Stern Castle: Merchants' estate dominated Irvington's skyline

Cedar Lawn, better known later as Stern Castle, is shown ca. 1900 after being remodeled into a crenellated Rhine stone castle by merchant Isaac Stern. (Irvington Public Library, Local History Collection)

Renowned architect Alexander Jackson Davis designed Ridgeview for wealthy New York importer August C. Richards at the pinnacle of a 99-acre estate east of North Broadway in 1875. Today it's the site of Irvington High School.

The mansion went on to be rebuilt and renamed "Cedar Lawn," but is perhaps best known as "Stern Castle."

This is a sketch of August C. Richards’ original Ridgeview, mansion ca. 1886. (Irvington Public Library, Local History Collection)

Davis had already designed "Woodcliff" castle for Richards 20 years earlier on part of the site of today’s Fort Tryon Park at 176th Street in Manhattan. That residence became the home of corrupt Tammany Hall political string-puller William Magear “Boss” Tweed in 1869 and later counted department store magnate Alexander Turney Stewart and John D. Rockefeller among its owners before being torn down to make way for Fort Tryon Park in 1939.

Both Davis-designed Richards castles overlooked the Hudson River. It appears that Richards just wanted out of the city and spied Irvington as a perfect spot for a summer home.

The Cedar Lawn mansion stood off North Broadway, perched atop the hill directly behind today's Immaculate Conception Church and today's John Cardinal O'Connor School for special-needs students (formerly Immaculate Conception School), reached by Heritage Hill Road. The land where the church and school now stand were once part of the estate.

August C. Richards’ Gilded Age mansion Ridgeview is pictured in 1886 from St. Barnabas Episcopal Church. At right is the Immaculate Conception Catholic Church rectory. Ridgeview held a commanding view of the village of Irvington and the Hudson River at the time. The site is now home to Irvington High School. (Irvington Public Library, Local History Collection)

The former Cedar Lawn mansion site has been the site of Irvington High School since 1965.

The estate was called Ridgeview by Richards but was renamed Cedar Lawn by subsequent owner Isaac Stern in the early 1900s after a radical alteration expanded it from a stone villa into a Rhine castle complete with crenellated tower offering outstanding views of the Hudson River.

August C. Richards' Ridgeview mansion is shown, ca. 1890, in a winter photo looking up from North Broadway across today's Riverview Road (outlined by evenly spaced pine trees running from middle  left to lower right, giving viewers an idea of the breathtaking view of the mansion. The mansion was remodeled by new owner Isaac Stern at the turn of the 20th century, becoming a crenellated stone "castle" in the process. Partially visible middle right of the photo in the junction of a deciduous tree trunk and its first branch is Irving Cliff, the mansion of Eliphalet Wood. The two mansions survived well into the 20th century with Stern Castle falling to fire and the wrecker's ball in the early 1960s and Irving Cliff facing the same demise in the mid-1980s. (From the collection of the Museum of the City of New York)

Stern, whose given name was sometimes spelled Issac, was the co-founder with his brothers Louis and Bernard of Stern Brothers, a New York department store. The brothers were the sons of German Jewish immigrants.

Stern Brothers, later known as Stern’s, operated stores in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania for 130 years until its parent company, Federated Department Stores, in 2001 converted most of the Stern’s locations to Macy’s stores and others were liquidated and reopened as Bloomingdale’s stores.

This is Chet Kerr's video presentation for the Irvington Historical Society on the Stearns property – also Stern Castle or Stern's Castle. For more 130 years the 99-acre Ridgeview/Cedar Lawn estate of open lawns, pastures, and woodlands extended from North Broadway to Mountain Road through central Irvington. Village residents worked tirelessly to protect and preserve the eastern sections of the former estate as part of the Irvington Woods, one of the most beautiful spots in Irvington.

Stern’s son, Robert B. Stearns, inherited the building which had become commonly known as variously as Stern Castle, Stern's Castle, Stearns Castle and Stearn's Castle. He lived in it until 1942, according to newspaper reports, then left it to his son Richard upon his death in 1954. The castle was never occupied by Richard Stearns and suffered a series of minor fires before falling to the a devastating blaze that was fought by firefighters from Tarrytown, White Plains, Dobbs Ferry, North Tarrytown and Irvington in mid-July 1962. It was later demolished and the granite blocks that survived the fire used as fill to expand the footprint of Matthiessen Park west into the Hudson River.

For the record, Robert Stearns changed the spelling of the family name in his late teens. He was the co-founder of the investment house Bear Stearns and later chairman of the American Stock Exchange.

Robert Stearns' obituary in the Dec. 16, 1954 issue of The Irvington Gazette newspaper recalled the time of the Gilded Age scions of the village.

Isaac Stern's 441-ton steam yacht VIrginia, which docked at today's Matthiessen Park, was delivered to him in December 1899 and sold after his death to Frederick Vanderbilt, who renamed it Vedette. W. Vanderbilt leased it to the U.S. Navy on May 4, 1917 and it was commissioned USS Vedette (SP-163) on May 28, 1917. It saw service in the eastern Atlantic Ocean during World War I primarily as a rescue ship. It is shown here in dry dock at L'Orient, France before its decommissioning on Feb. 4, 1919 when it was restored to Vanderbilt. (U.S. Naval Historical Center photo)

Isaac Stern, the paper recalled, “commuted to New York daily on his oceangoing steam yacht Virginia which docked in the Hudson River on the river's east shore at what is now Matthiessen Park but which was then known as Tiffany’s shore. He was driven to the dock by a team of beautiful, high stepping horses in a carriage whose polish would have held its own with the sheen of any of today’s highest prices automobiles.”

Isaac Stern is shown in a 1901 oil-on-canvas portrait by artist Léon Joseph Florentin Bonnat. (The Museum of the City of New York)

Again harking back to Stearns’ youth, the paper recalled: “[Isaac Stern] was not alone in Irvington in this manner because there were usually two or three other yachts such as Conrad Matthiessen’s ‘Inga,’ Dr. William Lanman Bull’s ‘Sayonara’ and Tracy Dows’ ‘Margaret’ at anchor along the Irvington shore, while the turnout of [horse-drawn] carriages for the arrival of the late afternoon express [train] from New York was truly something to behold.”

A 1908 report in the same paper referred to a fox hunt as having taken place at Cedar Lawn.

The then-new Irvington High School opened on the site of the razed Stern Castle in September 1965, moving from its former location at 101 Main Street, home today to Main Street School.

This hand-drawn 1891 map shows the outline of August C. Richards' Ridgeview estate -- soon to be rebuilt and renamed Cedar Ridge by new owner Isaac Stern. The estate stretched east from North Broadway about a block north of Main Street and encompassed some 99 acres to its eastern terminus at Peter Bont Road. Original owner August Richards name is misspelled on the map. (Frederick W. Beers, David Rumsey Map Collection)

* Click here for links to dozens of other Gilded Age stories by this author