Chapter 2: Townhouses and Apartments

The quiet excellence of Mott Schmidt's townhouses and apart­ments goes largely unnoticed today. Nevertheless, they stand as testaments to a shared urban vision that characterizes the American Renaissance (1876-1917). Schmidt should be remembered as one of the key architects in the late development of the town house type in New York. His innovations in planning for a more compact, functional family and service organization proved that the centuries­ old formula for the urban house need not be discounted, even in the machine age. The facades of Schmidt's houses are further proof of the viability of the "terrace" house, where individual dwellings in a coherently designed row obey not only their own order but that of the block. Understanding this, the architect was able to successfully apply urban housing principles to the unfamiliar territory of Coral Gables.

Another multiple-unit project, quite different from Schmidt's other works, was his design of a set of houses within the suburb of Coral Gables, Florida. Coral Gables was planned by George Merrick beginning in 1921-- an offshoot of the resort land boom that had begun in South Florida following World War I. A decade earlier Merrick inherited his father's 1600-acre farm south of Miami and later nicknamed his development after the color and shape of the farmhouse roof. He envisioned a stylistically integrated community of houses and public buildings all in "Mediterranean" idioms. Assembling a team of architects, artists and landscape architects, Merrick laid out a network of streets and broad avenues, punctuated by Spanish or Italian-inspired gates, fountains and public buildings. Coral Gables was incorporated as a city in 1925. In November of that year, Merrick relinquished some control over the suburb by deeding over 100 lots to a group of investors calling themselves the American Building Corporation, based in Cincinnati, Ohio. This group intended to construct a series of twenty period-revival theme villages, using many of the prevailing stylistic idioms favored by eclectic architects. Only six were realized, including Marion Syms Wyeth's Dutch South African Village, Henry Killam Murphy's Chinese Village, Phillip Lippincott Goodwin's French Provincial Village, and Schmidt's French City Village, all built between 1925 and 1926.

Begun in 1925 for New Jersey client Anderson Fowler who was a participant in the Cincinnati consortium, and whose New York townhouse Schmidt designed in 1921 (Figure 20), Schmidt's French City Village occupies half a block of the 1000 block on Hardie Road in the Riviera section of Coral Gables (Figure 21). It measures approximately 100 X 250 feet. Stucco walls screen twenty semi-detached, compactly planned cottages of about three bedrooms each. Each house has a different orientation, relating both to its twin and to its private walled garden.

Loosely following the conventions used in the other developments -small villa-like houses with walled yards penetrated by garage entrances from the street-Schmidt designed a semi-urban enclave with a hybrid of town and country elements which an­ticipated the "townhouse" developments of the 1970s. By follow­ing a vaguely eighteenth-century French style and varying the plan types, orientations and garden layouts the architect achieved both unity and diversity. Many of the motifs used in the houses appear to derive from plates in Phillip Goodwin and Henry Milliken's 1924 book French Provincial Architecture, a popular source for suburban houses. The plans recall those of 19th century French villas, such as were illustrated in Cesar Daly's famous tome Architecture Privèe aux 19eme Siècle. However, the site planning and massing are Schmidt's alone, and the quality and originality of this design places it among his best work. The houses are sought after landmarks in Coral Gables and have been augmented by additional "French" residences on the remaining part of the block.

Schmidt's success in the twenties brought in several commis­sions for urban multi-family housing. The same forces which shaped his townhouse designs can be seen in the three large apartment buildings he completed between 1924 and 1937. Again, these follow­ed models created by McKim, Mead & White (Figure 16) and Charles Platt, and apartment houses developed by specialists such as J. E. R. Carpenter during the 1920s. Schmidt's first essay in this building type is at 53 East 66th Street (1924-25) (Figure 17). It is easy to imagine him conceiving of this nine-story, Georgian apartment house as if it were simply a large townhouse. The basic components are the same: a brick superstructure on a limestone base, a cornice and a slightly projecting center mass. The major decorative elements are limited to the three flat string courses dividing the building into horizontal layers of two-floor increments; rustication defining the projecting center mass; and two modest entrances, one of which has a split pediment. The strong suggestion of a central focus made by the projecting mass is effectively countered by the off-center entrance. With the bold string courses, the white keystones which highlight the full extent of the facade, and the monochrome brick wall, one can feel Schmidt striving to reduce the design to the fewest possible elements in order to balance the mass and detail. Considering the uniformity of the facade, the interior is surprisingly diverse, with apartments ranging from four to ten rooms. The interlocking apartments arranged around a light court look very much like the plan of a Schmidt townhouse.

