Origin

The building at 26 West 56th Street was originally constructed in 1871 by the well-known New York architects D. & J. Jardine. It was remodeled in 1907-08 by the noted architect Harry Allan Jacobs for investment banker Isaac Seligman and then long occupied by banker E. Hayward Ferry and his wife Amelia Parsons Ferry.  E. Hayward Ferry was a prominent businessman, who served as the first vice president of Hanover Bank from 1910 to 1929. He and his wife occupied this house from 1908 to 1935.

Design

This highly intact former townhouse is an exceptionally fine example of the restrained Neo-French  Classic variant of the Beaux-Arts style and forms part of “Bankers’ Row,” a group of five residences built for bankers on West 56th Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues.

Building Details

Jacobs extended the house at the front and rear and relocated the entrance to the ground story. He created a new limestone façade and copper roof.

The building’s rusticated base focuses on a large central entry with an elegantly carved lion’s head and garlands surmounting a pair of original iron-and-glass doors. The windows at the center of the façade retain their historic paired wood casements and transoms and are accented by a stone balcony at the third story. A heavy cornice and balustrade cap the third story. The mansard roofs enhance the French character of the design.

Jacobs, who trained at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, won critical acclaim in the early decades of the twentieth century for his restrained and elegant residences, of which this house is an outstanding example.