Daniel Leroy House

History and architecture

In the Early Nineteenth Century, St. Mark’s Place (formerly known as Eighth Street) was one of the most elegant residential streets in the City. The Daniel Leroy House is one of an entire bloekfront erected in 1832 on the south side. Three stories high, with basement and attic, it was constructed in Flemish bond brickwork, trimmed with stone, and has retained much of its original architectural detail. The arched stone entrance has a triple keystone and blocks in the enframement which are decorated with vermiculation. The impressive doorway is a good example of the late Federal style. This wide house, built during a transitional period of changing architectural styles, also shows the influence of the Greek Revival period in the pedimented lintels over the windows. They are identical with those that remain on the building next door at Number 18, and at Numbers 4, 28 and 29.

This residence is the only one of four houses built in 1832 on this block that retains its original ornately decorated iron handrails at the stoop, including low bird cag newell posts and its iron railings in the parlor floor windows. The roof cornice has been remodeled. Utilitarian doors and a plain transom replaced what must surely have been a beautiful fanlight transom. The basement level, four steps down from the sidewalk, has been converted to a restaurant and the original stone wall of the ground floor in now covered by a composition stone veneer, simulating random ashlar.

Number 20 St. Mark's Place is approximately contemporary with the Washington Square North houses of the eighteen thirties, the unique Seabury Trodwell House of 1832 and La Grange Terrace (Colonnade Row) completed only four years later. These dwellings, all within walking distance of each other, were part of New York City's most fashionable residential area before the middle of the Nineteenth Century. Daniel Leroy was son-in-law to Elizabeth (Stuyvesant) and Nicholas Fish who lived in nearby 21 Stuyvesant Street, also a Landmark.