Long Island Estate Once Owned by Stern's Department Store Owner

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Sited on a high bluff along Hempstead Harbor, the Clapham-Stern House is an impressive mansion that catches the eye from any vessel sailing the water. The house is equally marvelous when approached from a long, curving drive that is purposely designed to impress the visitor when the mansion comes into view. A number of large mansions were built on large estates along the harbor and the north shore of Long Island in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries making this area a desired place to display one's success that could be visible from both land and sea. The house was also one of several properties that contributed to the creation of the Village of Roslyn Harbor in 1931 as a "Millionaire Town." The house was originally built between 1868 and 1872.

Originally referred to as the "Stone House," the mansion was constructed for Thomas Clapham according to designs provided by the architect, Jacob Wrey Mould. These designs were prominently featured in A.J. Bicknell's publication, Wooden and Brick Buildings with Details (1875). In addition to the mansion, Mould may have also provided designs for a Carpenter Gothic-style cottage that was built on the property for Clapham's mother in 1875. Beginning in 1906, New York department store owner Benjamin Stern remodeled and enlarged the main house in the French Chateauesque style, renaming it Claraben Court. Stern also added a model farm complex, decorative gardens, a bathhouse, greenhouses, a garage, and a gatehouse. Stern engaged A. Duchesne, a French landscape designer, who designed a landscape that included a reflecting pool and an elaborate wooden trellis. Although the house suffered a devastating fire in 1960, it was restored to the circa 1868 footprint while retaining as much of the historic fabric as possible. Despite the changes, the house is a remarkable survivor that still attests to the vision that its past owners and their architects had for the property.

In the 1860s, yacht designer and boat builder Thomas Clapham settled on Long Island, first in Cold Spring Harbor and later on an estate on the east side of Hempstead Harbor. Clapham was descended from an old English family whose ancestral home was Beamsley in Lincolnshire. Clapham's mother, Emma, was an American and the great-granddaughter of Andrew Ellicott, the first Surveyor General of the United States who assisted with the layout of the new city of Washington D.C. in the late eighteenth century. Clapham was also an American, born in Shelton, Connecticut in 1839.

Clapham was an avid yachtsman and owner of the Herreshoff sloop named Qui Vive. According to a local story, it was from the deck of the sloop that Clapham first sighted the bluff on the east side of Hempstead Harbor just south of Mott's Cove that he thought would be appropriate for his home. Clapham had been unsuccessful in his attempt to purchase land in Sea Cliff along the north end of the harbor and was searching for a new site. The bluff that he saw was originally part of a 150-acre proprietary grant given to Nathaniel Pearsall (1649-1703), when the Town of North Hempstead was settled in the seventeenth century. Pearsall's grant was primarily farmland, stretching between the port villages of Roslyn and Glenwood Landing. By 1837, however, the Pearsall family deeded portions of their grant. The land that Clapham was interested in was owned by Stephen Taber, who was initially reluctant to sell his property on the east side of Glenwood Road since any construction would obstruct his view of the harbor. Taber finally agreed to sell eighteen acres to Clapham in 1867 for the record sum of sum of $1,000 an acre.

Clapham believed that as the supposed heir to an estate in England, he would inherit a fortune and embarked on the construction of a comparable American estate that included one of the first major, architecturally designed residences in the Roslyn area. For the design of the estate's main house, Clapham turned to Jacob Wrey Mould, an English-born architect who had recently become an associate of Calvert Vaux and Frederick Law Olmsted. Clapham may have known of Vaux's work in nearby Roslyn with the design of the Gothic-style mill at William Cullen Bryant's estate, Cedarmere. Both Vaux and Olmsted were connected with landscape improvements at the Bryant's property and that of Bryant's daughter, known as Montrose. Clapham also had a Brooklyn residence and was no doubt familiar with the Mould's work in New York City after the architect settled there in 1852.

