brianac
December 13th, 2008, 05:46 AM
Streetscapes | De Lamar Mansion
Still an Eye-Popper After All These Years
By CHRISTOPHER GRAY (http://query.nytimes.com/search/query?ppds=bylL&v1=CHRISTOPHER GRAY&fdq=19960101&td=sysdate&sort=newest&ac=CHRISTOPHER GRAY&inline=nyt-per)
Published: December 12, 2008
IN its purdah of construction netting, Joseph De Lamar’s ebullient Parisian palace of 1905, at Madison Avenue and 37th Street, is essentially invisible. Now occupied by the Polish Consulate, this architectural explosion, one of the most opulent mansions surviving in New York, was designed by C. P. H. Gilbert.
Mr. De Lamar, born in Holland around 1843, left home and served on a ship until the 1860s, acquiring in the process the “Captain” that often precedes De Lamar. He settled in Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/great-homes-and-destinations/destinations/new-england/index.html?inline=nyt-geo), where he had a marine salvage business. In the 1870s he went West in search of nickel and other metals, making his fortune within a few years.
Mr. De Lamar came to New York in the early 1890s, and first lived in a modest apartment building at 217 West 115th Street. Around 1893 he married Nellie Sands, the daughter of an apothecary, and according to The Boston Daily Globe in 1897, “for two seasons the De Lamars spent money like water at Newport,” but made no social progress. The same newspaper called him a “grim eccentric” in 1919. Their only child, Alice, was born in 1895, and the De Lamars soon divorced.
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Email: streetscapes@nytimes.com
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/14/realestate/14scapes.html?ref=realestate
Copyright 2008 (http://www.nytimes.com/ref/membercenter/help/copyright.html) The New York Times Company (http://www.nytco.com/)
Still an Eye-Popper After All These Years
By CHRISTOPHER GRAY (http://query.nytimes.com/search/query?ppds=bylL&v1=CHRISTOPHER GRAY&fdq=19960101&td=sysdate&sort=newest&ac=CHRISTOPHER GRAY&inline=nyt-per)
Published: December 12, 2008
IN its purdah of construction netting, Joseph De Lamar’s ebullient Parisian palace of 1905, at Madison Avenue and 37th Street, is essentially invisible. Now occupied by the Polish Consulate, this architectural explosion, one of the most opulent mansions surviving in New York, was designed by C. P. H. Gilbert.
Mr. De Lamar, born in Holland around 1843, left home and served on a ship until the 1860s, acquiring in the process the “Captain” that often precedes De Lamar. He settled in Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/great-homes-and-destinations/destinations/new-england/index.html?inline=nyt-geo), where he had a marine salvage business. In the 1870s he went West in search of nickel and other metals, making his fortune within a few years.
Mr. De Lamar came to New York in the early 1890s, and first lived in a modest apartment building at 217 West 115th Street. Around 1893 he married Nellie Sands, the daughter of an apothecary, and according to The Boston Daily Globe in 1897, “for two seasons the De Lamars spent money like water at Newport,” but made no social progress. The same newspaper called him a “grim eccentric” in 1919. Their only child, Alice, was born in 1895, and the De Lamars soon divorced.
...
Email: streetscapes@nytimes.com
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/14/realestate/14scapes.html?ref=realestate
Copyright 2008 (http://www.nytimes.com/ref/membercenter/help/copyright.html) The New York Times Company (http://www.nytco.com/)