Larchmont Library
In 1922, Edward F. Albee, (grandfather of playwright Edward Albee, known for the play “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf”), a prominent resident, theater owner, and producer, donated the land for the development of the Albee Court Apartments, the Larchmont National Bank and the Larchmont Public Library. That same year, St. Clair Bayfield, a notable Shakespearean actor, and the manager of the famous New York socialite and singer, Florence Foster Jenkins, staged “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” as a benefit for the new library. The public also raised funds for the library. The Larchmont Public Library, which had received its charter earlier in the year, opened its doors to the public for the first time on November 29, 1926.Since opening the doors nearly ninety five years ago, the Larchmont Public Library has grown and expanded a number of times. Most significant was the expansion completed in January 1995, which joined the children’s library to the main library and made the library handicapped accessible, the creation of the Burchell Children’s room in 2010, which included renovations in other parts of the library as well and the 2016 Transformation Project to renovate the main building. The Larchmont Public Library continues to grow and expand as it meets the needs of the community. - Larchmontlibrary.org
The Manor House 18 Elm Avenue
At the end of the revolutionary war, Peter Jay Munro and his wife Margaret White began to acquire the property on the middle neck of Richbell's purchase formerly held by Samuel Palmer and his heirs. This Federal style country house was erected sometime between 1789 when the land was acquired, and 1797, when it first appears on a map of the area. It was passed down through the Munro and Jay family until it was sold in 1845 to Edward Knight Collins, who established the first American transatlantic steamship line, and secured the first U.S. Mail contract, becoming one of the wealthiest men in New York.Collins named the estate "Larchmont" after the larch trees Munro had planted on rising ground between the house and the Post Road. He commissioned the designer of Central Park to survey and lay out its grounds. In 1865, Collins auctioned off 288 acres of his land to an Illinois-born banker. In 1871, he added the word manor to the estate's name although the property had never been part of a colonial manor. From there he formed the Larchmont Manor Company to develop the land as suburban homes for New York City businessmen. The Manor Company turned the dwelling into a hotel, named The Manor House. It also served as a club for Manor property owners and offered lodging to their overflow guests. Following the dissolution of the Manor Company in 1891, the building was converted back into a private residence. The underlying Federal-style core of the house is immediately apparent both externally and internally in its rigid biaxial symmetry, paired side chimneys, and superstructure raised on a tall basement that orignally contained the kitchen and other service rooms. The cornice of the veranda matches the deep modillioned cornice at the eaves. The three gabled dormers with round arched windows and delicate curved panes that punctuate the side-gable roof may also have been added when the house was remodeled. The polychromatic decoration of the overdoor and sidelights, painted in France around 1850, feature floral and vegetable motifs based on the vocabulary of 17th-century Dutch painting along with typical 19th-century angels.
Cassidy Cottage 59 Prospect Ave
The Larchmont Manor Company sold this property in 1885 to Katharine Adelaide Dana, widow of John, of Richfield Springs, New Jersey. On November 18, 1890, the Paragraph reported the destruction by fire of a house on this site, "the residence of Mr. Dana, the well-known photographer of New York" who was probably the widow's son. An "immensely large" elm on the property was killed by the fire as well.Bien's 1893 map indicates that the lot was then vacant and belonged to Henry B.W. Burt, a member of the Larchmonr Yacht Club since 1888. The property was sold in 1895 to Martin Cassidy of New York City who then transferred the title once again in 1897 to William Murray, a principal in the manor company. Murray returned the title to Cassidy the following year, encumbered by a heavy mortgage. A transaction of this sort usually would indicate that a building has been erected, particularly when one of the parties is known to have been involved in real estate development. The house was sold at a public auction to William Mercer Baird in 1909. Although it has had 7 owners since, the house has remained virtually intact.The Cassidy Cottage represents a fine moment in American domestic architecture that flowered from the late 1880s to the early years of this century. It exemplifies the First Colonial/Federal Revival. The First Revival was sparked by buildings in the Colonial and Federal styles erected at the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. The Cassidy Cottage represents a free adaptation of the Colonial mode and the more informal Shingle style that originated in such resorts as Newport, Cape Ann, and the Maine shore.The asymmetrical placement of naturally formal elements is characteristic of the style of the home, as is the use of dark-stained shingles. The off-axis entry and the large stairhall are also characteristic of the style along with the large but delicate fireplace and the fireplace surround with original ceramic tile and the free flow of space from room to room.
Fountain Square
The statue in the center of Fountain Square is called the Mermaid's Cradle. In the late 19th century, a Larchmont Resident named Elizabeth Flint visited Harriet Hosmer, a neoclassical sculptor who is largely regarded as the most distinguished female sculptor in America during the 19th century. Flint noticed a beautiful statue of a mermaid and begged Hosmer to make a bronze replica. This replica sits in the center of Fountain Square. This is no typical mermaid. The mermaid has broad shoulders, big arms, a toned core, and big breasts. The sculpture is meant to symbolize the power of femininity. Across the square lies St. John's Church. Constructed in the English Gothic Style in 1894, St. John's church was the first place of worship in the Village of Larchmont. The church includes a 60-foot bell tower which acts as a vestibule, a transept containing the sacristy and choir rooms, and a nave pierced by a treasury of stained-glass windows. It is a simple and restrained example of gothic revival built of rusticated stone. The windows depict biblical history, with the history of early Larchmont in the donors' plaques beside them.
The Belvedere (the Manor Inn) 7 Prospect Ave
One of four originally, the Belvedere was the final active residential hotel in Larchmont, later known as the Manor inn. Built in the spring of 1893 by Mr. and Mrs. George Chatterton, it took its name from the open porches (removed in 1956) atop "capacious towers from which unobstructed views of the Long Island Sound may be obtained." At first, it was open only in the summer catered largely to New York City residents. It was known for its "wholesome family atmosphere." As Larchmont's fashionable season lengthened, they installed a heating system and gas lights.During the depression, a group of local residents banded together to save the hotel from foreclosure and demolition. The new resident manager, T.D. Brock, remodeled the interior in 1933 and changed the name to the Manor Inn. After Mr. Brock's death in 1938, the building once again narrowly escaped demolition. It was again saved by a group of local residents who formed the Inn Properties Corporation. The open wrap-around porches on the first and second stories and the rounded corner towers that once sported "belveders" on their tops are elements of the Queen Anne Style. The picturesque quality is further enhanced by the fancy millwork that creates ovoid openings along the south and west facades. Decorative shingles on the porch supports give a clue to the original siding, which is now covered with asbestos shingles. Original details surviving inside include brick fireplaces with arched openings and doorway moldings called Colonial Revival although based on 1820 prototypes. A portion of the North-South running wing was demolished recently.
Manor park gazebo
The earliest known settlers in what was to become Larchmont were the Siwanoy Indians, an Algonquin tribe. In 1614, a Dutch sea captain discovered the Long Island Sound after passing through Hell’s Gate, a narrow tidal straight in the East River. He reported seeing campfires in what is now known as Larchmont Manor Park. By 1720, only a handful of Siwanoys remained in what is now Larchmont.The next century saw a steady increase in population, as first Quaker refugees from New England and then wealthy New Yorkers established estates in the area. During the late 19th century, Larchmont was known as a summer playground for New York’s elite. Many of the large Victorian “cottages” of that era survive in Larchmont Manor.Manor Park, where the Dutch captain originally spotted campfires, is now a lovely waterfront park which is boasts three beautiful gazebos, a beach, and a wide variety of trees and shrubs to complement the spectacular natural sculptures created by glacial rock formations.- https://larchmontmanorpark.org/the-park.html