Jacob Wrey Mould (1825-1886) was one of the earliest and most inventive practitioners of the polychromatic High Victorian Gothic style in America whose work had a strong influence on subsequent practitioners of the style. Mould was educated at King's College in London and was a student of Owen Jones, a master of ornamental design and author of the seminal Grammar of Ornament. Mould was said to have assisted Jones with the decoration of Joseph Paxton's Crystal Palace in 1851 and additional commissions including an extensive study of the Alhambra in Spain. Mould's first major commission in New York City was the Unitarian Church of All Souls and parsonage, designed between 1853 and 1855. The prominent feature of the church was the use of alternating bands of colored stone, a technique he repeated with the design for the Clapham house. Mould became an assistant architect to Vaux and Olmsted in December 1858 and assisted with the plans for Central Park. Mould designed many of details of the park structures such as the stone carving and tile work of the Terrace and the polychrome decoration of the Music Stand. He later served as architect-in-chief for the Department of Public Parks (1870-1871) for New York City and also Lima, Peru (1875-1879). Mould was also one of the original thirteen founding members of the American Institute of Architects when they first met in 1857.

In the 1860s, Mould received two Long Island commissions that resulted in two of the first large country estates built along the banks of Hempstead Harbor. Mould designed a spacious, picturesque wooden country house for Thomas W. Kennard in Glen Cove around 1866. The house was a richly ornamented Swiss chalet-style building with irregularly placed towers, gables, balconies and verandas. In 1868, Thomas Clapham commissioned Mould to design a large granite and stone mansion for his newly acquired property overlooking Hempstead Harbor. Of the two commissions, the stone house built for Clapham was the only Long Island building to survive to the present.

Completed in 1872, Thomas Clapham's "Stone House" closely adhered to Jacob Wrey Mould's designs as they were published in A. J. Bicknell's Wooden and Brick Buildings with Details (1875). Illustrated with architectural plates, the house was described as an elaborate villa located on a projecting point on the east side of Roslyn Harbor. The house was also described as being built with rough-faced Greenwich Bastard Granite and had random ashlar work. Trim was done with stone and the house contained decorative work done with Minton encaustic tiles. Mould's design was for an asymmetrical house that contained a main block three bays wide and two-and-one-half-stories in height with a large wing to the south and a dominating five-story tower. Tall gable-roof dormers with arched windows, iron roof cresting, and tall stone chimneys enlivened the steeply pitched, slate and polychromed hipped roof. The principal thee-bay facade consisted of a central slightly projecting, full-height square bay, capped by a gabled-roofed dormer. The entrance was an arched double-leaf doorway with partial-width leaded glass lights. Paired windows with flat lintels were located in the second story while two pointed arched windows were located in the gabled roof dormer. The central bay was flanked by full-height projecting bays with windows set in arched lintels.

Having the appearance of an Italian campanile, the square tower was placed at the juncture of the facade of the main block and the large wing extending south. Capped by a pyramidal roof, the tower had large Gothic pointed windows and a surrounding balcony on the fifth story. The third and fourth floors of the tower respectively featured paired and triple-pointed arched windows. Clapham's coat of arms and the date 1868 were carved in stone and set into the tower. The two-bay facade of the southern wing contained single windows set in arched openings. While Mould's design called for an encircling piazza, historic photographs indicate that the original piazza began at the south elevation of the base of the tower, wrapping along the south and west elevations.

Mould arranged the interior of Clapham's house around a central hallway that separated a large drawing room and alcove from a dining room, pantry, corridor and library. A large billiard room occupied the entire south wing. The main staircase was a straight run stair that opened into the rear hall along the north wall while a secondary stair was located in the tower. The upstairs contained five principal bedrooms, a nursery, dressing rooms, and two full bathrooms. Mould had additional plans for a large, twelve-sided glass conservatory to be built beyond the rear or northwest comer of the main house, connecting it to the dining room and projecting west toward the harbor. A conservatory was eventually constructed but one that differed from Mould's plans as seen in historic photographs illustrating a large conservatory/greenhouse located near the end of the southern piazza.

Once the mansion was completed, Clapham was able to boast of having one of the largest and certainly the most costly showplaces to be built along one of the north shore harbors in Long Island. According to Clapham's son, Alfred, the construction costs for the house alone totaled approximately $250,000. In 1875, Clapham built a cottage for his mother on the grounds that became known as Comfort Cottage. Designed in the Swiss chalet style, the small dwelling bears some resemblance to Mould's Kennard house in nearby Glen Cove and may also have been designed by Mould.

