Clare Court: Home to a presidential assassin's uncle and a jazz icon

This is an illustration of the Frederick W. Guiteau estate “Clare Court,” ca. 1870, which stood at 15 South Broadway, Irvington, site of the Highgate residential subdivision since the mid-1960s. (Westchester Historical Society)

The "Clare Court" mansion and estate in Irvington, N.Y., was home to the uncle of the assassin of a U.S. president and a jazz saxophonist who won three Grammy awards while residing there.

The Frederick W. Guiteau estate “Clare Court” stood across South Broadway from what is now Irvington Estates co-op apartments at 14 South Broadway and has been the site of the Highgate subdivision since its demise in the mid-1960s.

Guiteau was an early and generous donor to the Irvington Public Library, originally located in Town Hall on Main Street and now in the former Lord & Burnham red-brick facility on the south side of Main at its intersection with Astor Street.

In fact, the library was originally called the Guiteau Library, until the name was changed in 1923 to “Irvington Public Library, Guiteau Foundation.”

Guiteau, the descendant of a family of French Huguenot immigrants who came to North America before the American Revolution, saw his name become infamous because of his nephew, Charles Jules Guiteau, whose assassin’s bullet on July 2, 1881 at the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad Station in Washington, D.C., mortally wounded U.S. President James A. Garfield who died just over two months later. Ironically, Garfield was awaiting a train to take him to Irvington where the president was to visit Cyrus West Field Sr. at his “Ardsley” estate.

This is an engraving of President James A. Garfield's mortal wounding at the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad Station in Washington, D.C., on July 2, 1881, published in “Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper.” President Garfield is at center right, leaning backward after being shot. He is supported by U.S. Secretary of State James G. Blaine wearing a light colored top hat. At left, assassin Charles J. Guiteau is restrained by members of the crowd, one of whom is about to strike him with a cane. Guiteau was the nephew of well-known Irvington resident Frederick W. Guiteau. He shot Garfield while Garfield was waiting to board a train to Irvington where he was to visit Cyrus W. Field Sr. at Field’s Gilded Age estate, “Ardsley.” (Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper)

F.W. Guiteau died in Irvington at age 92 in 1903.

The lone teacher at age 16-19 at a school of 80 students in upstate New York, Guiteau joined a produce and commission firm founded by Ammi Dows in Utica, N.Y., at 19 and within two years became a partner. He made his fortune at the newly-fashioned Dows & Guiteau after it moved to Manhattan in 1835 and he retired at age 46 in 1857 for undisclosed health reasons. He ended up leaving his entire estate -- valued at an estimated $175,000 or $5.04 million in today’s currency -- to Cornell University.

Guiteau’s mansion was demolished in 1967 to make room for the construction of houses in the Highgate subdivision. The Irvington Gazette covered the razing of the mansion. A photo caption by photographer Dan Berry said: “Many years ago, the lawn running from the front of the house to the wall on South Broadway looked like a green velvet carpet for in its prime under the ownership of the late Moses Tanenbaum the place was a showpiece in the whole Hudson River Valley area.”

The former Frederick W. Guiteau residence “Clare Court” is shown while undergoing renovations in 1961 shortly before Grammy-winning musician Stan Getz and his family moved to the estate. (Irvington Public Library, Local History Collection)

Tanenbaum purchased and refurbished the estate of the late F.W. Guiteau in about 1916 and moved in in 1917.

Tanenbaum, president of the Manhattan-based insurance company I. Tanenbaum, Son and Co., founded by his father in 1860, died in late 1937.

In 1940, The Irvington Gazette editorialized that “The coming sale of the old Guiteau place … will mark the passing of another village landmark, for with so many large estates on the market, it is too much to hope that Clare Court will be purchased as a country seat.”

The editorial went on to predict the 14-acre estate and mansion would be purchased by a speculator and eventually subdivided and redeveloped as single-family or, perish the thought, apartment housing. The editors were wrong, temporarily.

In fact, Clare Court actually was sold to future resident Isaac Smith at auction in April 1940. Smith was a principal in the leather hide export firm of Schmoll Fils Associates of New York.

In about 1963, famed jazz saxophonist and composer Stan Getz moved to the estate with his family. In 1965, while still residing there, he was awarded Grammy awards for Record of the Year (The Girl from Ipanema), Album of the Year (Getz-Gilberto) and Solo Performance of the Year.

Clare Court (left of center with circular driveway in front) is shown in an aerial photo shot ca. 1932-34 by Robert Yarnall Ritchie. (Robert Yarnall Richie Photograph Collection, DeGolyer Library, Southern Methodist University Libraries)

Getz, his wife Monica, and his children eventually moved to the “Shadowbrook” estate at the northwest corner of Broadway and West Sunnyside Lane on the Tarrytown/Irvington line. The Getzes divorced in 1988 and Stan Getz died of cancer in 1991. Monica Getz resided in nearby Shadowbrook at the time of this writing, January 2021.

The Irvington Gazette editors were not optimistic in their 1940s comments about Clare Court being spared the wrecker’s ball -- and they were right. As they wrote: "We are undoubtedly cherishing a false hope if we feel that the lower Hudson Valley will ever again be the site of large country estates. The first and foremost reason against the return of those happy days of the latter half of the 19th century and the early days of the 20th is the enormous increase in taxes levied on real estate."

This 1891 map of Irvington shows the F.W. Guiteau estate “Clare Court” opposite the “Redwood” estate of the Lord & Burnham Company founders. Redwood stood where the Irvington Estates co-op apartments at 14 South Broadway stand today and Clare Court was at 15 South Broadway where the Highgate subdivision is today. Broadway is the vertical road at left of Clare Court, Harriman Road crosses below the estate and Main Street is at upper left off Broadway. (Frederick W. Beers, 1891, David Rumsey Map Collection)

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