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HomeMy WebLinkAboutRound and About A Brief Account of Who was Who and What was What 1/1/1984 ROUND AND ABOUT A Brief Account of Who was Who and What was What by Judith Doolin Spikes W kF £ y> �: ,xa+ ,.. k> , I Larchmont Historical Society Series: Number 1 ROUND AND ABOUT by Judith Doolin Spikes Larchmont Historical Society Larchmont, New York 1984 ROUND AND ABOUT The hero of the best-selling novel Time and Again isolates himself • in the Dakota Apartments in the mid-20th century and by means of self-hypnosis regresses nearly 100 years.If we could sit in Fountain Square today and wish ourselves back into the 1890s,what would we see? We would probably first be struck, as was the hero of Time and Again, by what we could not see—by what had"disappeared."Upon incorporation in September 1891,Larchmont had no electricity,no indoor plumbing, no paved streets, no central heating, no auto- mobiles, no village government, and few year-round residents. Fountain Square had no fountain and it was not square—it was,in fact, called"Circle Park" Rather than sitting on a bench under towering trees gazing at the neoclassical Mermaid's Fountain, we would be ankle deep in a marsh surrounded by a rutted carriage road with scarcely a tree in sight The Colonial Revival house now at 20 Linden would have recently been built for Edwin W. Morse—but built on the present site of St John's Church. On the 20 Linden site in 1891 stood All Saints Episcopal Chapel. Each building was moved to the other's site in 1893,when the Morse property was purchased for St John's parish. Morse was editor of The Book Buyer, a periodical published by Scribner's.Locally,he was a member of the executive committee for incorporation and a member of the first board of trustees of the village. There were no other buildings on Linden in 1891,so Dr.William Bullard's cottage at 31 Prospect would be plainly visible. Dr. Bullard,secretary of the New York County Medical Society,was the first health officer of the Larchmont Board of Health,established in Copyright© 1981, 1984 by Judith Doolin Spikes 1892. Under the direction of his wife Frances, the house served as This is a revised version of material originally published in the Larchmont's first library.Until her death in 1917,Mrs.Bullard ran a Mamaroneck Daily Times on September 25,26, and 27, 1981 on the rental library as a benefit for her favorite charity, the Stony Wold occasion of the 90th Anniversary Celebration of the incorporation of Sanatorium in the Adirondacks. She also hosted the Red Cross The Village of Larchmont Auxiliary here during the Spanish-American War.At the time of her death, Mrs. Bullard was eulogized as "a kindly co-worker, loyal friend, and considerate neighbor." The west side of Fountain Square stood vacant until the spring of 1893,when Dr. Edward Bliss Foote erected a rental cottage at 3 E. Founded in 1898 by Mary Hull and Grace Huntington, the Fountain Place.At the time,it attracted much attention by the use of private Manor School for Girls was peripatetic before finally settling "Pompeian brick arches"to support the veranda,and was known,in down in Campbell's cottage(4).It had at its height 70 students,some the days before the streets were numbered,as"The Arches."Its first of them boarders, and 13 teachers. Charles Ferrall, whose aunt occupant was Joseph X Arosemena,son of a Colombian diplomat attended the school,recalls that"young ladies were sent all the way Directly behind"The Arches,"facing on Circle Avenue,was the from Alabama to'Miss Hull's finishing school'" first fire department engine house.This was soon joined by the first Also visible along Prospect in the early 1890s would be two more village hall, installed in "the private school building" presumably of Dr. Foote's rental cottages,which survive at 20 and 18 Prospect erected by the Larchmont Manor Company but never used for its Avenue.By 1894,20 Prospect had become the regular summer home intended purpose (1). Both structures were removed in 1923 and of Eustis L. Hopkins of New York City. Hopkins later took up later replaced by the existing Normandy-style residence at 46 permanent residence in Larchmont, was village president for Circle. several years before moving to Locust Valley in 1922,and is credited Across the street from the fire house was a building owned in with the inauguration of some of the first permanent highway 1893 by Frederick Flint and William Murray, principals of the by improvements. then defunct Larchmont Manor Company. It was almost certainly In a nostalgic letter printed in the Larchmont Times in 1935, the same as the blue house now standing at 44 Circle,then used as a Hopkins wrote,"It has been a great pleasure to me to remember that rental cottage or possibly as an office for the Larchmont Horse while I have always been a Republican and was originally Railway Company(2). nominated as President by the Republican Convention,which was Looking south from Circle Park in 1891 we would have seen the the system then in force, I was nominated the next term by the home of William H.Campbell,an early builder,realtor,and electric Democratic Convention and endorsed by the Republican,the next railroad entrepreneur(3). Described in his 1906 New York Times year nominated by the Republican and endorsed by the Democratic obituary as"the father of Larchmont,"Campbell was the contractor and the next time nominated by the Democratic and endorsed by for most of the stone foundations in the Manor, and was also the the Republicans." builder of the Larchmont Reservoir. According to an early, but Hopkins first ran in 1904,which was the first time,according to a anonymous, Larchmont historian, "before its incorporation the contemporary article in the New York Sun, that Larchmont had a village was in the hands of one person, Superintendent Campbell, political contest over the annual election of village officers.Hopkins who acted as constable, fire warden, postmaster, and directed all was the"establishment"candidate, opposed by William C. Figner. other necessary services." Another eye-witness recalled that The"Fignerites,"the Sun reported in the inimitable journalistic style "Campbell was the local boss.If one wanted anything from coal or of the day,"say that the people on the north side of the Boston Post wood to real estate, you had to consult Campbell. He usually Road have risen against the Manor, to take the rule of the village delivered the goods." away from the Larchmont Yacht Club and to elect a board of village A childhood friend of Frederick Flint and a Larchmont resident fathers who will not wear evening clothes and crush hats to board from 1883,Campbell was a member of the first board of trustees and meetings." was elected village president in 1902. His large Queen Anne-style As it turned out, Hopkins won—and the rest of his running cottage occupied the east side of Prospect Avenue between Maple mates with him—which probably proves that in 1904 there were still and Cedar; the main part of the house was torn down in 1936 and more votes south of the Post Road than north of it In the early'90s, replaced by the neocolonial-style residence now at 23 Prospect however,even this area was sparsely settled,with only four buildings Avenue. The 1906 rear addition survives, however, at 5 Maple on Fountain Square itself,one to a side,and four more visible in the Avenue; from 1906 to 1924, it housed the first school in the near distance.We could also have seen a row of maple saplings,four village. to six feet tall,growing along the edges of the facing streets,William Campbell's stately elm that succumbed to elm blight in 1893, and perhaps some remnant not yet ditched or filled-in of the freshwater stream that once ran through Circle Park and down along Prospect or Grove to empty into Horseshoe Harbor. r 3 {� --. • P1 ,; - Following what may have been the course of the stream along 8 ? ' Prospect, we would cross the horse trolley tracks on Cedar, the ,,, � ,1r � .: terminus of which was one block west, at Cedar and Grove(5). By *f f i.-4 j • t_ q 1893, on our left we would see Elizabeth O'Connor Chatterton's : f _ 1t- �55 ' � - "l, f Belvedere Hotel(now the Manor Inn),brand-new and resplendent „may `£- _ 4 ,, in its dress of fancy shaped shingles and caps of conical-roofed turrets (6). Turningright from Prospect onto Magnolia,we come to one of I f f �I , __ �� ")) the Murray rental cottages at 40 Magnolia. This is a typical Stick- ' �� _ — - style cottage which has been painted and slightly altered to give it a � • � - F 7 ,v colonial look The magnificent oak in its backyard that passed awayIliiimins A 0 �. • about 1974 was already a landmark in 1893. In that year Charles 4 ;� Murray moved a cottage from Park Avenue to a site"on Prospect <, a� .f between Cedar and Magnolia and near the great oak"It is possiblein , , ". �. that this is the same cottage. It was enlarged in 1894 and sold to - } u ! U. .,., Captain Isaac H. West in 1898. � -° Next door at 46 Magnolia is another Murray rental cottage,built • . , between 1872 and 1881.It was renovated in 1891 by its new owner, 0. � �� Elbridge H.White of New York City,and enlarged by the addition of a third story and double-decker porches on three sides. It has � .' m f mil and ever since remained inthe same aunchanged, Y essentially On the opposite side of the street was William Campbell's ' '° second house, now 8 Prospect Avenue, whose bargeboards and = E -�� - � porch trim proclaim its kinship with several other houses elsewhere -- \ )' m the Manor. Also opposite the White cottage in the 1890s was I �` to � "' W another Murray rental cottage,which remains at 43 Magnolia but is s > much altered from its original appearance. <F a t Larchmont National Bank founder J.H. Sterling's cottage on ,`.- y, Magnolia at the corner of Grove has been replaced by a building of early 1960s construction, but Roger Lamson's cottage across the street,now 50 Magnolia,remains.Lamson,a New York City hosiery merchant, added a wing and extended the veranda in 1893.Today, after the removal of the porch and the addition of a metal tile roof,it - 1 is scarcely recognizable as a 19th-century house. No other structure of the early'90s appears until we reach Beach J rr y 9`! ..,.q•r'"r` * S * }yp' " \'n _ 2 • ::,' ''.....,:e'''', '''''''' ''N'''''.., •"i' ,.,•••4,.. „,„ .., ,„:::„„,,,, „„ „ J. „,,,,,,,,. . • •••••","""„..,,,,,,„.„,„,,.,,,,,,..„ ., _ ,, ,,, ., ,.,"„, •,,,,;,„ii;:,„"tbr., ..-.,,:vp, •••:•E,,,,,,-,I::,,,,,,,,,,:. .•:•:, .. . , „:„..„.,:,,,,.„:„„.,,,,*„,,,„..„:„.:• •• -.::,,,,,,,,:.---'-: � Syt36.m a ." ,y'a ° `." a ...,„:„.„,,,,,„, ,,, ,,p,,,,..„.• :,,,,,,,,", ...; ..:.,,„.,,,,.....,,,,,„„,„„:,..: „ .•.,:,..,....• ......,„„,.., :, :,,;•„:, ,.„,4' -<''''•,..' 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"..r5";:E.N,:..=F.::�r-.<::f,��e::,5°.v::i:...:.�.. ��.i'%'9 n� b: ....r �iY,�m • '.air. ..............:.:.:::5.:<:::....,..... x..:»55:. ...yx.wve.y �' , a .r< ....... .........!.,.is :.. .....�.......• .. .... ...... .:..fin..:.,... t .::.:.,.:.. «v : ::: Figure 5. Figure 7. "�. .. ....... .. ... ..:.:..."::.........."... ,,,,,,,,,5„:...,..„.„..,.,::::::.:.:..:..„,,..„,,,::.. . .......„,„,,. :.. „........„ ,„. .%.,.....:..,.,. :.:.„ , , , , , . , M Ai., �,�p x;tee, " .fig ,. : +d ' '..-:4'"'. ,..,e.,:......, :, ,:..., , , :,;.,., lx S ill • ' g iliiir 4,!:.,::„iing!!!!!,,,k....i7....t!..,.:,::-.! :i.g..,,,,,,,:;:..,::.;:„ .',,,t efiit... ::......i4;.;.:::iti.;1,].;H,.:.. ..*.: ..io...1,:, +s"o .0: •:<,,.'.'',?:,2,iir:bi:'•••• ic,•:::::.,"•;S'k•--„...Ailtilliwkiio*,., :::.::.• i•, Figure 6. Figure 8. < ::,••:.,.,,'!"• -.• it i,iiiii 4-lit • 'illirl.?:',.. ' . , ' ''''' . '''. i t :i ' '''' '''''''" ......::. '< . 1 r fit a a may. �%'0�' r 4a." ,e ,,,,, , A � g i � °, v ,ate- P Figure 9. Figure 11. .x • $gr',. ..• ., , v.,.‘,,,.. 1 ,. ,�, /1114' " ,. s tit e + ilt Figure 12. Figure 10. 1 Avenue.Here at 25 Beach is the Stick-style Francis M.Scott cottage, which originally must have been a near twin of the Murray cottage at 40 Magnolia.Its roof was raised in 1896 and the third floor added. Scott—Mrs. Bullard's brother, by the way—bought the property in 1886. A native of New York City, Scott served as justice of the Appellate Division of the New York State Supreme Court, as chair ; of the Charter Revision Commission of New York City, and as corporation counsel under two New City mayors.A member of � ' the Aqueduct Commission, Scott himself ran for mayor of New York City as the candidate of the People's Municipal League but d �� `: was defeated by the Tammany candidate, Hugh J. Grant -: . Diagonally across from the Scott cottage, at 62 Magnolia,is oneg of several impressive cottages built by Helena Flint, the regal and very independent spinster daughter of Larchmont Manor Company founder Thompson J.S. Flint. Across the street from Miss Flint's cottage, at 22 and 18 Beach, are two more houses of late 1870s or Figure 13. early '80s construction. The 18 Beach house, amansard-roofed Second Empire Victorian.that looks as if it had been drawn by Charles Addams, was bult for James Lewis, long a member of Augustin Daly's stock company(8).With John Drew, Mrs. George H.Gilbert, and Ada Rehan,Lewis was one of the"Big Four"of the company. Three years before Lewis's death in 1896, the house was sold to Edith St Clair Payson, sister of man-about-town Mayhew �� Wainwright Bronson. ;;Siii.: :.,;.:',%Kt'-„,,A,` • _ A lifelong bachelor,Bronson always resided with his sister, and m her house has become known by his name.. ame.A man of independent q -, means, he sometimes worked for his brother-in-law's varnish manufacturing company in New York City, and he always worked „, � �r for civic improvement in Larchmont z " In his early youth, Bronson concentrated on volunteer fire �. �� �„ f � � � �p department activities, in New York City as well as in Larchmont,� � where he long served as fire chief In middle age, he turned his �� a L z � azf attention to the establishment of a public park on the land donated a for that purpose by Helena Flint,and today in Flint Park there is a • rock dedicated to his memory.He also was an early promoter of the Boy Scouts of America and he founded the local troop.His interests F • continued to evolve, and he took an active part in Free Masonry throughout the Northeast and founded the Larchmont lodge.At his '� death in 1936 at the age of 72, Bronson had for 30 years been� ,� treasurer of the Society for the Relief of Poor Widows with Small Figure 14. Children. one of the six original cottages erected by the Larchmont Manor Across the street from the Lewis-Bronson cottage,at 6 Helena,is Company in 1872. It was first occupied by the family of Frank Towle, a civil engineer and surveyor who moved in July 8, 1872. In another Second Empire charmer,now doubled in bulk and bereft of its porch but still outstanding. Built for his own use by New York an interview printed in the New York Evening World in 1922, Mrs. City housebuilder Hartley Haigh between 1873 and 1881, it Towle recalled that"the Manor was treeless in those days but for a remained the summer home of the Haigh family for 50 years(9). • grove of cedars in the present Manor Park and a few lonely oaks and Facing the Haigh cottage at 9 Helena but now nearly concealed elms. The land between Beach and Circle Avenues from Willow by foundation plantings gone to glory is the Charles Hubbard Avenue to the waterfront was a marsh. A stream of water ran cottage, whose roof line, brick foundation, and other surviving through this and rippled down the present route of Park Avenue details suggest that when first built it may have closely resembled the into the Sound near our bathing beach."The ditching draining,and Stick-style cottages of Scott and Murray. filling of all that marshy land,the planting of trees,and the erecting Continuing along Beach Avenue to the foot of the hill where it of cottages was being vigorously carried out in the '90s, and the joins Park Avenue,we pass on our left the carriage house of the Amy existing landscape was very largely laid down at that time. Another of the original Manor Company cottages survives at 108 Crocker Gouraud mansion. The mansion, erected in 1904, is now Park Avenue (11). It closely resembled the Gingerbread House . the Larchmont Shore Club,and the carriage house was converted to before it underwent a vigorous remodeling in the 1920s by its new a residence in the early 1920's by architect,automotive inventor,and owner,James B.Allison.It is known as the Kate Claxton cottage,for professional eccentric Charles B.King,who named it"Dolfincour." its original owner.Miss Claxton,whose real name was Maude Cone, The converted carriage house boasts bells cast in France that play was also a member of the Augustin Daly troop. Her most famous arias from Carmen, and the panels on the main door are from the role was that of Louise, the blind girl in The Two Orphans(1874), a William K Vanderbilt mansion in New York City.It is best known French melodrama that served as the basis for D.W. Griffith's today as the inspiration for Jean Kerr's best-selling Please Don't Eat Orphans of the Storm the Daisies, but in the 1890s we would have seen nothing here but a As we head east along Park Avenue,we may give thanks that this fresh-water pond.The pond is no longer visible,but it must be down is not really 1891, for if it were, from here on we would have rough there somewhere,nourishing the enormous weeping willow,only 17 going.When"permanent improvements"on Park Avenue between , years old, seen on the left as we climb the hill. Grove and Larchmont Avenue were begun in 1917, the local Although the Queen Anne tower house at 1 i 8 Park Avenue does newspaper rejoiced: "Hereafter in the spring and fall it will be not appear on the 1893 map, there is some reason to believe that it something other than a mudhole!" may have been built in the 1880s by Flint and Murray as a rental At 98 Park Avenue in the 1890s stood a magnificent Victorian cot- cottage.The property passed to Marcus Woodruff s heirs in 1885 as tage long the summer home of Darius M.Bliss,manager of the Pacific the result of a settlement with Thompson Flint's heirs. It was Rubber Company of Elizabeth,N.J.But in November of 1892,Bliss inherited in 1917 by Mrs. Willard Fisher, daughter of Joseph Bird, discharged a revolver into his brain just over the right ear. He thus who at the time of his death also owned a similar house that once escaped the worst consequences of the impending economic crash, stood on the foundation still visible near the willow tree. 118 Park a fate he shared with at least two of his near neighbors.It may seem has become known as"the Mary Pickford cottage," but in fact the movie actress lived here for only two months,during the summer of ironic that this decade, which produced the most prolonged and severe economic depression the nation had yet known,has lived on 1916. It might be better known as "Sursum Corda," the name conferred by its owners for the past 30 years, who have no doubt in the popular imagination as "The Gay Nineties." Similarly, loved it longest and best. however,the 1930s have of recent years acquired an aura of madcap Pausing at Park and Helena,we look back on the Towle cottage felicity,the two trends illustrating,perhaps,the blessed proclivity of the human mind to retain the best and repress the worst, at 1 Helena, now known as"the Gingerbread House" (10). This is In 1891,another spooky Mansard-towered Victorian stood at 90 we have already met as a heavy investor in Larchmont real estate, Park Avenue,probably quite similar to the Lewis-Bronson house on was a colorful character whose least distinction was that of being the Beach. It was demolished in 1929 by its original owner, Frederick grandfather of Irene Castle. Born in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1829, Dr. Freeman Proctor, builder of Proctor's RKO and other Westchester Foote had a long and successful career as a printer,compositor,and and New York City vauderville and motion picture theatres. newspaper editor before beginning the study of medicine. Beginning as little better than a gypsy,Proctor acquired a chain Graduating from Pennsylvania Medical University in 1860,Dr. of theaters valued at$18 million at his death in 1929.Born in Maine, Foote moved to New York and developed a practice described by his the orphaned Proctor was put to work as an errand boy in Boston at biographer as "world-wide and lucrative." Combining his two an early age but ran away and joined the circus.He toured Europe in vocations,he published many books,periodicals,and monographs the 1870s as a gymnast,and by 1886 was a horizontal bar performer for a popular audience:Medical Common Sense Plain Home Talk a and equilibrist with an act named Levantine Brothers. five-volume Science in Story, and Dr. Foote's Health Monthly, among In that year, at the age of 35, Proctor left the circus and opened others. He delivered before the Medical Congress Auxiliary of the his first theater, Hermanas Bleeker Hall, in Albany. He gradually World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893 an address that provoked much discussion in the press.Entitled"Cause of Disease, 1 30-theater which vaudevillelied with bui t upa chainhis circuit supplied PP acts. He was also active in legitimate theater, forming the Charles Insanity, and Death," its leading idea was the proposition that the Frohman Stock Company in partnership with Frohman about brains of"criminals,idiots,and imbeciles"could be much improved 1890. bybeing "reconstructed under the manipulations of skillful Around 1904,Proctor acquired the rest of this block and built the surgeons." existing twin houses at 88 and 84 Park for his daughters, Eleanor He had two sons, both doctors: Dr. Hubert Foote of New and Henrietta(12).He later acquired the Bevan House as well,but in Rochelle, father of Irene Foote Castle, and Dr. E.B. Foote,Jr.,with 1891 the Bevan House was 11 years old, and extensive remodeling whom he has often been confused.The junior Dr.E.B.Foote was a had just begun(13). It had been built in 1880 as a private summer prominent member of the International Congress of Free-Thinkers, cottage by Susan Caffey, later Mrs. Oscar H. LaGrange, and was and throughout the'90s,father or son was a frequent candidate for known as "General LaGrange's Rose Cottage." Mary Bevan public office on the Populist ticket—a party of farmers,laborers,and purchased the Rose Cottage in 1891 and over the next eight years others hostile to concentrated wealth whose opponents pictured twice remodeled it into the enormous size, no longer suggesting a them as bloodthirsty anarchists. private residence,in which it existed until the spring of 1980,when it Crossing Circle Avenue,we come to 6 and 8 Larchmont Avenue, was returned to its original size and shape. also Murray rental cottages in the'90s. Identical twins when built, Host in the 1890s and early 1900s to vacationers who later these two houses, like so many human twins, followed different became permanent residents and to a variety of stage performers courses in later life, and only close scrutiny can discover their associated with Mr. Proctor, site in the 1910s and '20s of elegant kinship now concealed by different lot orientations and divergent luncheons and tea dances that drew members of presidential i. remodelling styles. The porch, now enclosed, of No. 6 most nearly families and other high society,a boarding house in the Depression represents the original entry,and the Stick-style sheathing on No.8 years,a dive in the'60s,a den of prostitutes and petty thieves in the displays the original siding. '70s, and now one of the brightest stars in the renovation Across the street at 2 Park Avenue is the Burroughs Cottage, its movement's crown, the Bevan at age 104 is a microcosm of the roof line considerably altered after an early 20th-century fire. The was purchased in 1872 byClaude Burroughs, apromising historyof Larchmont, USA. property g t, young actor whoperished in the 1876 fire at the Brooklyn Theater Looking across to 60 Park Avenue, we see the site of Dr. E. B. y g y Foote's 1870s cottage and, according to some reports, the cottage that claimed more than 200 lives during the performance of Kate itself,remodeled beyond recognition in the 1930s. Dr.Foote,whom Claxton's Two Orphans. The house,erected between 1872 and 1881, was occupied by his parents as a year-round home until their death i And now we emerge from our brief visit to the past and open our in 1893. eyes not in Circle Park but in Fountain Square, with the Harriet Looking past 2 Park Avenue toward the water,we see the site of Hosmer bronze fountain donated in 1894 by Helena Flint(14).The the Hoboken Turtle Club, a gentleman's eating-and-drinking club Mermaid's Cradle was installed in that year in the setting designed formed in 1796 in Hoboken, N.J., which led a brief and stormy for it by Larchmont architect Walter C.Hunting,who also designed existence in Larchmont Opening here July 8, 1890, the club had / St John's Episcopal Church in the same year. Only ten years after three handsomely furnished buildings and a large pavilion on four the incorporation of the village, all of the currently existing houses acres but, according to the New York World "after a year of had been built, and Fountain Square looked very much as it does squabbling by the officers and members, the club went to the wall today. and many suits followed." Most of the members withdrew— including Larchmont residents Charles Wager Hull,treasurer, and Charles D. Shepard, first vice president, whose property this was before he sold it to his fellow Turtles for $100,000. In early life Shepard was an actor, and his 1894 New York Times obituary described him as having "many friends in sporting and political circles,"heavy investments in real property,and an estate valued at $400,000. He was also the proprietor of the once-famous White Elephant Billiard Hall at Broadway and 31st Street Upon the removal of the Turtle Club, the premises were leased by May Charman who, as Mrs. William Wilcox, later became the proprietor of the Royal Victoria Hotel.The existing house was built in 1898 for Walter B. Manny from plans drawn by Larchmont architect Frank A. Moore, and is still owned by one of his descendants. Turning east on Magnolia,we pause at Circle Avenue to view 25 and 29 Magnolia,recently restored 1880s cottages that were part of Mrs.Bevan's establishment in 1891 and have shared the fortunes of the Bevan Hotel ever since. Long concealed under a coat of stucco, • then sheathed in asbestos in the 1960s,they were among the worst eyesores in Larchmont until 1980,when neighbor Brian Woolfenden purchased them and removed the siding.The transformation from ugly duckling to swan was immediate and astonishing: when the original textures and proportions were revealed,they stood forth as two of the most charming structures in the Manor. Continuing north on Circle Avenue,we pass on our left at Cedar Avenue the 1891 site of the Larchmont Horse Railway Company, where the first village board meeting was held.Pausing at Circle and Maple,on our left we see again 44 Circle,the 1880s cottage remarked earlier,and on our right the Normandy-style house on the site of the first fire house and village halL