From 1878 to 1910, Thomas Clapham devoted his life to designing and building yachts, including the Roslyn Yawl, a modified New Haven "Sharpie." Clapham was credited with inaugurating a modern class of shallow draft scows used primarily on inland waters. Many yachting experts considered these scows to be the fastest single-hull sailboats in existence. Despite these successes, Clapham lost his fortune in the 1880s when his promised inheritance failed to materialize. Another heir appeared who had claims to Clapham's English estate through the right of primogeniture, leaving Clapham with a tremendously expensive mansion and grounds and little means of support. In 1885, he moved into Comfort Cottage and sold a one-third interest in the house to Ephraim Hines, who operated The Bryant School, a military educational institution for boys. The school failed and Dr. Valentine Mott, a New York physician purchased the property who in turn sold it to Benjamin Stern in 1906 who renamed the estate Claraben Court.

Stern was a successful businessman who operated a large department store with his brother Isaac in New York City and owned valuable real estate in Midtown Manhattan. He was born in Albany, New York in 1857. After finishing his schooling, he joined his three brothers in New York City where they had established a small specialty shop in 1867 that eventually grew into one of the city's largest and best-known department stores known as Stern Brothers or Sterns. When he bought the former Clapham estate in 1906, Stern was looking for a "suburban" home away from the busy city but one that was close enough to commute. He began making changes to the house, adding a north wing and remodeling the roof and piazza to reflect the Chateauesque style. Records indicated that Stern relied on the advice of a French architect and landscape designer, possibly Achille Duchene who was responsible for the restoration of the gardens at the Chateau de Courances and the new water gardens at Blenheim Palace in England.

Stern's transformation of the dwelling was characteristic of the age when wealthy Americans found architectural inspiration in European models. In addition to European influences, Stern may have felt compelled to have an estate that equaled the grandeur of the recently built "Harbor Hill", a Stanford White designed mansion for Clarence and Katherine Alexander Duer MacKay, also built along the shores of Hempstead Harbor. The MacKay residence was a large, opulent Louis XIV French chateau constructed of limestone. Like many of his neighbors, MacKay attempted to turn Harbor Hill into a working estate by using part of the land as a farm and built the necessary support buildings. Harbor Hill was demolished in 1947 but some of the farms buildings survived.

While the main block of the Clapham-Stern house remained intact as to its original form, Stern and his architect made extensive changes to the exterior decorative scheme. Many of the details Stern used in his remodeling plans reflected White's Harbor Hill designs of the doors, dormers and roof line. The two-story bay windows flanking the front entrance were replaced with shallow square bays and the round-headed and pointed windows were replaced with square windows. The entrance bay, which originally extended a full three stories terminating in a gable, was decreased in height to the level of the cornice. The former central gable and flanking gable-roofed dormer windows were replaced with elaborate dormers. Copper ridge caps replaced the decorative iron cresting along the roof ridge and a large copper cornice and built-in gutter covered the original frieze. Stern replaced the original piazza with a tiled terrace to the south of the south wing and wrapped a classically-inspired porch with Doric columns around the south and west elevations, following the lines of the original piazza. The tower appears to be the only exterior element that Stern did not alter.

The greatest change to the exterior of the house was the construction of a large three-story, three-bay wing that was added to the north elevation. Constructed of the same Greenwich granite, the wing complemented the original house, although there were no contrasting stringcourses. The roof of the north wing contained three dormers that matched the redesigned dormers on the main house and a series of round windows just below the roof ridge. The large north wing accommodated a new dining room, butler's pantry, and maid's room.

Comparing the circa 1868 floor plans of the house with ones printed in 1936 of Claraben Court revealed that Stern made interior changes as well. The first-floor main staircase was reconfigured from the straight-run stair adjacent to the main hall to a flowing curved staircase, finished with a substantial iron and brass railing. Stern also added a new set of oak entrance doors and a vestibule partition incorporating a secondary set of wrought iron doors. Stern also removed north wall of the drawing room, creating an open space reflective of the Great Halls of European manor houses. The focal point of the room became the new, large hooded Renaissance-style fireplace installed in the south wall. Stern had other classical elements added to the room such as a dentilled cornice and square and round columns defining the space. Stern changed the original billiard room into a "salon", installing French-inspired oak paneling and a black marble mantle. Few changes were made in the upper floors with the exception of adding several bathrooms and creating a primary north-south corridor. New bedrooms, dressing rooms and bathrooms were added with the construction of the north wing. A secondary staircase was also located in the north wing to facilitate circulation of the staff. Two sun decks were accessible from the primary bedrooms: one over the southern piazza and one over the gabled-roof entrance porch to the west. The third or attic story was finished with additional bedrooms, staff rooms, and utility spaces.

