Orchard House
5260 Sycamore Avenue | Riverdale | built 1965
Open on the map3 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.
- 1873
F.J. Ogden buys the Babcock estate and builds a stable and cottage at its foot
After George W. Knowlton went bankrupt in 1873, the Babcock estate was sold to F.J. Ogden, who put up a stable and cottage on Sycamore Avenue at the property's northwest corner; an 1876 map shows them. Fire later destroyed the stable's upper part, and in 1914 what was left became a garage. Both older buildings still stand on this lot, next to the house built here in 1963.
“…it was sold to F.J. Ogden ... an 1876 map shows a stable and cottage complex (III.2 and III.3) which Ogden had built on Sycamore Avenue…”
- 1956
Mining engineer Sanford Knapp and Lucille Gale Knapp buy the Babcock estate
Sanford R. Knapp, a Yonkers native, was a mining engineer and geologist who spent ten years with the Aluminum Company of America, then developed manganese and silver mines in Montana and founded the Taylor-Knapp Mining Company. His wife, Lucille, was the daughter of Loring R. Gale, who had bought the Atherton estate in 1907. In 1956 the couple, who already owned the Atherton and Woodworth estates, bought the Babcock estate from the Harris family. Around 1963 they split it in two and built a house for themselves on the Sycamore Avenue lot, this one.
“…it remained in the Harris family until 1956 when it was bought by Sanford and Lucille Gale Knapp, who by then also owned the Atherton (I) and Woodworth (II) Estates.”
- 1963
Jerome Robert Cerny designs Orchard House for Lucille Gale Knapp
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Lucille Gale Knapp built this house in 1963 on a terrace in a small orchard, between the old cottage and garage at the bottom of the hill and the Babcock villa above, and it became known as Orchard House. Chicago architect Jerome Robert Cerny designed it with G.R.W. Watland in a neo-Dutch Colonial style: brick veneer over a wood frame, two stories on the west and one on the east, where it is entered, and a gabled roof whose spring eave covers a two-story west porch.
“…a house built for Lucille Gale Knapp in 1963 (III.4). It was sited in a small orchard on a terrace and is known as "Orchard House.”
Nearby
- 5268 Sycamore Avenue3 entries
- Babcock Villa5261 Independence Avenue | 4 entries
- 5243 Sycamore Avenue3 entries
- 5271 Independence Avenue3 entries
- 5270 Sycamore Avenue3 entries
- 5281 Independence Avenue3 entries