The Inn at Irving Place (New York City, New York)

 hotel, inn

3-story (plus raised basement) Greek-revival hotel originally completed as two townhouses in 1834. There was also another identical house to the south at 52 Irving Place (now replaced). In 1843, the original owners of 54 Irving Place moved out, and the house was sold at auction to George P. Fitch and his wife, the former Clara Fowler. Fitch was the secretary of the Farmers Loan & Trust. The following year George Martin Haywood and his family moved in. Apparently close friends, the Haywood family would share the house with Fitch for decades.

In 1879, John Strong Foster (president and director of the Bowery Bank of New York) purchased 54 Irving Place. He immediately updated it by hiring architect Peter Tostevin to add a copper-clad oriel above the entrance, replace the stoop railings with modern examples, and install an up-to-date pressed metal cornice. After Foster's death in 1914, his wife Carrie retained possession of the Irving Place house, but soon moved out, leasing it to Robert H. Ingersoll. The house was used as a clubhouse for the employees of the firm Robert H. Ingersoll & Brothers, located nearby on Fourth Avenue. The club installed a cafeteria in the basement level, and renovated the upper floors for sleeping rooms for members, but only remained here for two years. A month later, Carrie's son Jay Stanley Foster leased his childhood home to Our Co-Operative Cafeteria, Inc., which made good use of the already altered basement. It expanded the restaurant space into the parlor level, and converted the upper floors to three sleeping rooms each. It is unclear exactly how long the Co-Operative Cafeteria remained after World War II. In 1976 the basement space was home to Paul and Jimmy's Place, an Italian restaurant.

The owner of the northern house (No. 56), Dr. Henry Whitney Bellows, remained until the Civil War, during which it became home to General William Henry Anthon. He died here in 1875. The house at No. 54 was purchased by former Major of the 6th Pennsylvania Calvary, Benoni Lockwood. The Lockwoods and their three children would live in the house on Irving Place for decades, until Mr. Lockwood's death in 1909. At some point after the house became a boarding house. Probably at this time it was connected with the residence next door at No. 54 by means of a pocket door. In 1991 the house was purchased along with the abutting rowhouse at No. 54.

A three-year renovation of the two structures resulted in The Inn at Irving Place which opened in December 1994.The basement of 54 Irving Place, where for decades the Co-Operative Cafeteria had operated, became home to Verbena in 1994. Verbena made way for Pure Food & Wine in 2004, and the basement restaurant space is currently occupied by Lady Mendl's Tea Salon.

The facades are clad in orange brick above brownstone basements (with the brownstone also raised to include the parlor floor at No. 54). Separate entrances remain, with wide stoops and low iron handrails leading up to the parlor floors, where there are paneled wooden doors with paneled sidelights and transoms set between Greek-revival pilasters. To the left of each stoop is a modernized commercial space with sets of black wood-and-glass French doors down a couple of steps from the sidewalk.

The two parlor-floor windows to the left of the entrances are slightly larger at No. 56. The upper floors at each address have three bays of single-windows with brownstone sills and lintels, but the south bay at No. 54 has a projecting, green copper oriel window added at the 2nd floor. A green metal fire escape runs down part of the facade of the inn. The section at No. 54 is crowned by a green metal roof cornice with brackets, modillions, dentils, and panels, while No. 56 has a much simpler and smaller roof cornice with only a row of dentils.