BAMBOO ROLL BLINDS

Tottenville, Staten Island, New York City, New York

Summary

The Theodore F. and Elizabeth J. De Hart House, built ca. 1850, is a rare survivor of early Tottenville, an important 19th-century town on Staten Island’s South Shore. This vernacular clapboard cottage merges older local building traditions with newer Greek and Gothic Revival modes. Its doorway is an excellent example of the Greek Revival style, while the curvilinear bargeboards are expressions of the Gothic Revival. The richly ornamented 1870s front porch (which probably replaced an earlier porch) features articulated carved posts, cutwork spandrels and an exuberant railing. The entire house is substantially intact. Sharing architectural forms with other Tottenville houses, this is one of the best-preserved houses representing South Shore Staten Island’s early building traditions.

Through its succession of owners, the house has close ties to the oyster business which created the town of Tottenville. It was built as an investment on the newly laid-out Totten Street (later called Main Street) by Henry Butler, of a Tottenville family whose ferrymen and millers went back several generations. Three years later it was owned by William H. B. Totten, a grocer, and four years after that by Joseph W. Totten, a partner in an oyster-opening firm. Theodore F. De Hart, an oyster planter, was the owner of longest duration, from 1874 to 1913. 134 Main Street is one of the two oldest houses on this important Tottenville street.

DESCRIPTION AND ANALYSIS

Tottenville

Tottenville is located on the shore of the Arthur Kill near Ward’s Point, the southwestern tip of Staten Island and the southernmost point in New York City and New York State. Far from the urban culture of Manhattan, Tottenville remains a small isolated village. Across the Arthur Kill lies the city of Perth Amboy, New Jersey. South of Ward’s Point is the Raritan Bay. The village of Tottenville came into being around 1840. Its economy and culture arose from oyster fishing, shipbuilding and ship repair, and agriculture. Its trade routes with New Jersey and New York City linked it to the metropolitan region and the greater world. It became the largest town in Westfield, the historic name for this quarter of Staten Island. Even today, though encroached upon by modern suburban culture, the feeling of a small coastal town prevails with characteristics unlike any other place on Staten Island. Tottenville residents prize their isolated location.

Before There Was Tottenville

Long before Europeans arrived in the New World, Native Americans of the Lenni Lenape group of the Delaware Nation were attracted to the beauty of the elevated shoreline and the abundance of oysters growing in the Arthur Kill and Raritan Bay. Major archaeological evidence of their encampments and burial grounds has been found on Ward’s Point. By 1670 the Lenape had sold their land to European colonists and had departed from Staten Island.

Christopher Billopp, an Englishman, was the first European to settle in the area. He arrived in New York harbor with Major Edmund Andros in 1674. Andros became the Royal Governor of New York and Billopp, an officer in the British navy, was commissioned Lieutenant. In 1677 Billopp laid claim to 932 acres on Staten Island, soon thereafter building an imposing two-story stone house on the shore overlooking Perth Amboy. In 1687 he was given a royal charter for 1600 acres (including the original 932 acres) and made Lord of the Manor of Bentley. The manor would include today’s Tottenville, Richmond Valley, Pleasant Plains and part of Prince’s Bay. Although Billopp stayed on Staten Island only intermittently, his wife apparently lived in the manor house and his land was improved for farming. His grandson Thomas Farmar, who changed his surname to Billopp, inherited the manor in 1732 and lived there full time. Thomas’s son Christopher Billopp (1732-1827) lived in the stone house through much of the American Revolution (known as Conference House, a designated New York City landmark). During his ownership the house was plundered both by Hessian soldiers and American patriots and Christopher sought refuge in his father-in-law’s house nearby. The Billopp House was the meeting place for the Peace Conference held on Sept. 11, 1776. John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and Edward Rutledge met with Lord Howe. The conference was unsuccessful and the war continued. In 1782, Christopher Billopp began to sell portions of the manor. Among the buyers were members of the Totten family. In 1783 Billopp left Staten Island. Sixty years later, this area would become the village of Tottenville.

