Former New York Yacht Club), 30 Rylan Boulevard
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Landmarks ?reservation Commission Oc-tober 12, 1982, Designation List 160 LP-1213 McFARLANE-BREDT HOUSE (former New York Yacht Club), 30 Rylan Boulevard. Borough of Staten Island. Built c.l845. Landmark Site: Borough of Staten Island Tax Map Block 2830, Lot 49, in part, consist ing of the land which formerly comprised Lot 40. On September 9, 1980, the Landmarks Preservation Commission held a public hear ing on the proposed designation as a Landmark of the McFarlane-Bredt House (former New York Yacht Club) and the proposed designation of the related Landmark Site (Item No. 10). The hearing was duly advertised in accordance with the provisions of law. Five witnesses spoke in favor of designation. There were no speakers in opposition to designation. DESCRIPTION AND ANALYSIS The house at 30 Rylan Boulevard, known as the McFarlane-Bredt house, is an early Victorian country villa built in the early 1840s. Its site, a broad elliptical mound on Staten Island's north shore, faces northeast and commands a magnificent view across the Narrows to New York harbor. Built as private residence, it served for three years (1868-1871) as the clubhouse of the New York Yacht Club and became the second home of that organization. "-Thile headquartered in Clifton, the club first successfully defended the America's Cup, the world's foremost yachting event. The house built for Henry and Anne McFarlane, shortly after they purchased the property in 1841, was a long, low, two-story, clapboard-covered, wooden-framed cottage with brick-filled walls designed to resemble an Italian-Swiss villa, a short lived style which rose to popularity in the 1840s along with the diminutive Greek temple and the board-and-batten Gothic cottage in an era when awakening literary tastes decreed that domestic architecture should be "romantic." If an architect designed the house for the McFarlanes, he remains unknown. McFarlane himself was an early developer of Staten Island. Clifton, the location of the house, was one of Staten Island's early romantic s:uburbs. A map dated January 1846, shows the McFarlane house as originally built with a wide two-story central bay fronted by a broad veranda, facing the Narrows.l Also shown are an ice-house, a gardener's cottage, stables, two greenhouses, and a fish pond. The greenhouses are drawn as directly abutting the line of the neighboring property which had been bought, in 1844, by John H. Austen, a New York City auction eer.2 In 1846, the McFarlanes sold the land (2.7 acres) and the dwelling to Daniel Low for $9,000. In 1847, Low sold to Richard Williamson, and three years later, in 1850, Williamson sold to Henry Dibblee, of Southfield. Dibblee, a dry-goods merchant, occu pied the house until 1865 when he sold it to Almira Wolfe (Mrs. Nathaniel) for $25,000 The $25,000 purchase price ,which Mrs. Wolfe paid to Henry Dibblee in 1865 was a huge sum for that time and an indication that the property was well improved and in excellent order. Since Dibblee lived there for fifteen years, it may be assumed that he did a number of things which agded to the value of the place. He may have done a considerable amount of landscaping, and he must have been responsible for the first addition to the west end of the house which nearly doubled its size. This section featured another projecting room-end and an extension of the veranda. Great care was taken to copy exactly all of the original detailing so that the house appeared to have been built all at one time. -2- The following news item appeared on page two of the Richmond County Gazette on May 27, 1868: Real Estate Sale ~ Mr. A.B. Janin, real estate agent, 80 Wall Street, New York, has sold the property of Nathaniel H. Wolfe at Clifton, consisting of a house and three acres of land to the New York Yacht Club for $25,000. These premises are beauti fully situated on the shores opposite the Narrows, and are ad~ mirably adapted to the uses of the Yacht Club. Th.e sale is one of great importance to the Island as attracting so many people of wealth and high social position to our shores. The New York Yacht Club now numbers 450 members and it is understood that their first regatta this spring will be given from their new location. The sale was formally made to James Gordon Bennett, Jr., an officer of the New York Yacht Club, and he transferred it . to the club two months later.3 The only known picture of the house as it then looked is a woodcut which accompanied an article about the Yacht Club in Scribner's Monthly Magazine for August 1872 (see illustration). The Stevens Family of Castle Point, Hoboken, New Jersey The first clubhouse of the New York Yacht Club had been a Gothic Revival boat house at