Rouse & Goldstone

Posted in The Architects | 0 comments

The architectural firm of Rouse & Goldstone was very successful in the early 20th Century, designing numerous high quality apartment houses, on both the Upper West and Upper East sides of Manhattan. They were among a select group of architectural practices with Jewish principals, including the firms of Emery Roth, George & Edward Blum, and Schwartz & Gross.

William L. Rouse was born in New York City in 1874 and died in 1963. He graduated from the Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, N.J. (where many architects of the period were educated) In 1904. His first built design in Manhattan appears to be a six-story tenement at Mulberry and Broome Streets. By the end of 1904, Rouse had formed a partnership with John T. Sloan. Early on, Rouse & Sloan mostly designed six-story tenements, although by 1906, the firm was accepting commissions for larger and more luxurious apartment houses, including the eight-story Hendrik Hudson (1906-08) at Riverside Drive and 110th Street. The two architects likely split in late 1907 or early 1908; Rouse appears to have designed the Allenhurst Apartments (1908-09) at Broadway and 100th Street, and the Peter Stuyvesant Apartments (1908-09) at Riverside Drive and 98th Street, on his own.

Lafayette A. Goldstone was born in Poughkeepsie, in upstate New York in 1876, and died in 1956. Like many architects of the period, he never received a formal architectural education, but learned by apprenticing with other established architects, starting with drawing lessons from architect William Henry Cusack as a boy. He came to New York City at the age of fifteen and worked briefly as an apprentice draftsman for Bates & Barlow. Next he joined Cleverdon & Putzel, where he remained for the next six years, ultimately rising to the position of principal draftsman. After serving in the Spanish-American War, Goldstone worked for a real estate developer and builder, primarily supervising the construction of tenements designed by George F. Pelham on the Lower East Side. Following this, he took a position with Norcross Brothers, a construction company known for its high-quality work. In 1902, when Goldstone accepted a commission from James Carlew, a former client of Cleverdon & Putzel, to design and supervise the construction of three houses on the Upper West Side, he decided to leave Norcross Brothers and open his own office. Through 1908, Goldstone designed a wide variety of buildings, including an additional apartment house on Riverside Drive, stables, a loft building, two country houses, a distillery, and one of the city’s earliest purpose-built garages, the Acton (now Monterey) Garage (1906) at 137 West 89th Street.

Rouse and Goldstone formed their partnership in 1909, and their collaborations demonstrate a facility in adapting the architectural vocabulary of the Renaissance to tall-building forms. These buildings, all designed in the Renaissance Revival or neo-Renaissance style, include the thirteen-story Riviera at 790 Riverside Drive (1909-11), which was one of the largest apartment houses in New York at the time of its completion; the twelve-story Montana Apartments (1912, but since demolished) on Park Avenue; and the nine-story apartment house at 43-47 East 62nd Street (1914-15), which earned the firm a Gold Medal from the New York Chapter of the American Institute of Architects. In 1924, the firm received one of its most prominent commissions, for the apartment house at 1107 Fifth Avenue. 1107 Fifth was designed and built for Marjorie Merriweather Post Hutton, whose townhouse formerly stood on the site. Her personal apartment occupied the top three floors of the building, and was one of the largest apartments ever built in New York. Although Rouse & Goldstone is best remembered for its opulent apartment houses, the firm designed other types of buildings, including lofts, theaters, hotels, and several country houses on Long Island. The S. Jarmulowsky Bank Building is among the firm’s finest commercial buildings, along with the Hampton Shops Building (1915) which was designed in the neo-Gothic style to harmonize with St. Patrick’s Cathedral across East 50th Street.

Rouse and Goldstone dissolved their partnership at the end of 1926. Rouse remained active until 1939, and Goldstone continued to practice until the late 1940s. Both continued to make valuable contributions after the dissolution of their partnership.

Partial List of Buildings by Rouse & Goldstone:

Murray Hill Building (1926)

1107 5th Avenue (1926)

Hotel Knickerbocker (1925)

164 East 72nd Street (1925)

151 East 79th Street (1925

141 East 72nd Street (1924)

Madison Hotel (1924)

215 West 40th Street (1924)

760 Park Avenue (1924)

270 Madison Avenue (1923)

Park Chambers Apartments (1923)

Hotel Sulgrave (1923)

Le Bourgogne (1923)

255 West 88th Street (1923)

Hotel Mela (1923)

108 East 86th Street (1923)

955 Lexington Avenue (1923)

943 Lexington Avenue (1923)

33 West 60th Street (1923)

Haroldon Court (1922)

23-27 5th Avenue (1919)

815 Park Avenue (1917)

Alexandria Apartments (1917)

872 Park Avenue (1917)

901 Madison Avenue (1917)

Ninth Federal Building (1917)

680 West End Avenue (1917)

116-120 East 27th Street (1915)

New York Health & Racquet Club Building (1915)

57 West 38th Street (1914)

755 Park Avenue (1914)

850 Park Avenue (1914)

32-34 East 31st Street (1914)

65 West 36th Street (1914)

Red Roof Inn (1913)

59th Street Hotel (1913)

161 West 86th Street (1913)

151 West 86th Street (1913)

Montana Apartments (1913)

The Brixford (1913)

31 East 32nd Street (1913)

260 Park Avenue South (1913)

11 East 26th Street (1912)

Wellwyn Apartments (1912)

23-25 Beaver Street Office Building (1912)

115 West 30th Street (1912)

Allenhurst Apartments (1912)

Sender Jarmulowsky’s Bank Building (1912)

Langdon Hotel (1911)

749 West End Avenue (1911)