Nearly five years later, on December 27, 1865, he again spent the night, this time as a prisoner of the North, while being escorted to the Washington Navy Yard where Federal authorities would decide whether to put him on trial. Constructed of bluish Quincy granite by Boston architect Isaiah Rogers in a subdued Greek Revival style with two massive Doric columns at its main entrance, this opulently furnished hotel contained more than 300 guest rooms surrounding an interior tree-shaded courtyard. It had baths and toilets on each of its six floors, an unheard-of luxury at the time and an astonishing engineering feat pulled off by the hotel’s own steam engine plant, necessary because pressurized water from the Croton Aqueduct (1842) system was still a few years off. Water was drawn from two large cisterns in the hotel’s basement, which also is where the hotel had its own printing press, for printing of its daily menus. Astor House Apartments features luxury apartments for rent with gleaming, flooded with natural light from the massive floor-to-ceiling windows. The fitness center and pool are on top of the building, complemented by a gorgeous Chicago skyline and lake views.
Astor House Apartments
Built for The Maltese Falcon star and Academy Award winning actress Mary Astor when she was just 19 years old, the sprawling walled and gated estate has many stories to tell and many more to come. For years before the New York Times in 1904 left Park Row and moved uptown to Longacre (soon to be Times) Square and began the tradition of celebrating New Year’s Eve with a countdown, the city celebrated on Broadway in front of The Astor House. Located off Park Avenue on the Upper East Side, this beautiful mansion feels like home the minute you step inside.
Get ready to groove under the star-studded Los Angeles sky because the Hollywood Bowl is gearing up for another epic
After both her marriage and her film career fell apart, she and young Dodd remained in Toluca Lake for several years before moving to the Beverly Hills area. Born Lucile Langhanke in 1906, the young woman had been homeschooled by her strict parents, who dictated her every move. A stage father from hell, Otto Langhanke pushed Lucile into show business at the age of 13. Paramount signed her to a movie contract and gave her the screen name Mary Astor. She received a small allowance from her large movie salary while her father pocketed the rest. It was not until Astor secretly married Thorpe in 1931 that she finally declared her independence from her parents.
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As a Times article from June 1913 indicates, there was a multi-day auction (where items were “knocked down at ridiculously low prices”) so they must be out there somewhere. Darin parlayed his celebrity into making successful television shows and movies. Popular screen queen Astor, best known for her roles in The Maltese Falcon and The Palm Beach Story, and her physician husband, Dr. Franklyn Thorpe, hunted larger quarters for their growing family after the birth of their daughter, Marylyn, in 1932. Finding nothing to their liking in the neighborhood surrounding their rental on Toluca Lake Avenue, the couple determined to construct a mansion just across the lake, near Astor’s work at Warner Bros. Built for silent screen actress Mary Astor in 1925, this Old Hollywood Classic is steeped in Hollywood history and has played host to many musical acts including The Rolling Stones, Fleetwood Mac, and Marilyn Manson. Now up for sale, the nearly 100 year old home is in need of a full restoration but underneath it all one can picture a home as beautiful and timeless as ever.
Park Suite
Nancy Sinatra also remembered animated parties filled with family and friends, enjoying downtime with her dad while eating rich Italian food prepared by her mother. Such celebrities as Jack Benny, George Burns and Gracie Allen, Phil Silvers and Sammy Cahn entertained themselves cracking jokes and singing the latest hits. In her autobiography, Nancy recalled festive Fourth of July shindigs where the Sinatras entertained neighbors with barbecue and fireworks shows, orchestrated with music that she and Frank Jr. played from records. On one particular Independence Day, neighbors gathered around as Sinatra steered his fireworks-laden raft to the middle of the lake.
Andy Samberg and Joanna Newsom Buy the Famous Moorcrest
Inside, you will find many lovely original features, including a spiral staircase, ornate plaster and wrought iron work, French doors and windows, stained glass, and a turret. Arguably unassuming from the San Marco entrance, the property goes from street-to-street down to 2405 Holly Drive and boasts a gated parking area below. The three-story home encompasses three separate lots and contains a main house, guest house, a swimming pool, and a stream-fed koi pond. During the Civil War, The Astor House was one of 13 major hotels in New York set afire by Confederate spies on Nov. 25, 1864, following Lincoln’s re-election.
Hosting your event at the Astor House provides an elegant event while supporting the NYC community. Expanded over the years, the estate on Valley Spring Lane has continued to welcome resident families with its stunning back view of the lake, stately gated front entrance and deep sense of history. Bucolic Toluca Lake has entranced many celebrities over the years as the perfect place in which to raise kids, thanks to its small-town feel and proximity to motion picture studios. For Mary Astor, Frank Sinatra, Bobby Darin and Sandra Dee, one luxurious mansion on the shores of Toluca Lake offered the ideal spot to raise their families and set down roots. For all of them, their time there would be marked by both idyllic happiness and personal drama. What became of The Astor House’s furniture and its famous bar and other architectural remnants, including its granite cornerstone, is a mystery.
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The singer shortened his commute even more when he purchased a Bel Air house in the late 1940s for his family, selling the lakeside retreat. As the city expanded north, The Astor House’s prominence slowly faded over the later part of the 19th century. It was eclipsed by, among others, the Fifth Avenue Hotel (1859), the original Waldorf (named for the town in Germany where John Jacob Astor was born) and the Astoria hotels on 34th Street (1893), also developed by members of the Astor family.
