Carlsruh: Home to a Romanov princess and Irvington's 1st mayor
 |
This is a photo ca. 1900 of the mansion of first the F.A. Foster family, then Maximilian E. (Max) Sand who named it “Villa Birchcroft." Carl Victor bought it in 1913 and renamed the estate and mansion “Carlsruh.” This view is of the side of the house overlooking the Hudson River. (Photo courtesy Sameer Malhotra) |
The 7,700-square-foot mansion at what is today 10 Half Moon Lane, Irvington, was built just after 1870 on a smaller scale for Frederick A. Foster, in 1872 the Village of Irvington’s first Board of Trustees President (the title is mayor today).
The 1870 census lists Foster and his wife, Linda (Dows) Foster, boarding with Irvington lumber and coal merchant Andrew Storms in his home on North Buckhout Street. The Aug. 17, 1928 edition of The Irvington Gazette expanded on that report, saying the Fosters were staying with Storms while their house on West Clinton Avenue was being built.
Information about F.A. Foster is sketchy, but the 1870 Census identifies him as a commission merchant. We know he was retired by 1880 and that he was a sportsman. There are records of him owning at least four Standardbred trotters bred specifically for him by breeder Jonathan Hawkins of Walden in Orange County for use in harness racing.
Those four were all sired by Harness Racing Museum and Hall of Fame sire Hambletonian 10, a.k.a. Rysdyk’s Hambletonian, via dam Imogen in four consecutive years. The appropriately named colt Irvington was the first in 1870, followed by fillies Isabel (1871), Inez (1872) and the colt Atherton (1873).
There are also records of him buying three other trotters, none of them specifically bred for him, two of them two-year-olds, the other a yearling.
The 1870 census lists Foster and his wife, Linda (Dows) Foster, boarding with Irvington lumber and coal merchant Andrew Storms in his home on North Buckhout Street. The Aug. 17, 1928 edition of The Irvington Gazette expanded on that report, saying the Fosters were staying with Storms while their house on West Clinton Avenue was being built.
Information about F.A. Foster is sketchy, but the 1870 Census identifies him as a commission merchant. We know he was retired by 1880 and that he was a sportsman. There are records of him owning at least four Standardbred trotters bred specifically for him by breeder Jonathan Hawkins of Walden in Orange County for use in harness racing.
Those four were all sired by Harness Racing Museum and Hall of Fame sire Hambletonian 10, a.k.a. Rysdyk’s Hambletonian, via dam Imogen in four consecutive years. The appropriately named colt Irvington was the first in 1870, followed by fillies Isabel (1871), Inez (1872) and the colt Atherton (1873).
There are also records of him buying three other trotters, none of them specifically bred for him, two of them two-year-olds, the other a yearling.
The trotter Irvington was his greatest success. Irvington was the only son of Hambletonian 10 to be exported from the U.S. He stood at stud in New Zealand and sired Young Irvington, New Zealand's first natural pacer and top racehorse of the day, who later stood at stud in Australia. His son -- Irvington's grandson -- Monte Carlo won the New Zealand Cup in 1904.
Foster married into the prominent Dows family of scion David Dows, a fabulously wealthy grain merchant who owned the nearby Charlton Hall estate and John Dows Mairs who owned the next-door Lynwood estate. Dows Lane Elementary School and Half Moon Co-op Apartments are located on what were the Dows and Mairs estates.
F.A. Foster’s initial five-acre estate was in a prestigious neighborhood. James Alexander Hamilton, the third son of Founding Father Alexander Hamilton, was his neighbor on the nearby Nevis estate. A short time later, the Founding Father’s namesake and grandson, Alexander Hamilton III, would inherit Nevis from his father, J.A. Hamilton.
The Fosters shared their house with a niece, Clarra Dows, 22, and two live-in servants, Nora Morris and Irish immigrant Mary Kelley. Their coachman, Jon Dail, and gardener, Peter Roder, both Irish immigrants, also lived on the estate according to the 1880 census.
The Fosters do not appear to have had children and Linda died at age 54 in 1884. F.A. Foster and brother-in-law David Dows Jr. took control of a nine-acre estate next door to Foster’s by 1891, Foster adding two or three acres to his property and Dows controlling the remainder next door.
It’s unclear exactly when Foster sold the estate but it appears to have been to Maximilian Edward (Max) Sand, a tea merchant turned stock broker who retired from his Sand Bros. & Co. brokerage house in about 1895 when he was only 51. It was Sand who named the house “Villa Birchcroft.” Sand died in 1906 and his widow Alice lived in the house until her death in 1912. Her son Max, also a stock broker, sold the estate to Carl and Ernestine Victor in October 1913.
