Filling Veblen House With Natural Light

Until this year, Veblen House had been boarded up for nearly 25 years. As our carpenter Robb Geores continued to work inside, and as the pandemic began to ease, we got a bright idea. Businesses were starting to take their Covid shields down. Why not get the word out that we could use any big pieces of plexiglass people were otherwise going to throw away. Mayor Freda sent notice out to the community, and we started getting phone calls and emails. End result? After the last three pieces of plexi go up, we'll have natural light streaming into every room in the house. 

Board member Scott Sillars, whose steady work on the house has been indispensable, helped me lift and install the latest piece of plexi--

a piece so long that it straddles two windows. That gets light into the stairway and the second floor vintage 1930s bathroom.

Robb cut an opening in a temporary plywood wall.

Up went another piece of plexi to allow light into the kitchen.

Meanwhile, the finely crafted windows are getting fixed up, one by one, by a skilled and generous friend of Veblen House. This one is missing some mullions from the many years of abandonment the house patiently endured until our Friends of Herrontown Woods was able to lease the house two years ago. Some of the custom windows are crafted from white oak, others from chestnut.

The Origin Story for Norwegian Emigration to America

Thanks to Norma Smith, wife of retired physics professor Stewart Smith, we now have not only the origin story for Einstein begonias, but also the origin story for emigration from Norway to America. Oswald Veblen's ancestors were very much a part of that emigration. Norma mentioned to me the Restauration, which looked at first like a misspelling but upon further research turned out to be the ship that carried the first organized group of immigrants from Norway to the U.S. Their overloaded sloop landed in New York on October 9, 1825, after a three month voyage. That date, October 9, was considered so seminal that it would later be declared Leif Erikson Day, after the first European to lead a voyage to North America, about 500 years before Columbus. 

Oswald Veblen's paternal grandparents joined that emigration two decades later, in 1847, leaving their ancestral home in the Valdres valley to then homestead in Wisconsin. 

It's interesting to note that that first momentous emigration from Norway to the U.S. was not populated by Lutherans--the dominant religion in Norway--but by Norwegians seeking to escape persecution for their non-Lutheran faith. 

The man who organized that first ship full of Norwegians was a character named Cleng Peerson. An article at NorwayHeritage.com describes the sequence of events that led to this first organized Norwegian emigration to America since Leif Erikson's journey around the year 1000. During the war 1807-1814, some Norwegians who supported Napolean Bonaparte were captured by the British. Influenced by the Quakers they met in prison, they later returned to Norway with new religious leanings. Persecuted in Norway for straying from the Lutheran faith, they sent Cleng Peerson and one other Quaker to explore opportunities in America. Only Peerson survived the trip, and the stories he told upon returning to Norway inspired the voyage of the Restauration the following year. 

A pamphlet Norma picked up in Norway, from which this photo is taken, describes the beginning of Norwegian emigration to America as having been motivated by difficult living conditions, in addition to the religious persecution. 

Cleng Peerson's role as "father of Norwegian emigration to America" could be seen as heroic, and yet a description of him that the pamphlet quotes is down to earth, even hilarious:

"Heavy work was not his forte, but he never tried to take advantage of others. He worked for the benefit of all, but often in such an impractical manner that few, if any, thanked him for his work." 

Sometimes it can be a blessing not to be good at the sorts of things you really best not be doing. Cleng sounds like the sort who was selfless yet was not making himself particularly useful, and so was perfectly suited to leave his community in Norway to scout out possibilities for a better life in America.

Research has revealed several events that intersected with the Veblens' lives. A replica of a Viking ship was built in Norway and sailed to Chicago in time for the 1893 Columbian World's Fair. Oswald and his father Andrew would surely have witnessed its subversive presence, questioning as it did the celebration of Columbus as the first European to discover America. An obituary states that Andrew, a physicist at the University of Iowa, was "twice called as an electrical consultant for the world's fair of 1893."

Andrew's obituary states further that "since his retirement in 1905 (he) devoted nearly all his time to work touching on Norse folk lore, tradition and history, and a family genealogy, for which he had collected material over a period of 25 years. A first edition of the volume was published in 1925."

