History and architecture
The home of the National Arts Club represents the height of Victorian Gothic in residential architecture. It is replete with horizontal belt courses and pointed arched windows all done in contrasting colored stones while certain bands of stonework display leaves and flowers interspersed with the heads of famous authors.
The whole exterior is a scholarly recreation of that architecture so much admired by John Ruskin and so ably described in his influential book, "The Stones of Venice". The house represents the remodeling of the facades of two Brownstones, and the design is a display of Italian Renaissance elements applied to the New York town house of the period. Bay windows and other familiar elements appear in a new guise embellished with this rich detail.
These two town houses, now joined together by the Club, were originally remodeled for Samuel J. Tilden by Calvert Vaux, architect of the Jefferson Market Courthouse in Greenwich Village. They are much more restrained in feeling than the courthouse but were a striking novelty when built in the early 1870's.
Tilden will be remembered as having run for the Presidency against Rutherford B. Hayes and lost. Perhaps he is best remembered for his great library which, as the Tilden Trust along with those of Astor and Lenox, formed the nucleus of the great collection of the New York Public Library. This pair of houses, unified behind a uniform facade, is a familiar sight on Gramercy Park and has been associated with tie National Arts Club since 1906 when it moved into its present home.
Sources and further reading
This history comes from the Landmarks app’s historical catalog. Names and building uses may reflect the period described.