Stern also had changes made to the grounds of the estate with the assistance of his landscape architect, who laid out new elaborate formal gardens, walks, terraces and vistas. South of the southern wing where Mould had planned a glass conservatory, Stern had a sunken garden installed around a long, oblong reflecting pool. An impressive backdrop was created by a large trellis supported by Ionic columns that were embellished with classical urns and a curved cornice and frieze. Rose and cutting gardens were placed south and east of the main house. Stern's wife Madeleine used these gardens and the piazza as settings for a number of social events that ranged from garden parties to theatrical presentations. Stern also expanded the grounds to 23 and one-half acres and included a model farm complete with a dairy barn, creamery, silo, chicken houses, greenhouses, and staff dwellings.

As part of improvements to the grounds, Stern had an imposing entrance of granite pillars and iron gates erected on Glenwood Road. He also had a granite gatehouse built, located just southwest of the entrance. Stern also planned for his commute to New York City by having a stuccoed ten-car garage added on Glenwood Road that had second-floor apartments for housing for his chauffeur. Both buildings were constructed in the Chateauesque style to complement the main house. Stern's expansion of the house and the estate made Claraben one of the premier properties in northern Nassau County. In 1931, Stern and several of his neighbors with comparable estates met at the Engineers Club, a country club located directly across from Stern's property. The purpose of the meeting was the incorporation of a millionaire village, part of a growing movement of wealthy property owners to "rid themselves of the burden of supporting larger villages and towns." The incorporation of the new Village of Roslyn Harbor took place shortly after in 1931.

Both Benjamin and Madeleine Stern died in 1933. At the time of his death, the total value of the estate was placed at slightly less than $3,000,000. The contents of Claraben and the Stern's apartment on Park Avenue were sold at auction in 1934. The value of the estate was disbursed through cash legacies to sixteen charities and several, friends, nieces, and nephews. In 1937, Claraben was sold and resold again in 1943 to Dr. and Mrs. Wendell Hughes. The Hughes kept the building intact to the way the Sterns had left it, and renamed the property "Wenlo" for their first names, Wendell and Louise. In 1960, the house was severely damaged by a major fire that all but destroyed the north wing added by Stern and the attic story. Following the fire, the house was abandoned and open to vandals and the weather.

In 1963, the Hughes undertook the renovation and restoration of the house, restoring some details from Clapham's period and changing some of Stern's alterations as well. The extensive damage from the fire required the removal of the remnants of the north wing, leaving only the basement level intact. The heavily damaged roof was also in need of replacing. The decision was made to return to a design that reflected the mid-nineteenth-century appearance of the house. All the remaining dormers were removed and a new, steeply-pitched hipped slate roof was built, but without the decorative polychrome state work of the original design. Extensive damage to the tower required the removal of the upper two stories for stabilization and a simpler, high-peaked roof was added. The bracketed cornice was completely restored and all interior work restored to reflect the Stern era.

Over the years, the twenty-three and one-half acres once owned by the Sterns was subdivided and sold in the face of economic and development pressures. In 1967, Mr. and Mrs. Frederick Freese purchased the property, which they sold in 1993 to Mr. and Mrs. Michael Capanegro. When Mr. and Mrs. Isaac Schlesinger purchased the property in August 2002, slightly over two acres were left of the original estate. The Schlesingers have dedicated themselves to continuing a thorough and sensitive restoration of the main house. They recognize the importance that the house and remaining grounds represent for the Village of Roslyn Harbor and the need to preserve the last remaining example of the work of Jacob Wrey Mould in Long Island.

