Blue Door Cottage

5286 Sycamore Avenue | also 5286Y Sycamore Avenue | Riverdale | built 1886

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. 1886

    Frederick Clarke Withers designs a Queen Anne carriage house for William S. Duke

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    William S. Duke hired Frederick Clarke Withers in 1886 to remodel his villa at 5291 Independence Avenue and to build a new carriage house and stable on Sycamore Avenue, replacing an older building shown on 1876 maps. The clapboard building has fish-scale shingles, a lantern atop its gabled roof and a front dormer. The commission notes that its 1886 building application shows it was new construction, not the remodeled 1856 structure described in the AIA Guide.

    “…the present building was designed by Frederick Clarke Withers and built in 1886 as a carriage house and stable.”

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  2. 1896

    Deeds of the High family call the carriage house the Blue Door Cottage

    John M. and Anna Dorothea High owned the old Charles W. Foster estate from 1896 into the 1930s, and their deeds referred to this building as the "Blue Door Cottage." The name came from a door on the side that served as the main way into the living quarters, while carriages rolled in from Sycamore Avenue at the front.

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  3. 1949

    Myrtie Buckner sells the Withers carriage house to Orwin and Carol King

    The High family began dividing the Foster estate in 1935, and Myrtie L. and Thomas A. Buckner Sr. were the first buyers of four of the new lots. After Thomas Buckner died in 1942, his widow kept the building until 1949, when she sold it to Orwin and Carol King.

    “After Mr. Buckner's death in 1942, the carriage house (V.2) at 5286 Sycamore Avenue was retained by Mrs. Buckner. In 1949 it was sold to Orwin and Carol King.”

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

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