Ralph Johnson Bunche House, the last home of American diplomat

Ralph Bunche Ralph Johnson Bunche (; August 7, 1904 – December 9, 1971) was an American political scientist, diplomat, and leading actor in the mid-20th-century decolonization process and US civil rights movement, who received the 1950 Nobel Peace Prize f ...

(1903-1971), is a

National Historic Landmark A National Historic Landmark (NHL) is a building, district, object, site, or structure that is officially recognized by the United States government for its outstanding historical significance. Only some 2,500 (~3%) of over 90,000 places listed ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. It is a single-family home built in 1927 in the

neo-Tudor Tudor Revival architecture (also known as mock Tudor in the UK) first manifested itself in domestic architecture in the United Kingdom in the latter half of the 19th century. Based on revival of aspects that were perceived as Tudor architecture ...

style, and is located at 115-24 Grosvenor Road,

Kew Gardens Kew Gardens is a botanical garden, botanic garden in southwest London that houses the "largest and most diverse botany, botanical and mycology, mycological collections in the world". Founded in 1840, from the exotic garden at Kew Park, its li ...

Queens Queens is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Queens County, in the U.S. state of New York. Located on Long Island, it is the largest New York City borough by area. It is bordered by the borough of Brooklyn at the western tip of Long ...

. It is named after

, who helped to found the

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and international security, security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be ...

in 1945. In 1950 he became the first

African American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...

and first

person of color The term "person of color" ( : people of color or persons of color; abbreviated POC) is primarily used to describe any person who is not considered "white". In its current meaning, the term originated in, and is primarily associated with, the U ...

to win the

Nobel Peace Prize The Nobel Peace Prize is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Swedish industrialist, inventor and armaments (military weapons and equipment) manufacturer Alfred Nobel, along with the prizes in Nobel Prize in Chemistry, Chemi ...

, for mediating armistice agreements between

Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

and its neighboring countries.

History

The Bunche house was developed in 1927 as part of the development of

.Document. Kurshan, Virginia. Landmarks Preservation Commission. Description & Analysis. May 17, 2005. Designation List 363 LP-2175 The property, in which the house was eventually constructed, was continually bought and sold over the years. The Kew Gardens Corporation sold this property to Elena Goodale in 1920, who later sold it to Louis Frisse in 1926, who constructed the house. In 1948, ownership of the property changed and in 1949, it was sold to Jack Sturm. During the 1950s, Bunche lived in Parkway Village, an

apartment complex An apartment (American English), or flat (British English, Indian English, South African English), is a self-contained housing unit (a type of residential real estate) that occupies part of a building, generally on a single story. There are ...

Kew Gardens Hills Kew Gardens Hills is a neighborhood in the middle of the New York City borough of Queens. The borders are Flushing Meadows-Corona Park to the west, the Long Island Expressway to the north, Union Turnpike to the south, and Parsons Boulevard to t ...

that was built for UN employees and that was one of the first in the country to be racially integrated. In 1952 Sturm sold the property to Ralph Bunche and his wife, who were raising three children; the couple used the award money that came with the Nobel Prize to buy the house. He lived in the house until his death in 1971, and his wife lived there until she died in 1988.

Description

The style of which this house was built is a

style. It was designed by the prominent Brooklyn architects Koch & Wagner. The house stands at stories and is faced in stucco pierced by random bricks and stones. The house maintains its original wooden doors with iron strapping; the original leaded glass windows and slate roof are also maintained. It is located in a suburban setting of single-family homes and is surrounded by mature trees and bushes. The house is also situated on the crest of a hill and contains a terraced flagstone walkway leading from the street to the front door. The house's attached gable is inset into the hill at the basement level. The house is faced with random ashlar stones and has an opening that is stone-framed and arched segmentally; this opening is filled by wooden doors with small plain glass lights and metal strapping. The house is three bays wide with a central, full height, projecting gable capped/adorned by a clipped roof. The doorway, within the gable, is built within a round arched, stone-trimmed opening and holds a wooden door with a small, rectangular window covered by a decorative iron grille. There is an original iron and glass lantern situated on the wall beside the door. Additionally, there is a small, rectangular window within the gable above the doorway, along with a large, double-height window to the side of the entrance. This window has leaded glass casements with a decorative stained glass motif of a knight on horseback at the bottom center of the window; this window is fronted by a small, iron balcony. A pair of small rectangular windows are built near the top of the gable and are surrounded by half-timber framing. There is a stucco-faced chimney on one side of the central gable. The lower section of the chimney projects toward the front and creates another small roof and shape variety. There is a small, open stone porch on the west side of the house's main section, while the east side contains a one-storey, stone-faced sun room with floor-to-ceiling casement windows. This area is recessed behind a patio and the stone walls that rise up from the garage below.

Landmark designations

The house was declared a

in 1976. The house is also a New York City landmark.

References

External links

*
Nomination of this home for NYC landmark status
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bunche, Ralph Johnson, House Historic American Buildings Survey in New York (state) