The country house built for Peter Jay
Munro, a nephew the first Chief Justice of the United States, is being offered
for sale for $4.699 million.
Known as the Manor House,
the
Federal-style Colonial at 18 Elm Avenue is the most historically significant
house in Larchmont.
It was built in 1797 for Peter Jay
Munro, a nephew of John Jay, who went on to have 12 children and amass an
estate of over 500 acres.
The 6,723 s/f home now has six
bedrooms, four full bathrooms and two partial baths. It was recently renovated
by the current owners, who created a new master suite and added new high-end
designer bathrooms with radiant-heat floors and updated the electrical and
plumbing systems as well as the windows and doors.
“My clients did a major renovation
that turned a very formal house into a colorful, youthful and happy home on one
of the largest land parcels in Larchmont village,” said listing agent Pollena
Forsman of Houlihan Lawrence. “It’s now a relaxed, very livable home with
walkability to everything.”
The three-story house on a 1.44-acre parcel is in the Mamaroneck School District. The home is close to Chatsworth Elementary School, Hommocks Middle School and Mamaroneck High School, and within walking distance of the Metro-North train station, village shops and restaurants, Manor Beach and Park.
There is a grand entry foyer with a
curved center staircase and wood flooring, four chimneys and eight fireplaces,
hardwood and parquet floors, classic moldings and chair rails and oversized windows and doors.
It has front and rear covered porches
with seating and dining areas, gardens and mature trees, a large flat lawn.
The Manor House has a rich history of
high-profile owners who played important roles in the development of Larchmont.
Upon Peter Jay Munro’s death in 1833, the Manor House went to his son Henry, a
bit of a ne’er-do-well who had trouble managing his finances.
The estate was sold at auction in
1845 to satisfy his debtors, according to research by Judith Doolin Spikes, a
former village historian. The buyer was Edward Knight Collins, a shipping
magnate who had the first transatlantic mail contract and was one of the
wealthiest men in the country.
Around 1850 Collins added the two-story
porch to the south façade of the house and an enormous ballroom on the western
side. He also gave the estate the name of “Larchmont” after the row of larch
trees planted by Munro’s gardener to screen the house from the Post Road.
He, too, ran into financial trouble
and the estate was sold at auction again in 1865, to a wholesale grocer named
T.J.S. Flint. He formed the Larchmont Manor Company with other partners to
develop on the property “suburban homes for New York City businessmen of
moderate incomes,” according to Spikes.
After Flint’s death in 1882, Charles
H. Murray became president of the Manor Company and he converted the old Munro
home into a popular 30-room and boarding house named “the Manor House.” A
decade later, Flint’s son Frederick had the ballroom razed and the house was
restored to its original size.
In 1902, it became the home of the
private Manor School for Girls for a few years before going back to its
original role as a prominent, well-regarded single-family home in the heart of
the village.