That publishing date of 1925 was surely timed for Minnesota's 1925 hosting of the Norse-American Centennial, celebrating the Restauration's arrival in NY 100 years prior. Oswald's father lived until 1932, long enough to see both Wisconsin and Minnesota declare Leif Erikson Day a state holiday. 

Contents of the 1974 Auction of the Veblen's Possessions

In preparation for traveling to England this month, where I'm hoping to meet relatives of Elizabeth Veblen, I am collecting everything I've found about Elizabeth and the Richardson family into which she was born. 

Originally appearing in the July 25 Town Topics, below is a list found on Papers of Princeton of items that were auctioned off from Veblen House after Elizabeth died. She had continued to live in the house after Oswald died in 1960. The auction was held on August 1, 1974. I was once told that entering the Veblen House was like returning to the 1920s. This list gives a rich portrait of a house filled with beautiful rugs, furniture, and china, much of which was likely acquired during their many trips to Europe. 

The list also includes "trunks of Einstein" -- further evidence of Veblen's close friendship with Einstein. A trunk is also mentioned in an interview later on of Veblen's close colleague, Deane Montgomery:

"at the time Mrs. Veblen died I was the executor of the estate. I didn't go to the auction of the effects, but one of them was some old second-hand trunk with the name Einstein on it that he'd left in their place in storage." 

Also on the list is mention of the Charles Oppenheimer paintings, which we had previously thought were to be left with the house. Elizabeth's will states, "I give and bequeath all of my pictures, radio receivers and phonograph records to the said County, to be kept by it in the house herein devised as a part of the proposed library and museum of Herrontown Woods." The pictures the will refers to may be photographs Oswald took later in life, documenting Elizabeth's beautiful gardens. It clearly didn't mean the paintings. More on the Oppenheimer paintings in a previous post.

Below is a transcription of the 1974 notice in the paper: 

Fine Antiques — Beautiful China and Glass

Estate of Mrs. Oswald Veblen 

PUBLIC AUCTION

Many of the late mathematician

Italian American Sportsman Club, Princeton, N.J.

500 Terhune Rd. (off N. Harrison St.)

Thurs. Aug. I—9 AM 

Exhibit Wed. July 31

1790 Mahog. Grandfather's clock; 18th century tilt, card and drop leaf tables; good 1790 slant top desk; Chippendale shaving mirror and desk; 2 sets Sheraton chairs; rare 1675 oak storage bench; 1790 Am inlaid hunt board; lovely small 1790 English sideboard; early mahog. 2 pedestal dining table; good 1780 Butlers bureau; early stands; Vict, bureaus, stands, loveseat and towel rack; Jenny Lind bed; rosewood tea caddy; lovely custom reproduction furniture; Jacobean chest; 25 fine old oriental rugs; 10 Mexican rugs; Charles Oppenheimer paintings; rare old prints and engravings; scholar's library ineluding good leather bound; antique fire tools; Bayre lion Bronze; lovely cut, Bohemian and Venetian glass, important Copenhagen, Satsuma. Wedgewood, Irish Belleek, Minton, Brookwood. Chelsea, old Paris gold band and other beautiful china; etc!! Interesting attics contents ineluding trunks of Einstein and other memorabilia! 

Lester and Robert Slatoff - Auctioneers 

Trenton (609) 393-4848

The Bradley-Martin Ball of 1897--two Veblen House Connections

On May 3rd, a couple months ago now, the New York Times style section ran a piece entitled "Much Gilt, Little Guilt: The Met Gala 2022 celebrated themes of opulence, excess and fame." Opulence and excess conspicuously displayed? This sounded like the conspicuous consumption that Oswald Veblen's uncle Thorstein wrote about in The Theory of the Leisure Class. But there was another surprise connection to the Veblen House that jumped out from the text of the article: the Bradley-Martin Ball.

When “Gilded Glamour,” the dress code of the 2022 Met Gala, was announced, it seemed to be either a recipe for extravagant disaster or irony. After all, the current era has often been compared to the late 19th-century Gilded Age, that period between 1870 and 1900 when extreme wealth was concentrated in the hands of the very few, the robber barons came to the fore, and income inequality grew ever greater just beneath the gold veneer on the glittering surface.