Building Description

Also known as Wenlo, the Clapham-Stern House is located on a lot of approximately two acres on the west side of Glenwood Road (Shore Road) in the Village of Roslyn Harbor. The village is located to the east of Hempstead Harbor in the Town of North Hempstead in Nassau County, New York. The house rests on a steep wooded bluff with vistas of Hempstead Harbor to the west and Mott's Cove to the north. The house is a large stone mansion originally designed in the High Victorian Gothic style by Jacob Wrey Mould and remodeled into the French Chateau style in the early twentieth century. Originally referred to as the Stone House, the mansion was constructed between 1868-1872 for Thomas Clapham, a boat builder and active member of the Brooklyn Yacht Club. The property was later turned into a premier estate by department store owner Benjamin Stern who purchased the house and grounds around 1906. In 1943, Dr. and Mrs. Wendell Hughes acquired the property containing the main house and bathing pavilion and re-named the estate, Wenlo. Following a major fire in 1960, the Hughes returned the main house to the High Victorian Gothic style and its original footprint, retaining as much of the original fabric as possible. The current property contains the main house (ca. 1868-72) and a bathhouse (ca. 1920). There is also a more recent atrium attached to the house and a lower-level garage.

Facing east, the Clapham-Stern House is an asymmetrical two-and-one-half-story dwelling resting on a full basement. The main house faces east-southeast, allowing the rear of the property to have views of the harbor. The house overlooks a large terrace that originally contained a reflecting pool, presently in use as a swimming pool. A simple, one-story bathhouse with a hipped roof is located directly below the main house at the base of the steep cliff and is accessible by a series of steeply pitched wooden steps. The bathhouse also faces northwest. Historically, the Clapham-Stern property consisted of approximately twenty-three acres of woodland, landscaped grounds, and formal gardens but has been reduced to slightly more than two acres when the estate was divided into ten separate lots and sold in 1937. At that time, a cottage, greenhouse, gatehouse and garage were separated from the property. Although the buildings survive, they are owned by separate private interests but still convey the appearance of the historic estate when viewed as an ensemble.

Access to the property is from Glenwood (Shore) Road along the original curving driveway southeast of the main house. The heavily shaded drive passes through a formal entrance gate of Greenwich granite stone piers and passes by a former gatehouse. The drive continues through a meadow before curving into a rectangular-shaped formal entrance court defined by stone balustrades interspersed with ornamental urns. Stone balustrades, steps and walkways define the garden and pool terraces located south and west of the main house. The remaining acreage is to the north along Mott's Cove and primarily consists of woodland. The property is essentially pie-shaped with the main house located in the western portion.

The footprint of the Clapham-Stern House reveals a main block with wings to the north and south, a tower, and a piazza wrapping around the south and western elevations. The exterior is rough-faced gray Greenwich granite with lighter-colored limestone belt courses and string courses. The moderately-pitched hipped roof of the main house is covered with slate and copper cresting, as is the pyramidal roof of the tower. A large interior chimney rises from the north side of the main block. A wide cornice above a frieze of alternating curved brackets and rectangular panels encircles the entire house and the tower. All windows are set in limestone surrounds with either arched or flat lintels.

The east elevation is composed of the principal three-bay elevation of the main block with a two-bay wing to the south and a three-and-one-half-story tower located at the juncture of the main block and the south wing. There is also a one-story modern conservatory-type structure attached to the north. Both the two-story south wing and the tower are set back. A central, double-leaf entrance is set in the main block and has an elaborate limestone surround with a slightly curving, arched opening and two large cast iron lanterns. The two oak entrance doors have partial-width leaded glass windows over decorative panels with molded woodwork. There is a small, limestone balcony over the entrance with paired casement windows on the second floor. The windows flanking the entrance are paired French doors with two-light, arched transoms flanking the main entrance. The second floor of the set back south wing also has casement windows set in rectangular limestone surrounds while the first floor has French doors with two-light transoms located in surrounds surmounted by keystones. The tower is most visible from this elevation and features arched windows set in limestone surrounds with decorative keystones. The tower windows on the first and second floors are casement windows while the third floor contains paired, one-over-one double-hung sash windows. A limestone plaque with the date 1868, the initials TC and the Clapham family coat-of-arms is located between the cornice and the third-floor windows.