In 1925 Schmidt designed the finest of his apartment houses, located at 1088 Park Avenue between East 88th and 89th Streets (Figure 18). This building was one of New York's first co­operative apartment buildings, and it contains a particularly delightful garden courtyard. The facade and overall plan come directly from Charles Platt's influential Astor Court (1914-15), across town at Broadway and 89th Street. However, whereas Platt's U-shaped, palazzo-type building occupied half a city block, Schmidt's site was limited to a single corner, thereby producing an L-shaped plan. This interior arrangement follows a common model for upper-class apartment configurations, including servant accom­modations and a suite of formal rooms off a double-loaded corridor. Each floor contains five ample apartments. Of particular note are the spacious vaulted lobbies and vestibule on the ground floor, with large arched glass doors opening onto the courtyard. A garden frames the whimsical Italian Mannerist fountain at the back, a reverse arrangement to Platt's garden the Astor Court. Outside, the characteristically austere building is enlivened by more Mannerist details, such as the "grotesque" keystone above the main entrance, and the giant-scale modillion cornice. To further relieve the large, flat surface, Schmidt followed Platt in subdividing the facade horizontally with four robust string courses. Diverging from the model, he gave the window units an irregular staccato rhythm (based upon the apartment plans within) and framed the entrance with a two-story rusticated arch.

Schmidt's third apartment building was designed with Rosario Candela, one of the most prolific of New York's apartment house architects (he built nineteen apartment houses on Fifth Avenue alone.) Built in 1937 on one of the most prestigious intersections in New York, Madison Avenue and 72nd Street, this limestone clad building is one of the architect's few departures from a traditional classical or Georgian vocabulary (Figure 19). Rising upward in a series of setbacks like the towers of Rockefeller Center, the building betrays a clear Art Deco influence, while also echoing the massing and materials of Charles Platt's 1930-31 Astor Apartment house at 120 East End Avenue. The three-story base is banded by a continuous double-cyma molding which forms the spandrel within which windows of various sizes are placed. A powerful tension results between windows, the upper and lower parts of the base, and the molding. At the two-story entrance, curved stone profiles penetrate the mass on a diagonal and direct one to the front doors, over which floats a relief sculpture by C. P. Jennewein. The flamboyant base and massive superstructure are unified by monochromatic materials, emphasizing the unity of the whole rather than the diversity of the parts.

Schmidt was interested in not only the homespun American classicism of early New York and Philadelphia townhouses, but in the work of English architects such as Robert Adam and William Chambers. He went directly to the English precedents on occasion, as in his splendid design for Vincent Astor on East 80th Street. The Astor house and its neighbor to the right, the Clarence Dillon residence, were clearly designed as a pair. They use identical pro­portions and parts, but are treated in different materials and based on different precedents: the former distinctly English, clad in dressed Roche limestone, the latter, brick American Colonial. Built in 1926, three years before the Dillon house was completed, the Astor house (Figure 13) is closely based on Robert Adam's Society for the Encouragement of the Arts, Manufactures and Commerce Building at the Adelphi in London (1772)(Figure 14). Schmidt's adaptation reduces the scale and depth of its model by using pilasters instead of columns, adds an attic floor over the entablature to increase the height-to-width ratio, and transforms the formal, public character of the model into a domestic setting by a drastic simplification of detail. The separation of pediment from frieze and architrave by the insertion of a fourth floor acts to distribute tension over the entire facade. The result is a flat, austere and very powerful composition quite unlike anything else in New York.

As at the Morgan and Vanderbilt houses, Schmidt was presented with various collections of antique furniture, books, mantelpieces, tapestries, and even whole rooms purchased in Europe around which to design a house. Echoing the Trevor house interiors, the dominant style in the Astor house is based on the work of Robert Adam and his American followers in the Federal era. The bluish-green color scheme in the living room was copied from an American room in the Philadelphia Museum, while details such as the mantel and door surrounds were directly inspired by Adam. The stair hall, again painted in trompe l'oeil by Allyn Cox in a nostalgic Roman vein, is paved in three hues of Verona marble. In contrast to the colorful floor, the stair of Belgian black marble is ringed by a sinuous, English-inspired iron balustrade. The house also had its requisite French panelled room, made popular by Elsie de Wolfe, with red and gold Louis XV boiserie painted by Huet and Perrott.

The Dillon house (Figure 15), though proportionately a twin to the Astor house, is a prime example of Schmidt's design methodology of subtly restating formulas established in earlier commissions. In the Dillon house color contrast becomes important because of a change in materials; outer pilasters are transformed into rustication; the attic is replaced by dormers; and the arch recess at the center window becomes an architrave and pediment. The transformation is so profound that one is hardly aware that both buildings derive from the same model. The rich carving of the limestone doorway draws the eye -- its segmental pediment and Corinthian capitals make one of the most compelling of his door designs.

Both the consistency and conservatism demonstrated by Schmidt in his series of New York townhouses were qualities clearly valued by his clients: they knew precisely what they were getting. If his houses lacked a certain spark of originality, so much the better. Schmidt's architecture mirrored his own personal reticence. He was not a publicity seeker, a trait which helped to make him the perfect society architect in the 1920s, when members of New York's top drawer were anxious to maintain their privacy in light of the scandals and society-page stories which had plagued their turn-of-the-century counterparts. It was best if one's architect understood the need for discretion.

Along with the Morgan house, three of Schmidt's townhouses further up on the East Side proceed directly from the Georgian tradition: the Guy Fairfax Cary house on East 91st Street (1923), the small townhouse for Emily Trevor on East 90th Street (1926), and the Clarence Dillon house on East 80th Street (1928-29). They also look to prewar houses by one of Schmidt's favorite architects, Charles Platt, such as those designed in 1908 for Sarah Roosevelt on East 65th Street (Figure 10). From Platt, who also did not have an extensive Beaux Arts education, Schmidt learned the virtue of plain, sturdy composition and pragmatic planning.

The Cary house (Figure 11) was built as a city residence for a prominent attorney after his second marriage to the former Mrs. Arthur Burden. Of the set, it is the largest, widest, and most severe. The extreme planarity of the facade, broken only slightly by projecting center bays marked by brick quoins and a stone modillion cornice between the attic and the third floor, draws attention to small details, like the tiny limestone keystones above the windows of the piano nobile, and the segmental canopy over the door. In plan the building functions neatly as a large family house, with both spacious rooms for entertaining and separate domains for males, females, and servants. Since it stretched across two lots, Schmidt was able to be more expansive in planning the rooms around a large circular stair­case, which functioned as the social center of the house.

In contrast to the cool masculinity characteristic of the Guy Cary house, Schmidt's house for Miss Emily Trevor (Figure 12) is delicately feminine in its toy like proportions. The center is strongly marked by the door/window aedicule, which forms a temple like entrance canopy. It is capped by a miniature pediment and trimmed all in limestone. Each of the other windows is simply treated with a flat limestone lintel and a pair of shutters. Located half a block from Fifth Avenue, this tiny jewel of a townhouse is an unusual variation on Schmidt's planning formula. Using the full 25 foot width of the house for the main rooms, he divided the plan into three equal sec­tions from front to back, placing his trademark stair in the center. The program was compact enough to allow just two rooms per floor, front and back: the splendid entry hall on the ground floor, a drawing room and dining room on the parlor level, and a library and bedchamber above. This house contains the finest extant interiors of any Schmidt commission, almost unchanged from the day it was built. Along with an elegant paneled library, the major rooms follow decorative themes based on the work of Robert Adam, with elaborate sculpted plasterwork executed by C. P. Jennewein. The specific arrangement of the interior is somewhat concealed in the facade. On the ground floor, a service door is disguised as a window, while the main doorway opens on the right side of the formal entrance hall. The delicate limestone doorway with leaf capitals, and the diminutive scale of the facade give the house an appropriate character. Like the houses of Anne Morgan and Anne Vanderbilt, it was an independent woman's domicile.

Most New Yorkers, if they know the name at all, recognize Mott Schmidt as a master of the urbane, Upper East Side townhouse. Using motifs and planning principles from the pre Civil War and Victorian townhouses he had remodeled, his knowledge of early American precedents, and his successes on Sutton Place, Schmidt built half-a-dozen more townhouses before the stock market crash of 1929. He was building during a time of intense development and fertile experimentation with the townhouse type -- really the final chapter in the history of the New York rowhouse. Buildings on the Upper East Side by architects such as William Adams Delano, Charles Platt, William Lawrence Bottomley, Whitney Warren, and Schmidt were based on a shared vision of the city which subtly transformed the more or less uniform brown­stone-lined streets between 5th and 3rd Avenues to the patchwork of historically inspired townhouses which exists today.

Schmidt's work must be placed in the context of academic-eclectic house design in New York dating from the mid-1890s, when such firms as McKim, Mead and White introduced the "Georgian" or Colonial Revival townhouse into the canon as a tonic to the "Modern French" or Beaux Arts house. Their H. A. C. Taylor house at 3 East 71st Street (1894), James J. Goodwin house at 9-11 West 54th Street (1896-98) and Charles Dana Gibson house at 127 East 73rd Street (1902-03) established the red brick, white trimmed vocabulary which became recognized as a modern descendent of both English and American eighteenth-century townhouses. Georgian was at this time used as a very loose, generic term to denote nearly any Early American architecture influenced by English precedents. As documentary sources of early American architec­ture became readily available to architects, and a historical perspective was created, a greater sophistication was achieved in the use of indigenous sources. Working in the 1920s, Schmidt clearly benefited from the experiments of his predecessors.

More important than McKim, Mead and White in the develop­ment of the Georgian city house was the successful office of William Adams Delano (1874-1960) and Chester Holmes Aldrich (1871-1940). Delano, whose boyhood home had been in the famous Washington Square Row, extended the definition of Georgian to include the red brick Federal and Greek revival styles of the early Republic, which he established as fresh models for smart new townhouses on the East Side. In the years just prior to the First World War, Delano and Aldrich introduced the streamlined, abstract approach to the Georgian house which was characteristic of Schmidt's early works.

Delano and Aldrich began their series of New York houses with works such as the J. Marshall Dodge house (37 East 68th Street), Howard Gardner Cushing house (121 East 70th Street) and Allen Wardwell house (127 East 80th Street) -- all finished before 1915. Recognizing that the planar qualities of a red brick facade could be played off against a small number of decorative and plastic elements in stone or wood, Delano found a classic formula for his facade compositions.

Like Delano, Schmidt seized upon the generic principles of the Georgian townhouse as a prototype subject to almost endless variation. He would come to know Delano's work rather well, in particular the Wardwell house, across from which he built his Dillon and Astor houses in the mid-1920s. Schmidt's townhouses come from the same source as Delano's, but Schmidt looked more closely at the vernacular aspects of the rowhouse. His designs also emphasized the abstract, proportional rigor of the type. Whereas Delano's work tended toward grand effects, Schmidt always strove for modesty and straightforwardness.