That first gilded age came to a symbolic end with a famously ostentatious party, the Bradley-Martin Ball of 1897, in which many of the attendees, the good and great and greedy of New York society, dressed in full swag as Marie Antoinette. Also, Queen Louise of Prussia.

A bit of background: The Veblen House was built not by the Veblens but by Jesse and Mary Whiton-Stuart, a prosperous Manhattan couple well-steeped in wealth, old and new, with family connections to the Rensselaers and Juilliards, the Pynes and Stocktons. They in turn had had a son and daughter, both of whom married three or four times into wealthy families. Son Robert's third marriage was to Edwina Atwell Martin, who had previously been married to Esmond Bradley Martin. 

The lineage goes something like this: The Bradley Martin who hosted the ball of 1897 met his future wife Cornelia Sherman at the wedding of one of the Vanderbilts. One of their sons, Bradley Martin, Jr, married Margaret Phipps, the daughter of Henry Phipps--the business partner of Andrew Carnegie. Phipps money in Pittsburgh would later fund the Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Garden. Their son Esmond Bradley Martin was married for a time to Ewina Atwell, who later married Robert Whiton-Stuart. That marriage, in 1972, came 75 years and two generations after the extravagance of the Bradley Martin Ball. A son of Edwina's, whom I corresponded with, said that when Robert and Edwina married, each thought the other had money, only to soon discover they both had already spent their respective inheritances. 

The other son of Edwina's, Esmond Bradley Martin, Jr., left the plush world of his upbringing to devote his life to saving elephants and rhinos in Africa. Robert Whiton-Stuart's marriage to Edwina late in life made him Esmond's father in law, though it's not clear if the two ever met. 

Note: Esmond the conservationist embodies the 20th century shift from conquest to conservation. His great grandfather Bradley Martin "leased Balmacaan, a well known game preserve" in Scotland. His grandfather, Bradley Martin, Jr "listed his recreations as shooting, fishing, motoring, travelling and deer stalking." His father, Esmond, Sr, for many years "was the world's fly-fishing record holder for Atlantic salmon." From this paternal lineage of conquest came Esmond, Jr, the conservationist.

The Distinctive Windows of Veblen House

Veblen House has beautifully crafted windows, with oak woodwork and little details that add up.

The living room windows, looking out on the expansive garden, create almost a cathedral effect.

Outside, the windows have distinctive hoods. Only one other house in Princeton has been found with this feature.

One window, located under a balcony that had channeled rainwater towards the wall, was removed to repair the rotted framework.

First step was to jack up the ceiling and install a header. 

The windows still function, but some have lost some wooden muntins due to break-ins during the long period of neglect. 

Fortunately, architectural historian Clifford Zink has offered to repair them with wood he has collected over the years.

The windows slide open on hardware designed out west by Vincent Whitney Co. 

Meanwhile, Robb is cleaning up any rot on the sills and applying epoxy. 

As an example of how much thought and craft went into building the windows, most of the muntins are beveled, but a few are not. It might look like a defect or oversight until one notices that the unbeveled muntins are strategically located around two panes, at the top left and right of each window that faces south or west. I theorized that they were left with straight edges so that ornamental glass, e.g. stained glass windows, could be inserted from the inside and held in place. 

Then I happened to go up in the attic. I was showing a Princeton University architecture student around, and his intense curiosity about the house got me looking more closely. The house has been stripped of most everything from the Veblen days, but in a corner of the attic was a pile of glass windows that looked about the right size to fit in the big windows downstairs. 

Sure enough, these are what originally slid into those specially cut spots in the south- and west-facing windows. Though all dusty now, slipping them in place would have creating a space with a clear window on front and back. What would they have put in there? I could imagine dried flowers, or shadow puppets, or stained glass. A nifty idea.

Below is a photo of the living room of Veblen House from the 1950s, when the Veblens were living there. No sign these display panels were in use back then. The view of Elizabeth's garden through the windows probably created its own stained glass effect.