The Totten Family

John Totten (d. 1785), a weaver, was probably the first Totten to settle on Staten Island. In 1767 he purchased land on Prince’s Bay from the executors of Thomas Billopp. Local historians Charles Leng and William T. Davis say that he was an Englishman, who came to Staten Island from Westchester County.

Gilbert To

Egbertville, Staten Island

The Nathaniel J. and Ann C. Wyeth house is significant for its architectural design and for its historical and cultural associations with two important occupants. Picturesquely sited on Lighthouse (Richmond) Hill, this impressive Italianate villa, constructed around 1856 for Nathaniel J. and Ann C. Wyeth, is a fine example of the mid-nineteenth villas which once dotted the hillsides of Staten Island and are now becoming increasingly rare. Named for his uncle, the noted explorer of the Pacific Northwest, Nathaniel Jarvis Wyeth (1831-1916) was a prominent corporate attorney, state legislator, and civic leader who maintained a law office in this house. According to Staten Island historian Ira K. Morris, Wyeth named this house “Florence Home” in honor of his daughter Annie Florence who died at the age of nine.

A rare surviving masonry villa from this period when the majority of Staten Island houses were constructed of wood, this large two-and-one-halfstory house is faced with brick and is trimmed with sandstone. It was among the earliest rural residences in the Italianate style on Staten Island and displays the cubic form, low hipped roof, wide overhanging eaves supported by decorative brackets, paired chimneys with molded caps, and octagonal cupola or belvedere typical of Italianate designs. The house’s relatively narrow trabeated windows have flush stone lintels and projecting stone sills and contain historic paired wood casements. The horizontal attic windows beneath the eaves contain sliding double-lights.

In the mid-1920s, the house was acquired by opera star Graham Marr. Marr, who had studied architecture at Columbia University before embarking on his operatic career, was an acclaimed baritone who sang with a number of leading English and American companies and recorded with Columbia Records. Recently the present owner began restoring the paired brackets that had been removed from the house’s crowning cornice and installed new wood parapets above the entrance porch and at the captain’s walk.

The Wyeth House is a two-and-one-half-story cubical form brick and brownstone Italianate villa capped by a hipped roof with four brick chimneys and a central octagonal belvedere. The house has a columned entrance porch with hipped roof on the primary (western) facade which is historic although perhaps not original. The original one-story hipped roofed porch on the south side of the house has been replaced by a non-historic balustraded veranda which rests on a basement extension incorporating the old foundation walls of the old porch. The original one-story wood porch topped by a balcony on the eastern facade has also been removed. Basement areaways which originally formed a U extending about halfway along the north and south sides of the house and the entire east wall have been filled in.

Above a brownstone base, the facades are constructed of brick laid in common bond. Historic photographs suggest that the walls were painted a light color or perhaps initially stuccoed. (During various periods in the house’s history portions of the wall surface were concealed by vines.) The windows are set off by projecting brownstone sills and flush lintels. Most of the windows retain their original paired wood casement sash. The attic windows have paired sashes which slide into the recessed pockets in the walls.

A number of the windows also retain historic wood storm windows. The hardware for the house’s original louvered shutters survives but the shutters have been removed. The house is capped by a hipped roof with deep overhanging eaves which were originally supported by paired wood brackets. In recent years the roof was reshingled and a new gutter system, which currently drains on to the west lawn, was installed. Recently, the brackets were replaced on the western facade. (At the time of designation this work was ongoing with the intention of replacing all the brackets.) In 2006-07 the captain’s walk around the belvedere was rebuilt, replacing a 1920s captain’s walk, which, in turn, replaced the original balcony seen in a 1907 photo of the house. The design of the railing used for the captain’s walk and for the railing above the entrance porch (also installed in 2006-07) was inspired by the design of the wood porches that used to extend along the north and south sides of the house as seen in 1920s photos of the house.

-From the 2007 NYCLPC Landmark Designation Report