The Storied Past of the Friars Club’s Midtown Castle
The turn-of-the-20th-century, five-story English Renaissance Revival townhouse at 57 East 55th Street near Fifth Avenue in New York is one of the most memorable in the city, for more reasons than one. The distinctive building has served for generations as the home of the Friars Club, the exclusive organization founded in 1904 for theater folks, and currently bringing in new generations of young professionals from all occupations and backgrounds.
A fortress of fun
Legendary for its comedy “roasts” of famous members, the Friars Club has been a home away from home for entertainment royalty such as Milton Berle, Johnny Carson, Frank Sinatra, Larry King, and Robin Williams. In 2014, the group named its E. 55th Street clubhouse the “Jerry Lewis Monastery” in honor of one of its most famous members, who would serve as “Abbot” until his death in 2017.
The Friars didn’t always have their monastery, however — they first met in a restaurant, then in other clubhouses on W. 47th and W. 48th Streets. After suffering years of financial troubles worsened by the Great Depression, the group went looking for a new permanent home for their shenanigans. In 1957 they settled on the mansion that was then part of the estate of banker Martin Erdmann. The popular comedians Red Buttons and Phil Silvers served on the board of directors that decided on the purchase.
Even with extensive interior remodeling and upgrading done just before and after the COVID-19 pandemic, the townhouse still retains its essential original character. Its lavishly decorated rooms feature stained glass windows and marble detailing, and its exterior remains unchanged in evoking the sense of a charming small castle.
A sanctuary in a bustling metropolis
In the early 1900s, Fifth Avenue was the nexus of a culture clash, with the imposing homes of New York’s old monied families experiencing the shock of meeting the advancing parvenus who had become wealthy through business. Earlier residents moved farther north along the perimeter of Central Park, while new money moved in. Some of the older brownstone buildings were transformed through state-of-the-art modernization, and others knocked down and replaced.
Martin Erdmann, still in his early 40s in 1906, was looking toward a comfortable retirement from his work as a partner with Speyer & Co., one of the city’s — and the world’s — best-known large banking concerns. Erdmann was also noted for his service on the governing committee of the New York Stock Exchange. The newly retired executive held onto his director’s title at the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad, but he still had plenty of extra time to pursue his favorite hobby.
Erdmann was passionate about the centuries-old art of the mezzotint, a type of print typically used for portraits. He would go on to fill the house on East 55th with mezzotints on almost every wall, amassing what may have been one of the largest collections in the country.
He had his new home specially designed by the firm of Taylor & Levi on the lot of an 1870s brownstone he had razed for the purpose. Minturn Post Collins, a noted real estate investor, was the former home’s owner. Collins had often stressed to colleagues and lecture audiences the importance of Fifth Avenue in the rapidly developing world of New York business. But he himself was among the wealthy residents who chose to flee farther north in the city.
Opulence and elegance
Alfredo S.G. Taylor and Julian Levi had formed their architectural firm only a year before they started work on Erdmann’s commission. They took inspiration from German Renaissance design elements, making the mansion they completed in 1909 stand out from its brownstone-fronted neighbors.
This house was showy. The architects did away with the high front stoop so characteristic of New York brownstone homes of the time. They also moved the building’s limestone facade farther forward, having it run right up to the property line. They brought a more lighthearted look to the imposing German stolidity by expanding the height and width of the leaded windows on each successively lower story. On the ground floor, the windows are flanked by four Tuscan columns.
Inside, the architects fashioned intricate stone railings, rich dark-wood paneling set under groin-arched and decorated ceilings, and chimneys that looked like they came from the pages of a storybook.
On top of all this, Taylor and Levi made the claim that the Erdmann townhouse was “the most fireproof” of any home on the island of Manhattan.
That probably pleased the new homeowner. In addition to his collection of mezzotints, Erdmann also filled the house with the rest of his art collection, reported to contain a Chippendale side table, a Hepplewhite chair, and other masterpieces of furniture design.
Transformed by laughter
Erdmann lived alone until he suddenly died of a heart attack, aged 73, in 1937. His sisters inherited his estate and auctioned off his beloved mezzotints.
By all accounts a quiet, reclusive man, Erdmann was very different from the later occupants of his home. One November night 20 years after the banker’s death, comedian Joe E. Lewis, then the Friars Club’s Abbot, led a merry procession from the group’s previous clubhouse to their new home. The partying continued inside the building, and Lewis tossed the keys into the street as a visual metaphor: The club’s doors would always be open.
Listed by the New York Landmarks Preservation Commission since 2016, the old house now stands out even more, nestled as it is among modern steel-and-glass office buildings. But it still has plenty of life left ahead of it to enjoy.
