Back cover: Photo by Gregory Shuker, Bronxville Mothers Peace March, 1971

Getting Right to the Point.

A salute to our nations oldest military institution.

I
Karin Reetz Susan Murphy

Christine Veit and Dorothy Brennan

t was a muster for former Bronxville resident Elizabeth Custer on September 18th as members and guests of the Bronxville Historical Conservancy stepped aboard the fast ferry Seastreek and cruised down the historic Hudson river to tour mighty West Point. The cemetery where General and Mrs. George Custer are buried, revolutionary war cannons, and links of the chain that held back the British were just a few of the sights seen on the first leg of this pilgrimage north. Then the crew sailed south down the river to the mouth of New York Harbor where Lady Liberty dwells. Spectacular sights of the city skyline as the sun slowly sank into glittering waters brought the day to an end -- and with it, hopes Sally McNally that this Conservancy tradition never does. Bill Hand

Sue and Tom Leslie

Richard Thaler and Neely Bower

A View of West Point Military Academy from the bow of the Seastreek

Ill take Manhattan...

Conservancy Co-Chair Bob Riggs (left) and (right), Co-Chair Marilynn Wood Hill with Jayne Warman placing a stone on Elizabeth Custers grave sight, a Jewish tradition of respect.

I cant imagine what you could do to top it.

Gay Reetz

The New York panorama was sensational and memorable and a contrast to the open spaces of West Point. Barbara and Michael Murray Every year the trips seem to get better and we just hope you continue this tradition. Bumpty and Bob McGrath Thank you for creating our totally memorable days at sea. We will remember it for a long time.
Tom and Sue Leslie Peter Thorp, Jane Frank

Anyone whos inside the boat right now should be shot.

on the too-good-to-miss atmosphere on the deck of the Seastreek.

Phyllis Smith

Nancy and Carlo Vittorini

Ramshackle Old Bronxville

BY ELOISE L. MORGAN

he story of Bronxvilles suburban transformation began with the Lawrence Park Hilltop, an intimate cluster of homes on narrow streets winding through the rocky elevations of the original Prescott farm. The saga opens with William Van Duzer Lawrences visit to the tumbledown settlement of Bronxville to pick up his two young sons, who were visiting relatives summering in the area, and to check out a remnant of the old Prescott place that was for sale. It closes with a secluded National Historic District on the hill a stones throw from the train station, which today anchors a vibrant metropolitan suburb. In the interim, a community of leading artists, writers and businessmen settled into an array of homes and studios skillfully tucked among ancient trees and rock formations. Throughout, the Hilltop has been distinguished by its close-knit social texture nurtured by the proximity of its striking homes. When Lawrence, who was to become one of modern Bronxvilles founding fathers, first stepped off the northbound train in 1889, the scene was inauspicious. The station square was a hospital for old broken-down freight cars that were shunted in and out upon side tracks, he later recalled. An old, tumble-down blacksmith shop with half a hundred abandoned wagons and pieces of wagons filled the remainder of the square. At the time, Bronxville claimed just a handful of businessmen. Postmaster Lancaster

moved his family to New York City from Canada where he had spent 22 years marketing patent medicines. Although he remained a director of the business, Lawrence had time on his hands. With no firm plans for the Prescott place, he decided to venture $43,000 on it. Across from the station at the foot of the hill sat a caretakers little house (expanded now into Houlihan Lawrences 4 Valley Road real estate office), where farm manager Henry Steibling lived. As people in the vicinity set out with their tin pails to get milk for breakfast or dinner, they usually stopped at the gatehouse on their way, in winter to get warm and in summer to rest and talk a bit with the Steibling family. The Steiblings stayed in residence for awhile after Lawrence bought the farm. The only other buildings on the place were the old Italianate stone farmhouse (the Manor House at 8 Prescott Avenue) and some barns (about where 16-18 Prescott are now). Village roads were rutted dirt tracks that swerved from side to side to avoid mudholes. Pondfield Road ran southward paralleling the tracks a ways, then angled east to follow the path of todays Locust Lane to White Plains Road. The road to Tuckahoe, later given the Indian name Sagamore, had been laid out in 1860. But in the early 1890s Pondfield was still considered the single street which constitutes Bronxville a few straggling houses, and a row of aspens that shake like the patter of the rain.

Underhill was descended from another Lancaster Underhill who had bought several hundred acres of farmland in the area a century and a half before. Frederick Kraft, a Germanborn leather tanner and currier ran a factory at the junction of Midland Avenue and the train tracks, about where Midland Gardens is today. Blacksmith John Kane, cider-maker G. I. Cudner, railroad express agent T. Ramson and A.V.T. Smith, who sold groceries, etc., rounded out the half-dozen listings in a county-wide business directory. The Bronxville area, like most of lower Westchester in the second half of the 19th century, was filled with ramshackle farms. One of these failing places, an 86-acre plot that included the future Hilltop, belonged to the estate of James M. Prescott, who had settled in the area in the 1840s. The land was on the market, and Lawrences brother-in-law Arthur Wellington, who was spending a few weeks in Bronxville, suggested that the semi-retired pharmaceutical manufacturer take a look. The two men clambered about over the rocks and through the blackberry bushes which had been allowed to grow at random for a generation or two, with only cowpaths remaining. Almost the only spot not covered by an impenetrable tangle of underbrush was a little trout pond situated about where Garden Avenue now curves between the Village tennis courts and a municipal parking lot. Lawrence had recently