The Victors changed the estate’s name to “Carlsruh" which would roughly translate "Carl's Calm" from German.
Drescher, who never married, remained with Ernestine after Carl’s death which occurred shortly before 1930. She accompanied Ernestine on domestic and international trips until Ernestine died in the late 1930s.
Carl was born in Germany, Ernestine in the U.S., and Carl made his fortune in the silk trade, retiring as a partner with the firm Frederick Victor & Achelis. The couple had only one child but Ernestine Victor had a special place in her heart for children. Witness this brief story from the Dec. 27, 1935 edition of The Irvington Gazette:
“Mrs. Carl Victor of Clinton Avenue gave her annual Christmas party to the children of the Irvington kindergarten on December 19th,” the weekly newspaper reported. “The feature of the party this year was the grab bag which contained gifts for each child. The grab bag, which is In the form of a large pig, is a very old and important part of the German Cliristmas.
“The pig was brought to America from Germany more than fifty years ago by Mrs. Victor. The children also entertained their parents with Christmas songs and gave them presents which they made for them. Miss Lee and all her children want to thank Mrs. Victor for her kind thoughts and lovely Christmas spirit.”
If the name “Miss Lee” sounds familiar to some readers, you're not alone. Miss Eva Lee, a lifelong resident of South Cottenet Street in Irvington, taught generations of Irvington kindergarten students beginning in 1928 and continuing until her retirement in 1964. She died in 1979 at age 74.
(Full disclosure: This writer was in one of Miss Lee's final three kindergarten classes at Dows Lane Elementary School, 1961-62.)
The Carlsruh story heated up after 1967 when William Lawrence Beadleston of Rumson, N.J., a Manhattan art dealer, married Princess Marina Vasilievna Romanov and the couple purchased Carlsruh. The Beadlestons were living in the house no later than 1975.
The princess, whose family sold Carlsruh in 1989 to its present occupants, the family of restaurateur and Indian cuisine magnate Sushil Malhotra, divorced Beadleston and later married Daniel Stanberry and settled in Aspen, Colorado where she lives today.
Marina’s father was Prince Vasili Alexandrovich Romanov, the sixth son and youngest child of Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich Romanov and Grand Duchess Xenia Alexandrovna Romanov, the latter the sister of Czar Nicholas II of Russia, who abdicated the crown in 1917 and was executed by Bolshevik forces along with his entire nuclear family on July 17, 1918.
Vasili and his immediate family were able to escape the Bolshevik slaughter of the royal family. In May 1918, German soldiers freed him and his immediate family from Bolshevik captivity and he and his family fled the Crimea in 1919 courtesy of King George V of England, a cousin of the Russian royal family. King George sent HMS Marlborough to extricate 11-year-old Vasili and his family.
The Romanov family has never returned to prominence in the land they once ruled with an iron fist, among the last of the world’s hereditary absolute monarchs.
In exile, first in England, then in California, Prince Vasili met and married another Russian royal, Princess Natalia Golitsyna, Marina’s mother.
In 1980, Prince Vasili was appointed president of the Romanov Family Association, the titular head of the family in exile. He remained in that role until his death in 1989.
The princess would have felt right at home at Carlsruh, just three blocks east on West Clinton Avenue lived famed author Robert K. Massie whose breakthrough work, “Nicholas and Alexandra,” about the sunset of the Romanov dynasty, had been released the year she married.
Massie, a Pulitzer Prize-winner who lived at 60 West Clinton Avenue, once a Gilded Age estate of George W. Smith across the street from the famed Armour-Stiner “Octagon” House, also wrote Romanov-related tomes “Peter the Great: His Life and World,” “Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman” and “The Romanovs: The Final Chapter.”
The current owners of Carlsruh, Sushil Malhotra and his son Sameer, are co-owners of Cafe Spice, which provides prepared upscale Indian food to supermarket chains including Whole Foods as well as at its own Cafe Spice Express outlets. The family is also involved with restaurants including Chutney Masala Indian Bistro at 76 Main Street and Dawat at 210 East 58th Street in Manhattan among others.
It is a 4,000-plus square foot building at 29 Half Moon Lane that has been featured on Irvington Historical Society fundraising tours.
According to a brochure for the 2009 tour: "The coaches entered through grand arched doors on the south side of the building -- now a large window -- from a drive lined with maples trees that ran parallel to the Hudson River.
"The east side of the house was reserved for horses -- mares on the north side, stallions on the south -- whose stalls were divided by massive wood and lattice ironwork similar to those visible in the Lyndhurst carriage house. ...
