56 Westervelt Avenue

New Brighton | built 1874

Open on the map3 entries

Written with AI from the source each entry cites, then fact-checked.

1. 1869

   Elizabeth and Francis Gray Hallett buy two lots and build a house, apparently to rent out

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   In 1869 Elizabeth Hallett, whose husband Francis Gray Hallett worked for the Equitable Insurance Co., bought two 25-foot lots here from the heirs of Orlando Lee; they were later combined. The three-story frame house on them appears to have been built as a rental. An 1874 map shows it with a porch across the front and two stable buildings behind, and its Second Empire mansard roof and full-width porch with turned balusters survive.

   Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

2. 1874

   Banker Ellsworth Westervelt rents the house, later shared with a bank cashier and a woolen dealer

   In the mid-1870s the Halletts' house was the home of the banker Ellsworth Westervelt. By the early 1890s it may have become a two-family house or a boarding house: besides the Westervelts, its occupants included the cashier Charles Underhill, the woolen dealer Robert Rhodes, the clerk Fred Kitchen and Cyrus Walser, then a cashier at Staten Island's First National Bank and later an importer.

   “In the mid-1870s it was the home of banker Ellsworth Westervelt.”

   Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

3. 1925

   Martin Beck runs a boarding house here with fourteen residents

   In 1910 Margaret Garr let furnished rooms here to four lodgers. By 1925 the house was Martin Beck's boarding house, home to fourteen people. Between 1930 and 1933 the Beck family put up three garages at the back of the property, none of which seems to survive.

   “Martin Beck's boarding house was the home of fourteen occupants in 1925; the Beck family added three garages to the rear of the property between 1930 and 1933…”

   Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

Nearby

• 52 Westervelt Avenue3 entries
• 60 Westervelt Avenue2 entries
• 50 Westervelt Avenue3 entries
• 62 Westervelt Avenue2 entries
• 48 Westervelt Avenue3 entries
• 68 Westervelt Avenue2 entries

All 55 buildings with stories in New Brighton