Elysian Fields in Hoboken, New Jersey, which belonged to John C. Stevens, the founder of the club, and his b~others, Robert and Edwin, who were equally well known in yachting circles.4 John Cox Stevens (1785-1857), founder of the New York Yacht Club, was a member of the prominent Hoboken, New Jersey,family of engineers and inventors who had done much to advance the mechanic arts in America. On April 11, 1803, his father, Col. John Stevens (1749-1838) had secured a patent for a multi-tubular steam boiler, and the following year Col. Stevens built a small propeller-driven steamboat named Little Juliana which was successfully taken back and forth across the Hudson River, three years before Robert Fulton built his steamship, the Clermont. In 1806, Col. Stevens designed a 100-foot steamboat named the Phoenix intending to put it into public service. However, Fulton had joined Chancellor Robert R. Livingston in a monopoly which gave them complete control over all steamboating on the Hudson River, and Stevens was forced to sell the Phoenix for use out of the area as a ferry running between Philadelphia and Trenton, New Jersey. He later was given an opportunity to join with Fulton and Livingston, but all rights to his 'inventions would have become the property of the cartel. Firm in his belief that the monopoly was unconstitutional, he declined the offer.5 Thwarted in his attempts at steamboating Col. Stevents went on to design the first American-built steam locomotive in 1825, when he was 76 years old.6 The Founding of the New York Yacht Club While railroading was still in its infancy, shipping by water was the chief means of transporting goods. Shipping companies competed hotly with one another to provide speedy service and the American clipper ships were the fastest in the world. The craze for speed extended to sailing vessels of all kinds. New York was known to have the fastest pilot boats, and American yachtsmen commissioned one yacht after another in the hope of out-distancing all challengers. Although it was the twilight of the age of sailing, the ships of that era were the fastest and the most beautiful the world had ever known. -3- On the afternoon of July 30, 1844, John C. Stevens entertained a group of nine New York yachtsmen for the purpose of forming a club. The meeting was held aboard Stevens' yacht Gimcrack, which was lying just off the Batter~ and the first recorded minutes of the New York Yacht Club are as follows: According to previous notice, the following gentlemen assembled for the purpose of organizing a yacht club, Viz: John C. Stevens .•....... Yacht - Gimcrack Hamilton Wilkes ........• " - Spray William Edgar ....•...... " - Cygnet John C. Jay .......•..... " - LaCoquille George L. Schuyler ..... " - Dream Louis A. Depau. • . .... " - Mist James M. Waterbury ..... " - Minna George B. Rollins ..... " - Petrel Capt. James Rogers ..... " - Ida On motion, it was resolved to form a Yacht Club. On motion, it was resolved that the name of the club be the New York Yacht Club. On motion, it was resolved that the gentlemen present be the original members of the Club. On motion, it was resolved that John C. Stevens be the Commodore of the Club. (He was Commodore from 1844 until 1854.) After appointing five men as a committee on rules and regulations, the members voted- as their first official function -- to make a cruise to Newport, Rhode Island, with a scheduled departure time of 9:00 A.M., Friday, August 2, 1844, and the meeting was adjourned. By mid-century, yachting had become a mania, if not a full-time occupation, with many wealthy men of the northeastern United States and England. Dedicated sailors cif great skill, they personally supervised everything pertaining to their yachts and sailed on every cruise, often spending lengthy periods away from home. Later on, yachting became quite "social" and the various clubs vied as openly w:hth their elegant balls and lavish dinners, (to which ladies were invited) as they did with their regattas. The Winning of the America's Cup Yachting, as a competitive sport, was firmly established in England in 1812 with the founding of the Royal Yacht Squadron, the most important of all yacht clubs in Great Britain. The Squadron enjoyed r .oyal favor and in 1830, and every year thereafter of his reign, William IV presented a valuable cup as a trophy to be awarded to the fastest yacht. Beginning in 1843, Queen Victoria annually provided the Squadron with a challenge cup -- popularly known as the "Queen's Cup." In 1851, England sponsored an exposition for the purpose of displaying the latest Brittish mechanical and scientific inventions and related progress in the fields of commerce and industry; and other nations were invited to provide examples of their most modern technology.