Golden Gates
A treasured opportunity to view a rare art exhibit.
BY ELOISE MORGAN A two-day art exhibition next spring will introduce villagers to the work of two early-20th-century Bronxville artists whose paintings are probably unknown even to those familiar with the Lawrence Park art colony. On Saturday and Sunday, April 29-30, 2006, the Conservancy will host an exhibition of paintings by Frank and Richard Gates in the Bronxville Librarys Yeager Room. Although the Gates brothers are not recognized members of the Lawrence Park Art Colony (indeed, Frank was one of the developers of the adjacent, rival Sagamore Park), they lived and painted in the Bronxville area for many years, beginning in the 1910s. Frank Gates was a partner in the firm of Gates and Morange, one of this countrys most famous scenic artists and stage set designers. The firm created sets for Ziegfield and many Broadway hits. On commission from the U.S. Government, they also painted enormous canvases of the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, Yosemite and other national parks. The exhibition will include a reception and talk about these lesser-known Bronxville artists.

Watercolor of library by local artist Bill Dowling

100th Anniversary for Bronxville Libray

ONE FOR THE BOOKS

Next June the Bronxville library will celebrate its 100th anniversary. To help commemorate the occasion, the Bronxville Historical Conservancy has given a $20,000 grant to help underwrite a new, richly illustrated hardbound book on the librarys history, architecture, and art collection. Historical Conservancy Board member and art historian Jayne Warman will author the book along with Peter Gisolfi, architect of the recent library expansion. Tentatively titled Bronxvilles Public Home: An Unusual Community Library, their work will feature several photographs from the librarys archives along with 80 full-color images of the library and its art collection in a 176-page volume. Publication date is set for October 2006. The story of the library is fascinating and needs to be written, said Jayne. Going back to the first little lending library at the public school in the 1870s, its history reflects the vision of the villages early community leaders and artists. Todays library continues to be a haven for readers and the cultural center it was designed to be.

BY ROBERT RIGGS
Roonie and Jack Kennedys 1930 Model A Ford

Momcilo Petrovich, who with his wife, Rada, purchased the oldest house in the village from the Conservancy, died on July 1, 2005, after a stoke sustained while at LaGuardia Airport. Momo and Rada made major refurbishments to the Abijah Morgan house following its purchase in June 2001, including rebuilding foundations, installing new electrical and heating systems and replacing the shingled roof, all while living in the house with their children. One could rarely drive by the house without seeing work in progress that should enable the house to survive for another two centuries. The Conservancy is indebted to Momo and Rada for their role in preserving a historic site in the village and extends its deepest condolences to Rada and her two daughters.

A Conservancy
If you have a classic car or are interested in the simple appreciation of one, join the committee that will add a vintage dimension to Bronxvilles Memorial Day celebration. The Bronxville Historical Conservancy plans to sponsor an Antique Car Rally for the villages traditional festitivites and needs your thoughts, ideas, and antique autos! Call Don Gray, 779-2043, or Nancy Vittorini, 793-2336, if youd like to help.

...OldNews...
Just maybe, former villager and famous songwriter Jerome Kern had Lawrence Park Hilltop in mind when he and Oscar Hammerstein composed The Folks Who Live on the Hill... Bronxville Justice Court Clerk Michele Pinto shares A SHARP FIND from her departed aunts home with a gracious dona tion to the Local History Room. This silver knife was part of Julie Natalies memories of working at the grand Hotel Gramatan for 15 years -- a fashionable vacation spot for New Yorkers and travelers from all over the world. Before it was torn down in 1972, this Bronxville beauty had been one of the most exclusive suburban hotels in America. Help save a historic treasure by going to the movies! The PELHAM PICTURE has recently been bought by the community to preserve the 1920's single screen theatre -- one of the oldest operating movie theaters in Westchester County. Plans following a renovation include historical events, workshops, photographic exhibits, children's programs, and documentaries. Learn more about the grass-roots effort by clicking on to www.thepicturehouse.org.

TUNED INTO BRONXVILLE?

Oscar Hammerstein & Jerome Kern

The Folks Who Live on the Hill

Someday, We'll build a home on a hilltop high, you and I, Shiny and new, a cottage that two can fill; And we'll be pleased to be called The folks who live on the hill. Someday, we may add a wing or two, a thing or two; We will make changes, as any family will. But we will always be called The folks who live on the hill. Our veranda will command a view of meadows green, The sort of view that seems to want to be seen. And when the kids grow up and leave us, We'll sit and look at that same old view, just we two -Baby and Joe, who used to be Jack and Jill, The folks who like to be called What they have always been called: The folks who live on the hill.

HOUSE

The Chronicle
Bronxville Historical Conservancy Fall 2005 Designed & Edited by Nancy Vittorini Submissions welcome!
Published by the

Mark Your Calendars!

April 29-30, 2006 Gates Art Exhibition Yeager Room, Bronxville Library

The Bronxville Historical Conservancy

P. O. Box 989 Bronxville, NY 10708 The Bronxville Historical Conservancy was founded in 1998 to further the understanding and appreciation of the history and current life of the Village of Bronxville, New York. The Conservancy furthers its mission through the presentation of programs, publications, lectures and special events that foster an awareness of the villages architectural, artistic and cultural heritage and lends its support for projects designed to strengthen and preserve those legacies.