Sutton Place Historic District

Sixteen townhouses and a shared riverside garden make up this Manhattan block, bounded by Sutton Place, Sutton Square, East 57th Street and the East River. The houses began as 1880s brownstone-fronted row houses. In 1920 a syndicate headed by architect Eliot Cross bought the block and required each buyer to sign a restrictive covenant. The covenant called for refinished front and rear walls, limited height, single-family use, shared garden upkeep and approval of exterior work by Cross & Cross. Roughly half the houses were rebuilt in refined brick Colonial Revival style, while the rest were given stucco facades recalling Italian villas. Architects included Mott B. Schmidt, William Lescaze, Delano & Aldrich, Polhemus & Coffin and Murphy & Dana. Early residents included Anne Vanderbilt, Anne Morgan and Elsie de Wolfe. The district was listed because it remains a cohesive example of the 1920s effort to replace brownstone blocks with elegant city houses, and because few such enclaves keep a communal garden. Four later houses are considered non-contributing due to age.