Francis Keil House
381 East 165th Street | Concourse Village | built 1906
Open on the map4 entries
The city photographed every building for its tax records around 1940 and again in the 1980s. NYC Municipal Archives.
Written with AI from the source each entry cites, then fact-checked.
- 1897
Fleetwood Park, the private trotting track on this ground, runs its last race
Before any houses stood here, this corner lay within Fleetwood Park, a harness-racing track run by the Driving Club of New York from 1881 for members such as William K. Vanderbilt, William Rockefeller and Leonard Jerome. Its final race was held on October 8, 1897, and the park formally shut on January 1, 1898. The heirs of William H. Morris, who died that year, then sought to sell the land for development.
“The final race at Fleetwood Park took place on October 8, 1897, and the park was officially closed on January 1, 1898.”
- 1906
Hardware manufacturer Francis Keil buys this corner lot from developer Ernest Wenigmann
Francis Keil, senior partner of the hardware firm Francis Keil & Son, already owned No. 1060 Clay Avenue, one of Wenigmann's two-family houses, and lived there with his wife and sister. His factory sat beside the rail line on East 163rd Street, just east of Brook Avenue and a few minutes' walk away. In 1906 Wenigmann sold him this lot where Clay Avenue meets East 165th Street, on the northeast side, for a house of his own.
“In 1906 Wenigmann sold Keil the lot on the northeast corner of Clay Avenue and East 165th Street, and Keil commissioned the only single-family residence…”
- 1906
Charles S. Clark designs the only single-family house in the Clay Avenue district
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Architect Charles S. Clark drew this two-story red brick house in the neo-Renaissance style for local hardware merchant Francis Keil in 1906. It has a five-bay front on East 165th Street with a round-arched entrance inside a small brick porch, matching rounded bays on both street fronts, a pair of stained-glass windows facing Clay Avenue, and a heavy bracketed galvanized-iron cornice above a brick parapet.
- 1910
The census finds Francis Keil, 69, living here with his wife, sister and a young servant
The 1910 census listed Francis Keil, aged 69, as born in "Aust-Bohemia" and in America since 1867. He shared the house with his wife Anna, his sister Mary and Anna Hurt, a 16-year-old servant who had arrived in 1908. All three women were also recorded as immigrants from Aust-Bohemia, and the Landmarks report suggests Keil likely spoke German and came from a region of Austria-Hungary that is now in the Czech Republic.
“He lived here with his wife Anna, sister Mary, and a sixteen-year old servant, Anna Hurt, who had only been in America since 1908.”
Nearby
- 1040 Clay Avenue3 entries
- 1042 Clay Avenue2 entries
- 1044 Clay Avenue2 entries
- 1046 Clay Avenue3 entries
- The Fulton371 East 165th Street | 2 entries
- 1041 Clay Avenue3 entries