Kingsley carriage house

5255 Sycamore Avenue | Riverdale | built 1910

Open on the map3 entries

The lot about 1940
About 1940. Via 1940s.nyc
The lot about 1985
About 1985. Via 80s.nyc

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.

  1. 1901

    Brite & Bacon design a mansion and this carriage house for Darwin P. Kingsley

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    Darwin P. Kingsley commissioned the partnership of James Brite and Henry Bacon, best remembered for Bacon's Lincoln Memorial, to design both a large house and this carriage house on the former Stone estate. Both were built in 1901 in the Colonial Revival style. The house, which faced Sycamore Avenue, was torn down around 1929, but the carriage house remains; it was converted to residential use in the 1950s.

    “The firm's work in the Riverdale Historic District was undertaken for Darwin P. Kingsley who commissioned both a large freestanding house and a carriage house.”

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  2. 1907

    Darwin P. Kingsley, owner of this estate, becomes president of New York Life

    Vermont-born Darwin P. Kingsley edited the Grand Junction News and served as Colorado's state auditor and insurance commissioner before joining the New York Life Insurance Company in Boston in 1889. Transferred to New York in 1892, he became the company's president in 1907 and chairman of the board in 1931. He lived on this Riverdale estate until the 1910s, adding a new house, barn and stable in 1901 and a garage in 1908.

    “…becoming president in 1907 and finally chairman of the board in 1931…”

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  3. 1929

    Fire destroys the Kingsley mansion while Otto Marx owns the estate

    Otto Marx owned the former Stone estate from 1918 to 1934, and in 1929 the Kingsley mansion burned and was later demolished. The stable Brite & Bacon had designed alongside it, now 5255 Sycamore Avenue, survived. By 1936 the land was leased from the National City Bank by Mary King, and around 1946 what remained of the estate was split into six lots.

    “Otto Marx owned the estate from 1918 to 1934; the mansion burned in a fire in 1929.”

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

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