45 Grove Street

 apartment building  Add category

4-story Federal-style residential building originally completed in 1830 as a 2-story free-standing mansion, surrounded by spacious grounds, for Samuel Whittemore. It was undoubtedly one of the finest and largest Federal residences in Greenwich Village. Originally the mansion was set back slightly from the street, and had a porch at the back facing onto grounds which extended through to Christopher Street on the north and to Bleecker Street on the east. The house had its own cistern, well, hot house, and stables.

In 1839 the house was purchased by Andrew B. Haxtun, a successful stockbroker, who lived here until his death in 1848. Then, in 1851, Haxtun's widow sold the mansion and all the land surrounding it for development, and it began operating as a boarding house known as Whittemore House.

However, most of the important alterations to the house were undertaken in 1870 by the architect B. G. Wells for Elisha Bloomer, who had purchased the mansion in 1857. The basement and the first (formerly the parlor) floor of No. 45 were converted into stores by Bloomer. The parlor floor windows at each side of the entrance doorway were removed and replaced by distinctive paired windows, separated by a central panel, the whole crowned by a low triangular pediment, characteristically Neo-Grec in style. The Italianate entrance doors also undoubtedly date from the period of the Bloomer ownership, when the building was also raised to four floors and converted for use as apartments.

The building, which contains 15 residential units, was renovated in 2010. The ground floor is occupied by 45 Grove Street Laundromat.