John E. Scharsmith was the early-20th-century New York architect responsible for The Chatsworth (1902–1904) at 344 West 72nd Street — the Beaux-Arts cooperative at the corner of Riverside Drive and West 72nd Street that is among the most architecturally distinctive smaller-scale pre-war buildings on the Upper West Side. The Chatsworth's red-brick-and-limestone composition with its curved two-story mansard cap, cherub keystone ornament over the third-floor cornice, stag-head decorative motifs, and elaborate copper-and-glass porte-cochere produces a building visually distinct from the more austere full-block UWS palazzos of the same period. The Chatsworth was originally serviced by its own in-house lighting and refrigeration plant — among the most architecturally and infrastructurally ambitious smaller-scale pre-war UWS buildings of the era — and the 1906 Annex at 340 West 72nd extended the original program. Scharsmith's broader Manhattan portfolio is limited, which makes the Chatsworth's continued architectural standing all the more notable.
Buildings designed by John E. Scharsmith
The drawings are public. The rest isn't.
How these buildings have actually traded, which lines deliver what the plans promise, and how each board handles financing and approvals.