Astor testified during court sessions at night, while filming the movie Dodsworth during the day. A 2-story guest house with a wall of windows overlooks a fern grotto and the koi pond. Sure to be a favorite enclave for out of town visitors or artistic collaborators. New York can be cruel to old hotels, but The Astor House did have a very long and good run. It is telling that the oldest hotels in the city date only from the turn of the last century, such as the Algonquin (1902) and the Iroquois (1900), both on 44th Street.
While it's hidden away in one of Chicago's most historic, architecturally dense neighborhoods, Astor House Apartments is also conveniently located. Lake Michigan is one block to the east, and getting to North Avenue Beach and Oak Street Beach is easy as pie. Envision lovely sunset or sunrise runs along the Lakefront Path during the warm months. Restaurants like Hopsmith Tavern, Gibson's, Carmine's, Somerset Chicago, Maple and Ash, Lou Malnati's, Velvet Taco, and more are less than a 10-minute walk away.
Astor House Apartments is just a few blocks from Potash Market and Plum Market, so getting your groceries will always be convenient. Charlie Chaplin tramped on in and rented the house at some time in the early 1920s. Actress Mary Astor's mother and father, Otto and Helen Langhanke, purchased it in 1925 and lived there with Astor for nearly ten years. It was eventually foreclosed-on and sold at auction in 1934 for $21,500, about a tenth of its estimated value at the time.
The expansive 920 square foot Grand Suite is a plush city escape—a stylish sofa and lounge chair set make a perfect living area for hosting, alongside an intimate dining table, breakfast bar, and a private balcony. A private balcony with views of the Hollywood sign, Capitol Records building and surrounding city lights sets the mood. Sprawl out and treat yourself to a spacious 1100 square foot suite, with the residential comforts of a kitchenette, living room, 6 seat dining table and two separate bedrooms, each uniquely decorated, with their own spa-like bathroom—plus a bathtub for the perfect nightcap, drink in hand. Unwind on your own private balcony overlooking Aster Park’s pool and patio, in the California sunshine. The Aster’s 750 square foot Pool Club Suite is an ideal urban retreat, with an en-suite living area, modest dining table, breakfast bar, and chic furnishings. Enjoy a private city-side balcony and stylish living area with a sofa, lounge chairs, breakfast bar and dining table—a relaxing space to lounge after a long day, or explore the in-room bar selection while you play host.
In 1869, the City’s new central post office and federal courthouse was built across the street in what is now the southern tip of City Hall Park. The Stones recorded several of their hits here over the next two decades and were frequent overnight guests, often allegedly drawing the members of Fleetwood Mac over for daytime pool parties or late night songwriting sessions. Stevie Nicks and Lindsay Buckingham lived just down the street throughout the ’70s at 2282 El Contento Drive. His first stay was in March 1861, on the eve of the war, when he was searching for ships to buy for the fledgling Confederate Navy.
The Valley Spring Lane home changed hands twice before crooner Frank Sinatra purchased it in 1944 and relocated his family from the East Coast to Toluca Lake. Born in 1915 to Italian immigrants in Hoboken, New Jersey, the gangly, sweet-voiced young man started out with the Harry James and Tommy Dorsey big bands, then knocked the world off its feet as a solo performer before Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer signed him to a long-term movie contract. Sinatra starred in hit musicals Anchors Aweigh in 1945 and Till the Clouds Roll By in 1946, establishing a successful career on the West Coast. It was purchased by the New York Junior League as its headquarters in 1947 to facilitate training and membership events. The Astor House was designated a landmark by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission in 1967.
The Astor House, New York’s First Great—Yet Forgotten—Hotel - Tribeca Trib
The Astor House, New York’s First Great—Yet Forgotten—Hotel.
Posted: Tue, 22 Mar 2016 07:00:00 GMT [source]
This suite features a semi-private patio, 2 seat dining table and cozy breakfast bar setup for your in-room dining pleasure. The end came in in early 20th century in two awful blows, apparently because the two Astor heirs who then owned it did not get along. First, in 1913, the southern half (including the Rotunda and its famous bar) was demolished in connection with the construction of the BMT subway line (today’s R train) through the site. Vincent Astor, who controlled that part of the property, then built the “Astor House Building,” a modest office structure, in 1916, which remains there to this day (Staples is the main retail tenant). The northerly part of the now-gored hotel survived forlorn for a few more years before it too was demolished in 1926 to make room for the “Transportation Building,” today’s 225 Broadway. In 1852, the interior courtyard was covered over by an elliptical vaulted cast-iron-and-glass rotunda designed by James Bogardus, the cast-iron architecture pioneer.
President-elect Lincoln, on his way to Washington for his first inauguration, in 1861, stayed overnight and made an impromptu speech from the top of the entrance portico to a crowd of 40,000, according to a report from Walt Whitman himself. Records indicate that no less than 18 U.S. presidents, spanning from Andrew Jackson to Theodore Roosevelt, stayed at The Astor House, probably the most of any hotel in U.S. history. The Astor House was for many years the headquarters for the Whig Party, the party of powerful Senators Henry Clay and Daniel Webster, which dominated American politics in the decades leading up to the Civil War.
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