The lovely Art Nouveau window grille on a Riverside Drive row house

There’s a lot of enchantment on Riverside Drive, the rare Manhattan avenue that deviates from the 1811 Commissioners Plan that laid out the mostly undeveloped city based on a pretty rigid street grid.

Rather than running straight up and down, Riverside winds along its namesake park, breaking off into slender carriage roads high above the Hudson River. (We have Central Park co-designer Frederick Law Olmsted, who also conceptualized Riverside Park and what was originally called Riverside Avenue, to thank for this.)

But the surviving row house at number 294 deserves a closer look. More precisely, it’s the beautiful wrought iron grille protecting the wide front parlor window that invites our attention.

Number 294 was originally a four-story, single-family home completed in 1901. It’s a wonderful, mostly untouched example of the Beaux-Arts style that was all the rage among the city’s elite at the turn of the last century.

“The most striking features of the facade of 294 Riverside Drive—the orderly, asymmetrical arrangement, the finely carved limestone detailing, the graceful Ionic portico, the slate mansard roof, the elaborate dormers, and the ornate ironwork—eloquently express the richness embodied in the Beaux-Arts style,” wrote the Landmarks Preservation Commission in a 1991 document, which designated the house, built in 1901, as a city landmark.

That unusual front window grille, however, seems to be the one part of the house that aligns more with the Art Nouveau style, which emerged in Europe in the early 1900s and wasn’t widely adopted in New York City.

Take a look at the the graceful, flowing lines and curlicues that mimic flower stems, petals, and other forms found in nature. This grille is original to the house, according to the Landmarks Preservation Commission, which called it “intricate and naturalistic.” The AIA guide to New York City pays homage to its Art Nouveau beauty, calling it “remarkable.”

Why such a fanciful window grille (below on the house in 1939-1941) became part of the house likely has to do with the man who commissioned number 294 and was its first owner.

William Baumgarten, born in Germany and the son of a master cabinetmaker, was one of the most prominent interior designers in Gilded Age New York City. Baumgarten designed the inside of William Henry Vanderbilt’s Fifth Avenue mansion; along with his firm, Herter Brothers, he was responsible for the interiors of other mansions and luxury hotels.

He and his wife, Clara, occupied the Riverside Drive row house until first William and then his wife passed away. In 1914, their survivors family sold it off. It was soon carved up into apartments, as it remains today. (The photo above has a “for rent” sign on the facade, but I just can’t make out a price.)

Baumgarten was known for his creative genius and talent. He would certainly want to live in a row house mansion (now known as the William and Clara Baumgarten House) of his own that reflected the beautiful design touches of his era.

[Third image: NYC Department of Records and Information Services]

The most spectacular mansion on Riverside Drive

Pennsylvania native Charles M. Schwab died with slightly less of a fortune than fellow Gilded Age steel magnates Andrew Carnegie and Henry Clay Frick.

But in 1906, Schwab eclipsed these two captains of industry in one regard: he built a larger, more magnificent Manhattan mansion.

While Carnegie and Frick built their palaces on Fifth Avenue, Schwab went west. He constructed his on Riverside Drive, on the site of a former orphan asylum.

His 86-room chateau, situated on an entire block between 73rd and 74th Streets and stretching all the way to West End Avenue, was perhaps the most ambitious private home ever built in Manhattan.

How loaded with amenities was it? The house boasted three elevators, a gym, an indoor pool, a chapel, and a bowling alley, as well as elaborate gardens and a nearly 200-foot tall tower offering spectacular views of the Hudson River.

It also contained its own power plant, to keep the 6,000 incandescent bulbs glowing.

When Schwab (left) and his wife moved in, Riverside Drive was an elegant thoroughfare poised to replace Fifth Avenue as the city’s priciest road.

Though other wealthy men also built freestanding mansions here, Riverside never became the “millionaire’s row” developers had hoped.

Still, Schwab and his wife held out in their chateau, which “became the scene of countless gilt and plush social affairs,” wrote the Brooklyn Daily Eagle in 1947.

As time went on, other neighboring mansions were bulldozed and replaced by apartment buildings.

Before his death in 1939, Schwab offered his mansion to the city of New York, hoping it would be used as an official mayor’s residence.

Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia turned the offer down, finding the house too garish. (Instead, he made the more stately Gracie Mansion the mayoral home in 1942.)

After Schwab’s mansion was sold off in 1947, it was set to be bulldozed. But not before a fire sale.

“[N]ewspaper articles at the time mention salvage operations under way for wood paneling, a large organ, chandeliers and stained glass,” wrote the New York Times in 2003.

(Some of the artifacts for salvage, at left.)

What went up in its place? A massive red-brick apartment residence (below) opened in 1950 called Schwab House, after the stupendous home that symbolized Gilded Age wealth and power.

[Photos: MCNY; streeteasy]