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It is sometimes said that Mae West occupied the house for a time with her sister, Beverly, who is indeed listed there in a 1933 directory.
The house was converted to apartments, and in 1944 a new owner, working with the architect Harry Hurwit, extended the top floor to accommodate more units. Usually such alterations have gruesome results, but Mr. Hurwit’s work was remarkably benign. Although he sacrificed the sloping tile roof, he retained almost perfectly the intricate stone dormer.
Sometime before 2000 a later owner removed the top-floor extension, restoring the dormer and the sloping roof, substituting, however, a broad skylight for the tile. Over the last few years the old Jaros house has been dark, the windows blacked out. The current owner, who asked that his name not be used, has been returning it to a single-family dwelling.
Mr. Hurwit’s interior alterations were also unusually sensitive, and remarkable ceiling paintings, molding, trim, wood carving and other details survive. The owner said: “I’m a modernist by nature, but this thing spoke to me; it was like a wounded thing that needed healing.” The house is listed with Sotheby’s for $30 million, and the Web site shows multiple interior views (www.sothebyshomes.com/nyc/sales/0017170).
Up past 98th Street is 788 West End Avenue, a more modest house built in 1896 as part of a long-gone row. The architect, John G. Prague, developed a peculiar bow-fronted design with a recessed mansard roof. The developer and builder, Peter Brennan, lived there with his family into the 1920s.
Like the Jaros house, the Brennan house was converted to apartments, but although the exterior is in good condition, little remains inside. In 1979 it was bought by Hilario Villavicencio, who was living there. Some time later he began an unusual campaign of decoration, picking out existing exterior details in high color and adding others.
Thus, floral ornament and dragon heads are highlighted in brick red, gold and forest green. Mr. Villavicencio also took a woman’s head from a statue and mounted it on the second floor, giving her golden hair, bright red lips and a white hat.
“I try to make something alive, something different, “ Mr. Villavicencio said in a voice resonant of his native Cuba. “But some people they don’t like it; they say it looks like a circus. Hey, you can’t please everyone.”
His artistic efforts blaspheme every commandment in the preservation bible, which is why it is one of the most delicious sights on West End. But he better hurry with his latest project, which is to replace one of his dragon heads — salvaged off a school building — with a whole dragon, holding a shield and also painted, because landmark designation for West End appears to be coming in the near future.
Two blocks away, east of West End, is No. 233 West 100th Street, which went up as a private house in 1889. But it was auctioned in 1894 and became the Red Cross Hospital. On May 12, 1898, The New York Sun reported that volunteers were packing sulfur powders there for battlefield use in the Spanish-American War; the lecture that afternoon was “Bandaging.”
After the war the house was sold to the Nameoki Club, called the “little wigwam” of Tammany Hall by The New York Times in 1932. Later the ground floor was built out for shopfronts, and by the 1970s the building was occupied only by two stores, the whole a shambling near-wreck. It was soon rescued by John D. Kuhns and his wife, Rosemary, who gradually renovated it for their own residence. Over the last several years further renovation work by a new owner has resulted in a new bell-shape tower, made out of standing seam copper, a striking piece of metal work, although the original roofing was slate.
Back at 266 West End, the owner says, restoration hardware arrived unbidden on his doorstep. Some time ago someone knocked on the door and handed him a brown cardboard box, saying that it was “the wish of a dying man” that the contents be returned, having been stolen years ago.
“It was packed in newspapers from the 1970s,” the owner said, “a wild-looking bronze Neptune head a foot high that was originally on the front door — you can still see the shadow.”
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