{"id":237183,"date":"2026-05-19T20:20:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-19T20:20:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/237183\/"},"modified":"2026-05-19T20:20:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-19T20:20:08","slug":"the-mary-hodson-francklyn-house-at-118-east-95th-st-a-queen-anne-style-rowhouse-with-personality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/237183\/","title":{"rendered":"The Mary Hodson Francklyn House at 118 East 95th St: A Queen Anne-style rowhouse with personality"},"content":{"rendered":"

Have you ever passed by an interesting residential building in New York City and wanted to know more about its history? In this series, Brick Underground teams up with Tom Miller, creator of\u00a0Daytonian in Manhattan,<\/a>\u00a0a blog about Manhattan buildings and other historic architecture. Each week, we run an excerpt from the Daytonian\u2019s archives with a link to the full article.<\/p>\n

By the late 1880’s, development on the Upper East Side had reached as far north as Goat Hill–presumably named because its steep slope made it unworkable for planting, but satisfactory to grazing goats.\u00a0It was also satisfactory to developers William J. and John P. C. Walsh, who in 1888 nearly filled the southern blockfront of East 95th Street between Park and Lexington avenues.<\/p>\n

Designed in 1887 by Charles Abbott French & Co., the 12 rowhouses drew mostly from the popular Queen Anne style.\u00a0The architects gave each home its own personality\u2014some fronts were red brick and ruddy terra cotta, and others cream colored brick and sandstone.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Caption<\/p>\n

The house was rented out the house into the first years of the 20th century. Renters paid $1,200 per year.<\/p>\n

Among the former was 118 East 95th St.\u00a0Its undressed brownstone basement supported three floors of red brick.\u00a0The three fully arched openings of the parlor floor wore brick-like terra cotta voussoirs, each with three keystones; the center of which were grotesque masks.\u00a0The tympana (decorative space above the door) were filled with colorful stained-glass with the street address incorporated into the design.<\/p>\n

On December 21st, 1889, the\u00a0Record & Guide\u00a0reported that William Methven Leslie had purchased three of the houses, including 118 East 95th St.\u00a0The millionaire importer\u00a0rented out the house into the first years of the 20th century, describing it as a “three-story and basement private house; 11 rooms, two baths.” Renters paid $1,200 per year.<\/p>\n

Shortly after Leslie’s death in March 1910, Marion Leslie and her daughter Mary Leslie Hodson, also a widow, moved into 118 East 95th St.\u00a0They were both wealthy socialites involved in philanthropic and charitable causes.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Marion Leslie died in the East 95th Street house on June 8th, 1920.\u00a0 Somewhat surprisingly, six months later (only half-way through her requisite mourning period), Mary married Cyril Alfred Percy Francklyn.\u00a0Her aristocratic groom was 72 years old.<\/p>\n

The house was up for sale in April 2021 for $7.5 million.\u00a0The exterior is greatly intact, although, striking stained glass of the parlor floor has been removed. Most likely at the same time, the Queen Anne sashes of the upper floors were replaced with plate glass.<\/p>\n

For more on this building and its inhabitants\u2014which included renowned artist Mark Rothko and his family,\u00a0check out the full article.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Have you ever passed by an interesting residential building in New York City and wanted to know more…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":237184,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[98,100,99,9,24,63],"class_list":["post-237183","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-headlines","tag-brooklyn-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237183","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=237183"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237183\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/237184"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=237183"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=237183"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=237183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}