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.
Biography
