An American Princess: The Many Lives of Allene Tew(56)

Of the glamour and glitz of the former millionaires’ enclave Allegheny City, which merged with Pittsburgh in 1907, little remains. The site of David Hostetter’s mansion at 171 Western Avenue is now a parking lot. Tod’s and Verna’s graves in the hills are still there, as are those of Allene’s grandparents in Jamestown. Raccoon Creek, near Monaca on the Ohio River, where Allene and Tod built Hostetter House, now hosts the Kubota power plant, built at the site in 1941.

Allene’s first address in New York, the Rosenbaum mansion at 5 East Seventy-Third Street, still exists, as does Tod’s house at 12 East Sixty-Fifth Street. The latter building is now in use as the Consulate General of Pakistan. The Allene Tew Nichols House at 57 East Sixty-Fourth Street, which Allene had designed by Charles P. H. Gilbert during her second marriage, has withstood the test of time with flying colors. It recently belonged to a famous Italian fashion designer, who renovated the mansion down to the last detail.

Birchwood, the house on Feeks Lane in Lattingtown that Howard Greenley designed for Anson Wood Burchard in 1906, is still standing, too. It now belongs to a rich New York couple who use it as their second home. The same goes for the former farm of the country house on the other side of the street, which once belonged to Greta Hostetter. She and Anson rest in peace in the Locust Valley Cemetery, close to Birchwood; Teddy can be found at the Somme American Cemetery, the American graveyard near Bony in northern France.

The Henry P. Davison House at 690 Park Avenue, bought by Anson and Allene in 1925, is currently in use as the Italian Embassy. The house with Allene’s lucky number—33 Rue Barbet-de-Jouy—is now the offices of the French province of ?le-de-France. Chateau de Suisnes, renamed Chateau de Bougainville, stood empty for years before being renovated by a young French count and is now an exclusive wedding location and hotel. The apartment complex at 740 Park Avenue is still one of the most exclusive buildings in New York, surrounded by great secrecy and guarded by concierges who aren’t allowed to reveal the names of the inhabitants. It is not known whether Allene’s former apartment in this building is currently inhabited.

The Astor mansion, otherwise known as Beechwood, at 580 Bellevue Avenue in Newport has been used over the past decades as a wedding location and a kind of historical party center, among other things. It was recently sold to a rich art collector who intends to turn it into a museum. The Waves on Ledge Road in Newport has now been divided up into condominiums. Castel Mare in Cap d’Ail is now located at 26 Avenue Raymond Gramaglia. The villa still belongs to Heiner Reuss’s niece. It is at times rented out, at times used as a holiday house. The trunks Allene used to travel all over the world are used there as side tables.