159 East 78th Street House

History and architecture

There is a charm and sparkle in the appearance of this three-story red brick house with painted stone trim at 159 East 78th Street. Standing between two other similar row houses and sharing party walls with its neighbors, this residence and its adjacent dwellings were built from one set of architectural drawings and specifications in 1861. They are in the vernacular of the period and reveal an Italianate influence in the style of the windows and especially in the modillions and ornate brackets of the cornice, crowning the residence. In uniformity of size and quality of design, this House and its adjoining neighbors add color, character and dignity to Seventy-eighth Street.

A narrow are away three steps down from the sidewalk separates the building from the property line. The slightly recessed paneled entrance door on the ground floor is enframed and enriched by a heavy rope molding. At the second floor level a stone band course, which continues on into the two adjacent houses, serves as a sill for the floor length French doors at this level. The plain lintels of the first and second floors and the cap-molded lintels of the third floor windows are identical in the three houses as is the impressive cornice which adorns this residence at the roof line.

John Turner, painter, purchased the three lots at 157, 159 and 161 East 78th Street in 1860 for $500 apiece. The houses were constructed by Henry Armstrong, a builder, who erected eleven houses on this street. In the tax assessment book for 1861, the owners were listed as Turner & Armstrong and the house was assessed for $1,800. Number 157 was bought in 1863 by Henry Shaw for $6,000, and the conveyance carried the notation that "Easterly wall of house on said lot being party wall."