The Origin Story of the Einstein Begonia

An unexpected vein of Veblen-related research began with an email from a friend at the Princeton Public Library asking me to assist in finding a descendent of Einstein's begonia. Einstein had a begonia he was fond of, and after he died his secretary gave cuttings to physicist friends in Princeton. With a little help from the internet, I was able to learn the story of how cuttings from Einstein's begonia have lived on long after his passing in 1955. A friend also gave me some cuttings, two of which I passed on to people involved in creating an Einstein museum in Princeton. 

I thought I was done with my work until a Canadian film director named Charlie Tyrell contacted me. He's making a movie called "Show Me the Past is Real," exploring "the emotional power that objects have over us personally and collectively," and would like to find the actual plant--the "mother plant"--that Einstein himself owned. (One of the creative and moving documentaries that Charlie has done, by the way, is called Broken Orchestra, about a citizen movement to get Philadelphia to restore funding for music in the schools. Watching it is eleven minutes well spent.)

The search for the "mother plant" led me back to my friend Vicki who had supplied me with cuttings, to see if she knew the progression of owners through whom her plants had come. She said she'd contact her source. 

For a long time, I heard nothing, and then came an email out of the blue from Norma Smith. 

Dear Steve,

My husband and I were walking in the Herrontown Woods near the Veblen house and met you last year, I believe. 

My husband AJStewart Smith (83) is a retired professor from the physics department at Princeton University. I was and remain friends with many of the retired physics faculty members and their spouses. The story of the Einstein begonia is as follows: 

Mrs. Joan (pronounced Joann) Treiman, the wife of Sam Treiman, a theorist who was a young physics faculty member when Einstein was alive, got a cutting of the Einstein begonia from Einstein’s secretary, Helen Dukas. Joan Treiman gave a cutting to another faculty member’s wife, Eunice Wilkinson. Eunice Wilkinson gave me a cutting and I and my husband (a true gardener) thought the plant was so special that we made many cuttings and started to give cuttings to people who seemed as enthusiastic about the plant as we were. I gave the cutting to Vicky Bergman who was in my aerobics group at the Senior Center, and somewhere over the years we heard even the horticultural department at the university started to call it the “Einstein Begonia”! Joan Treiman died in 2013 at age 87 and I am quite sure she no longer had the plant when she died. Eunice Wilkinson now lives in a retirement center in Boulder, Colorado and no longer has a plant to my knowledge. 

We were thrilled to hear what you are doing re Oswald Veblen’s home and the land he donated. My parents were immigrants from Norway and I knew Veblen had Norwegian ancestry so was always interested in stories about him. His uncle Thorstein Veblen had a summer hut on Washington Island, in Door County, Wisconsin; our daughter-in-law’s family lives in Door County and our son and family have a home there so we have made several trips to Washington Island and have read stories about Thorstein’s presence on the island, interesting to look up on google if you don’t already know about them. 

Good luck with the wonderful work you are undertaking. 

Best wishes, Norma Smith

It was astonishing to hear the whole lineage laid out. Historical research usually involves piecing together bits and pieces from multiple sources over time. Another friend's source for Einstein begonias, Martha Otis, contacted me with essentially the same news: the "motherplant is long gone - only cuttings from cuttings from cuttings etc on and on exist." 

Thanks to Vicki, Teresa, Martha, and especially Norma for helping trace the lineage of the Einstein begonia back to Einstein himself. 

Some Beautiful Features of the Veblen House

The beauty of Veblen House doesn't grab you at first. Though the setting is lovely, the exterior has for now lost its ornament of balcony and outside stairway. The inside has for nearly 25 years been darkened by boards over the windows. The paint is chipped, but with the right camera and the right lighting, the charms of Veblen House begin to accumulate. We've shown the house to many architects and builders, and each has said they've never seen anything quite like it. After 15 years of advocating for the house, and successfully resisting those who wished to tear it down, we are still discovering new things about it. Bob Wells, who lived in the house longer than anyone, from 1975 to 1998, wrote of the house in 2009 what has proven to be true: "She reveals her secrets and special beauties slowly and to those that love her and attend to her." We've discovered the same about the Herrontown Woods of which Veblen House is a part. Some of its secrets only come clear through acts of stewardship.

These are some of the house's features captured by founding Friends of Herrontown Woods board member Sally Tazelaar when she photographed the inside of the house in 2019.