"On the west side of the second floor of the house, overlooking the Hudson, the superintendent of the estate lived with his family. The superintendent, Thomas Lee, looked after the spacious lawn with its varied flowers, shrubs and trees.
"He maintained a greenhouse and garden, which provided fruits and vegetables for all the members of the estate. A man of numerous talents, he was quite skilled as an artist and some of his drawing, painting and etching relate to his work on the estate.
"The east side was reserved for the coachman and his family and also contained hay lofts and sleeping areas for the grooms, whose lineament bottles were found hidden in crevices by the present owners during renovation. The coachman groomed the horses, kept the carriages polished and took members of the family on errands and exhibition rides and races on Broadway."
Foster married into the prominent Dows family of scion David Dows, a fabulously wealthy grain merchant who owned the nearby Charlton Hall estate and John Dows Mairs who owned the next-door Lynwood estate. Dows Lane Elementary School and Half Moon Co-op Apartments are located on what were the Dows and Mairs estates.
F.A. Foster’s initial five-acre estate was in a prestigious neighborhood. James Alexander Hamilton, the third son of Founding Father Alexander Hamilton, was his neighbor on the nearby Nevis estate. A short time later, the Founding Father’s namesake and grandson, Alexander Hamilton III, would inherit Nevis from his father, J.A. Hamilton.
(Hamilton III is sometimes referred to as Alexander Hamilton Jr., but that is not correct. Alexander Jr., brother of James Alexander, was the Founding Father's second-born son who died, childless, in 1875.)
The Fosters shared their house with a niece, Clarra Dows, 22, and two live-in servants, Nora Morris and Irish immigrant Mary Kelley. Their coachman, Jon Dail, and gardener, Peter Roder, both Irish immigrants, also lived on the estate according to the 1880 census.
The Fosters do not appear to have had children and Linda died at age 54 in 1884. F.A. Foster and brother-in-law David Dows Jr. took control of a nine-acre estate next door to Foster’s by 1891, Foster adding two or three acres to his property and Dows controlling the remainder next door.
 |
Max Sand Jr. relaxes in 1909 at his widowed mother Alice's “Villa Birchcroft” estate. He's pictured with a cigarette and a terrier outside the main house. The estate's name was changed to "Carlsruh" in 1913 after its purchase by Carl Victor. There were several buildings on the estate at the turn of the century, the main house, a combination carriage house/stables with living quarters for coachman, groom and the property’s superintendent and a greenhouse, the common breakdown of buildings on a Gilded Age estate in Irvington in the 19th century. (Photo courtesy Sameer Malhotra) |
The Victors were a couple with German roots who by 1925 according to the New York State census were well up in years -- 81 and 70, respectively -- and living with live-in nurses Katherine Drescher 40 and Frieda Imm 43. Also living in the main house were servants Mathilde Stadler 46, Lena Fritsch 24 and Else Haberle 24. The last four of those aides were German immigrants.
The Victors changed the estate’s name to “Carlsruh" which would roughly translate "Carl's Calm" from German.
Drescher, who never married, remained with Ernestine after Carl’s death which occurred shortly before 1930. She accompanied Ernestine on domestic and international trips until Ernestine died in the late 1930s.
 |
This pen and ink sketch by artist and estate superintendent Thomas Lee is described as a winter scene at “Carlsruh,” the estate of Mrs. Carl Victor adjacent to the immediate southwest of West Clinton Avenue at the New York Central and Hudson River Railroad tracks. The house today is located at 10 Half Moon Lane. This view is from the west side of the house overlooking the Hudson River and was published in the Irvington Gazette newspaper on Dec. 4, 1931. (The Irvington Gazette, Dec. 4, 1931) |
“Mrs. Carl Victor of Clinton Avenue gave her annual Christmas party to the children of the Irvington kindergarten on December 19th,” the weekly newspaper reported. “The feature of the party this year was the grab bag which contained gifts for each child. The grab bag, which is In the form of a large pig, is a very old and important part of the German Cliristmas.
“The pig was brought to America from Germany more than fifty years ago by Mrs. Victor. The children also entertained their parents with Christmas songs and gave them presents which they made for them. Miss Lee and all her children want to thank Mrs. Victor for her kind thoughts and lovely Christmas spirit.”
If the name “Miss Lee” sounds familiar to some readers, you're not alone. Miss Eva Lee, a lifelong resident of South Cottenet Street in Irvington, taught generations of Irvington kindergarten students beginning in 1928 and continuing until her retirement in 1964. She died in 1979 at age 74.
(Full disclosure: This writer was in one of Miss Lee's final three kindergarten classes at Dows Lane Elementary School, 1961-62.)
