George and Mary Platt

George Platt (1812-1873) was an interior designer and architect who lived on Roton Hill between roughly 1860 and 1870.

Platt is an old family name in Norwalk and Connecticut history, but this particular Platt was born in London in 1812. He probably emigrated to New York around 1835. In 1839 he married a very young Mary Catherine Russell (1822-1902) in Roxbury, Massachusetts. Shortly afterward George was publishing advertisements in New York newspapers, promoting the painted, transparent, washable window blinds and shades he made at 12 Spruce Street in Manhattan. 

In the early 1840s Platt's advertising focused on shades and blinds. Over time the ads expanded in scope and went upmarket, selling more forms of furnishings and increasingly emphasizing fashionable trends from Europe. An example is this advertisement in the Nov 26, 1841 in The (New York) Evening Post:

Renaissance Style of Louis Quatorze. The subscriber respectfully informs the public that he is prepared to execute, on the shortest notice all orders for French Renaissance Pier and Centre Tables, Window Cornices, Chimney and Pier Glass Frames, Candelabra, Pedestals, Brackets, Trusses, Etageres, Jardiniers, Picture Frames, Ornamental Pannelling and Bordering for rooms, and every description of interior decoration, in the richest and most appropriate style, from designs by the first artists both of London and Paris. George Platt, No. 12 Spruce street, New York.

Platt eventually moved his business from Spruce street to a "manufactory" and office at 327 & 329 Fourth Avenue. He continued advertising at least through 1857, when he must already have been living part-time in Connecticut.

By the time the 1850 Census was taken, George and Mary had four children: James, Edith, Alice and Archer. They were living in New York, and George listed his occupation as architect, which at the time would have encompassed the sort of interior design and decoration that was his focus.  The New York State census of 1855 finds the same family in New York. In that census, George said he had lived in New York City for 20 years, or in other words since 1835, and he was still not a US citizen.

In 1851 Platt built a lovely home in Westport that still stands at 68 Riverside Avenue. A National Register of Historic Places registration form calls Platt "one of America’s earliest professional interior designers." As we've seen he was still living and working in New York City as well, so this may have been a weekend or summer home. The New York City Directory in 1857 shows that the Platts also have a residence at 49 7th Avenue, in what is now the West Village, not far from his offices on West Fourth St.

Some time around 1859, Platt purchased the former home of the recently-deceased Captain Ira Ford at 347 Flax Hill Road, on Roton Hill. Platt sold his Westport home to Charles Gorham, who ran a boarding house.  The 1860 Census finds the Platts in Norwalk and Gorhams in Westport, so all that must have happened by then.

That 1860 Census lists the Keelers and Platts consecutively. The Platts are living with their four children, and managing to get by with just seven Irish servants. After the Keelers and Platts in that census we find the family of William Lewis Allison and Ellen Russell Lombard. They must have been very close to the Platt family, since in 1859 they named their newborn son George Platt Allison. William Lewis Allison was a publisher in New York. He owned a number of small newspapers, and also wrote and published books, including "Allison's American Pictorial Handy Lexicon of the English Language" in 1881 and a dictionary dedicated to electricity terms in 1889. Ellen Allison was from Boston, and given her middle name she might have been a relation of Mary Platt.  William & Ellen's son Henry Allison went on to marry George & Mary's daughter Ellen Platt in 1887, long after they had all moved elsewhere.

In the latter half of the 1860s LeGrand Lockwood was building his mansion in Norwalk. George Platt decorated the Dining Room and the Moorish Room, but the original furnishings didn't last long because they were sold off after Lockwood died in 1872.

In the 1870 Census the Platts were still living next door to the Keelers. They were down to just four Irish servants, but had gained two German farmhands. The Allisons had moved to Hackensack.

When George Platt wrote out his will in 1869, he described himself as both "of New York" and "of Norwalk", indicating he still had residences in both places.  The 1868 directory of NYC said that he has a residence in Harlem, with no further specifics, but later that year Platt put up a "genteel frame house" on 127th street, near 4th Avenue, for rent. The will itself was short and sweet, leaving everything to his wife Mary to hold in trust for their five children, and then at her death to be distributed among them as she saw fit. George died in 1873 in Yonkers. Mary Platt lived until 1902, mostly in New York City with her widowed daughter Edith. Mary's will describes the various properties she was leaving to her children, and disappointingly it doesn't include the house on Roton Hill, nor indeed any property in Connecticut at all. In fact the property at that point consists solely of several adjoining properties in Hoboken.

The Platt's daughter Edith had a son named Joseph Russell Lynes (1879-1932), who was an Episcopal priest. Joseph, in turn, had two notable sons: the photographer George Platt Lynes (1907-1955) and Russell Lynes (1910-1991), an art historian and the editor of Harper's Magazine. A biography of George Platt Lynes includes this:

Good looks went back on both sides of the family, as well as autocratic behavior and a sense of entitlement that did not match family income. Among the family's memorabilia is a photograph of a young man with a hat tipped over one eye and a fancy tie who has exactly the same handsome face George was to have later. The clothes suggest the mid-nineteenth century; the face suggests George's father's side of the family, as his father had much the same features. It is identified by the family as George Platt, the photographer's great-grandfather.

I'm not sure what happened to the Platt house on Roton Hill after George died in 1873. Intriguingly, in the 1880 Census the person listed next to George Isaac Keeler, holding about 50 acres of land, was Dudley Pettibone Ely, president of the South Norwalk Bank and first mayor of Norwalk. He definitely lived elsewhere, but perhaps he owned the property for some time? When the property was sold in 1906 it was still described as "the Platt place", but that may just be referring back to a famous owner, as we might also do today. The next people I'm certain lived there, Alexander and Maria Rummler, only show up in about 1907.