The doors are custom built of oak, 

with hidden "Soss" hinges.  

Interior doors have carved wooden doorknobs.

There are curves everywhere: in the baseboard,

in some of the windows, 

in the hollow wooden column that cleverly disguises a vent.

Even some of the wood paneling is curved, in this case an early form of plywood that has held together despite the extremes of temperature and humidity that the house has been exposed to during its extended period of neglect. 

The bathroom features have survived intact, unchanged since the house was assembled on the site in 1930.

The closet doors in the main bathroom have an unusual shape.

There are curious connections between rooms and floors--

vents that suggest some sort of active or passive ventilation to cool the house in summer. 

The master bath has an interior window that allows natural light from the west side of the house to reach the bathroom. 

The windows, too, are beautifully crafted, with copper screening. 

Kitchen cabinets too are custom built.

The broad kitchen doorway has outsized hinges, 

and a vintage fan.

The living room paneling around the fireplace has hidden doors, perhaps to store liquors.

Something that once was beautiful and could be again is the hearth. I was told the marble is from Italy, the veneer paneling is either restorable or replaceable, and we figured out that the painting that once was built into the woodwork was a landscape of the Arizona desert painted by a remarkable artist and photographer named Kate Cory, some of whose paintings can be found in the Smithsonian American Art Museum. 

There are built-in bookshelves in the living room and the upstairs study.

It was years before we realized that the bedroom doors leading to the east balcony were originally windows that were later extended down to create a doorway. Modifications like this suggest that the Veblens made some changes to the house after buying it from the Whiton-Stuarts in 1941. They must have loved the windows so much that they modified them rather than installing a whole new door.

Though the house is a prefab, the story goes that a Russian woodworker spent two years customizing the interior. Who that might have been, in Princeton in the early 1930s, is still a mystery.

Thanks to Sally Tazelaar for these photos.

A Vernacular Bridge Used by Veblen, Einstein, and Pyne

Few people driving out Snowden Lane in Princeton will notice this little old bridge. Replaced by a larger bridge in 1965, it still remains, just upstream of the newer one. Why was it not demolished when the new bridge was built? Either they realigned the road for other reasons, or someone felt it special enough to save. Back when this part of town was referred to as "the country", the bridge would have been used frequently by the Veblens to reach their home, by their friends like Einstein to visit, and by members of the Moses Taylor Pyne family to reach their horse farm where Snowden Lane meets Herrontown Road. 

I showed it to architectural historian Clifford Zink, and he immediately uttered a German word meaning homemade. A "vernacular bridge!," he declared. 

He pointed out the narrow ledge running the length of the bridge, at the bottom of the arch on both sides. The ledge had supported the arch-shaped wooden framing, called "centering", upon which the stones had been laid, in such a way that their shapes would keep them in place after the framing was later removed.

There's lots to appreciate about this bridge. They just don't make 'em like this anymore. But you can see on the lower right that the bridge is starting to lose some stones. 

The bridge seems to me worth saving. There's a need for a safer way for bicyclists and pedestrians to reach Smoyer Park and Herrontown Woods from nearby residential neighborhoods, and this narrow stretch of Snowden is currently like a gauntlet. The little bridge could be part of a bikeway/sidewalk. 

I contacted the town engineers, but they say it's owned not by the town but by the homeowner, who has not expressed interest in repairing it. Strange that a structure that once was public, spanning a stream, would now be privately owned. If it were to collapse or become blocked, you'd think the resulting blockage would be a public concern.  

A previous post shows how the stonework is not just at either end of the bridge, but extends the full width.

The Roof That Wasn't -- How the Veblen House Roof Came To Be

One of the stories passed down about Veblen House was that its roof was built separately from the rest of the house. I had assumed that meant that the Whiton-Stuarts had brought the first and second floors from Morristown, then added a roof when the house was reassembled on its current site in Princeton. 

Then came a day when a number of us were up in the attic with some knowledge of construction and history--Clifford Zink, Jim Huffman, Peter Thompson--not sure who all. And someone pointed out that the layer of thick tar paper covering the floor looked as if it were the covering for a flat roof. They looked more closely, and found more evidence to that effect. 