The Carlsruh story heated up after 1967 when William Lawrence Beadleston of Rumson, N.J., a Manhattan art dealer, married Princess Marina Vasilievna Romanov and the couple purchased Carlsruh. The Beadlestons were living in the house no later than 1975.
 |
This is a contemporary rear view of the rebuilt "Carlsruh" mansion on Half Moon Lane. This side of the house looks west over the Hudson River. (Photo courtesy Sameer Malhotra) |
Marina’s father was Prince Vasili Alexandrovich Romanov, the sixth son and youngest child of Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich Romanov and Grand Duchess Xenia Alexandrovna Romanov, the latter the sister of Czar Nicholas II of Russia, who abdicated the crown in 1917 and was executed by Bolshevik forces along with his entire nuclear family on July 17, 1918.
Vasili and his immediate family were able to escape the Bolshevik slaughter of the royal family. In May 1918, German soldiers freed him and his immediate family from Bolshevik captivity and he and his family fled the Crimea in 1919 courtesy of King George V of England, a cousin of the Russian royal family. King George sent HMS Marlborough to extricate 11-year-old Vasili and his family.
 |
This is the front view of the (looking west from Half Moon Lane towards the Hudson River) of the Sushil Malhotra house -- formerly “Carlsruh” -- at 10 Half Moon Lane. The house was completely renovated and rebuilt with new additions in 1993 by the Malhotra family. (Google Maps Street View photo) |
In exile, first in England, then in California, Prince Vasili met and married another Russian royal, Princess Natalia Golitsyna, Marina’s mother.
In 1980, Prince Vasili was appointed president of the Romanov Family Association, the titular head of the family in exile. He remained in that role until his death in 1989.
The princess would have felt right at home at Carlsruh, just three blocks east on West Clinton Avenue lived famed author Robert K. Massie whose breakthrough work, “Nicholas and Alexandra,” about the sunset of the Romanov dynasty, had been released the year she married.
Massie, a Pulitzer Prize-winner who lived at 60 West Clinton Avenue, once a Gilded Age estate of George W. Smith across the street from the famed Armour-Stiner “Octagon” House, also wrote Romanov-related tomes “Peter the Great: His Life and World,” “Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman” and “The Romanovs: The Final Chapter.”
The current owners of Carlsruh, Sushil Malhotra and his son Sameer, are co-owners of Cafe Spice, which provides prepared upscale Indian food to supermarket chains including Whole Foods as well as at its own Cafe Spice Express outlets. The family is also involved with restaurants including Chutney Masala Indian Bistro at 76 Main Street and Dawat at 210 East 58th Street in Manhattan among others.
 |
The former “Carlsruh” carriage house is now the property of Anne Halliwell and is located at 29 Half Moon Lane. (Photo courtesy Anne Halliwell) |
The Carlsruh house is not the only remnant of the Foster estate still standing. The estate's carriage house, which once housed both carriages and the horses that pulled them, has been renovated and remodeled and has been the property of the Anne Halliwell family for years.
It is a 4,000-plus square foot building at 29 Half Moon Lane that has been featured on Irvington Historical Society fundraising tours.
According to a brochure for the 2009 tour: "The coaches entered through grand arched doors on the south side of the building -- now a large window -- from a drive lined with maples trees that ran parallel to the Hudson River.
"The east side of the house was reserved for horses -- mares on the north side, stallions on the south -- whose stalls were divided by massive wood and lattice ironwork similar to those visible in the Lyndhurst carriage house. ...
"On the west side of the second floor of the house, overlooking the Hudson, the superintendent of the estate lived with his family. The superintendent, Thomas Lee, looked after the spacious lawn with its varied flowers, shrubs and trees.
"He maintained a greenhouse and garden, which provided fruits and vegetables for all the members of the estate. A man of numerous talents, he was quite skilled as an artist and some of his drawing, painting and etching relate to his work on the estate.
"The east side was reserved for the coachman and his family and also contained hay lofts and sleeping areas for the grooms, whose lineament bottles were found hidden in crevices by the present owners during renovation. The coachman groomed the horses, kept the carriages polished and took members of the family on errands and exhibition rides and races on Broadway."
 |
This 1891 map shows the location of the F.A. Foster estate that would late be known as “Carlsruh” immediately south of West Clinton Avenue on the west side of South Broadway. Broadway is the light red vertical road to the right of the map. The Croton Aqueduct is the blue vertical line at right center. (Frederick W. Beers, 1891. Watson & Co.) * Click here for links to dozens of other Gilded Age stories by this author |
Comments
Post a Comment
If you would like to weigh-in, feel free ...