Both the north and south elevations are small when compared to the east-west elevations but show a fair amount of detail and attention to design. The south elevation of the main house is comprised of a full-height bay window with casement windows on the second floor and French doors with two-light transoms set in arched surrounds with keystones on the first floor. A piazza wraps around the west and south elevations. The south elevation is three bays across from the wall plane with an extension to the south along the east forming an 'L' shape. The piazza is open to the eastern elevation where the foundation is on grade. A balustrade is located on the western side of the piazza where the foundation is elevated from the terrace.

When viewed from bayside, the piazza dominates the western side of the house, running the full width of the elevation. A full-height bay window is centrally located. Directly in front of the bay window, the roof line of the piazza is broken by a projecting gable end roof entrance with a wide sweep of steps providing access to the rear lawns or to the main house. A flat-roof sun deck with decorative cast iron railings rests atop the entrance gable. Access to the sun deck is from the second-story center window of the projecting bay. Windows on the west elevation follow the same configuration as the rest of the house, with the upper-story casement windows set in plain surrounds and the first-floor windows set in arched surrounds with keystones. Many of the windows on the western elevation include lead and stained-glass panes and panels.

Iron steps provide access to the stone terrace on the north side of the house. The two-bay north elevation of the main block contains casement windows and a full-height bay window to the right. A large square-shaped terrace is located adjacent to the north elevation of the main block and is actually a first-floor remnant of the large wing that was added to the house in 1906. This wing was destroyed by fire in 1960 and only the basement level of the wing remains. A newly constructed one-story oval-shaped conservatory is located on the eastern half of the terrace and includes a granite entrance bay connecting to the main block. Stone steps lead to a small, balustraded terrace and an arched, wood-paneled single-leaf entrance. Presently, the basement of the 1906 wing is still used as a garage and workshop space.

Recently, the interior of the house was restored to its 1906 appearance with the exception of the kitchen in the north section of the first floor. The main entrance of the east elevation leads to a small vestibule defined by interior wrought iron doors. Passing through the arched opening, the original (ca. 1906) grand, curved staircase with its iron and brass balustrade dominates the rear hall. The drawing room is immediately to the south of the hall, through a columned opening. The focus of the drawing room is a large Renaissance-inspired fireplace. The large fireplace opening is flanked by two columns with ornately carved capitals. The mantle resembles a multi-layered cornice with a ribbon-carved band in the lower portion and two rows of dentils near the top. A massive, hooded, stone overmantle also features ornate decorations on the mantle end. The whole fireplace is flanked by two floor-to-ceiling pilasters with highly decorated capitals. The south wing is accessed from the drawing room and contains the library that is exceptionally intact from Stern's 1906 renovation. The entire room is finished in dark oak with paneling that completely covers the wall. Details include fluted ionic pilasters between recessed French doors, a modillioned cornice and arched alcove bookcases. The black marble mantle, cast iron fireback and gilt overmantle in the library all date from 1906.

The current dining room in the northwest corner occupies the same location as Clapham's dining room, although this room was later used by Stern as a "gentleman's smoking room." The kitchen, located in the northeast room, dates from 1963, created in the current first floor space following the 1960 fire. The kitchen that serviced the house was originally located in the basement and was suspected as the source of the 1960 fire. The second-floor service stair and the pantries between the kitchen and the dining room were also installed in 1963. The secondary entrance and the conservatory, located on the northern terrace just off the kitchen, were added in 2002. On the second floor, the distribution of rooms is largely unchanged from the 1906 period, although some bathrooms have been converted to dressing rooms and additional closets have been installed. The principal bedrooms still open into the north-south hallway.

Nearly hidden in brush along the shoreline is another building added during the Stern era. A largely intact bathhouse dates from ca. 1920 and is a simple, one-story frame dwelling with a hipped roof crowned by a diminutive cupola. The western elevation or facade features an entrance gable dormer and a single-leaf entrance flanked by small six-over-six double-hung sash windows. The north elevation has two single-leaf entrances and the south elevation has two double-hung sash windows. The bathhouse contains a total of nine changing rooms.

East Elevation of main house, looking west from the meadow (2004)

West elevation of main house, looking east from garden/pool (2004)

Library/drawing room, former billiard room (2004)

Main stair (2004)

North and west elevations of bathhouse (2004)