I had assumed that the flat roof had been a temporary and less than ideal condition soon improved upon by the Whiton-Stuarts during their ten years there in the 1930s. After all, the fixtures used to bolt the roof together closely resembled bolts used elsewhere in the house. 

The real story was waiting to be found at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., in Box 43 of Oswald Veblen's papers, donated after his death. In fact, the real story had been found years ago, and sent to me by Victoria Floor after she spent a couple days going through his papers while visiting a friend there. I recently looked back and read what she'd sent:

Box 43 Herrontown woods file—receipts for minor repairs, roofing Matthews Construction Co, Princeton (feb 28, 1941) ‘TO REMOVE THE PARAPET WALLS AT THE GABLE ENDS OF THE ABOVE HOUSE…THE REMOVAL OF THE RAILING RAILING AND PATCHING…EXPOSED PORTIONS OF THE ROOF CAUSED BY ABOVE ALTERATION…CONSTRUCTION OF A SIMPLE CORNICE…[OTHER ROOFING JOB DETAILS] 1 P.

Our carpenter, Robb Geores said he was "intrigued  that parapet walls were removed on the gable ends. Parapet walls are usually a low wall around a flat roof. I would guess that they framed the roof on top of the flat roof. Then removed the parapet walls on the gable ends and then filled them in. There's still a curb up there in the attic. And also what appears to be exterior roofing on the floor. Totally supports the theory."

Robb sent a link from the Princeton Academy website, describing the legacy of the Matthews Construction Company, which built their Manor House. Describing the "quality of the construction and craftsmanship," they described Matthews as

by far the most successful construction company in Princeton in the first half of the twentieth century. Their projects include the Nassau Inn and Palmer Square, the Graduate College and most of the Collegiate Gothic buildings on the Princeton campus. Matthews built the Dignan House in 1930 and 1931 at the height of the Depression and the project provided vital labor for the firm’s stonemasons, woodcarvers, and glaziers. During the late 1920s, Matthews constructed the Princeton University Chapel.

The NY Times obituary for Matthews in 1951 states that the firm erected most of the buildings on campus over the course of fifty years. 

There's evidence that the Veblens also added other features of the house visible from the outside, including the balcony and stairway. When they bought it, the house had stood there for ten years, lived in at least periodically by the Whiton-Stuarts, and must have appeared to be little more than a box. That makes more plausible Jesse Whiton-Stuart's claim, in a letter to Veblen, that he'd simply dismantle it and move it back to Morristown if Veblen wasn't interested in buying.

Balsam Wool--An Early Form of Insulation Found in the Veblen House

It's a good feeling to have most of the framing for Veblen House repaired. Though there were some sills, joists, and studs that needed to be either replaced or "sistered", the extent of rot was surprisingly small, considering the house went through 23 years of neglect, boarded up since 1998. 

The need to open up some walls to look for rot has offered an opportunity to learn more about the house. Our carpenter, Robb Geores, has a good eye for clues to the house's history and construction logic. Yesterday, he needed to remove some wallboard to inspect the underlying studs next to the basement stairway, 

and amidst some broken up insulation found a wad of crumpled newspaper that could offer evidence of when that part of the house was built. 

He also discovered the name of the insulation used when the house was built. "Balsam Wool Blanket", according to some internet research, was developed by Weyerhaeuser in Minnesota. One source explains the name: "The fibers came from various wood species such as redwood, fir (Balsam), cedar and usually consisted of the tree bark, wood pulp and other wood byproducts."

Judging from advertising for the product back in the 1920s, the concept of insulation, especially insulation that came in rolls, was in its infancy. A 1929 ad for Balsam Wool insulation touts its thickness (1 inch was considered thick back then), and its capacity to "tuck into every nook and cranny" and "seal every crack." Jesse Whiton-Stuart, seeking to sell the house to the Veblens in the late 30s, touted these very characteristics--the house's draft-resistant, insulated walls. 

"Isn't it absurd," the advertisement declares, "to buy a good boiler, feed it expensive fuel and then let a third or more of the heat escape through the walls and roof?" It's not clear if this common sense frugality was present throughout the 20s, or became popular only after the stock market crash in 1929.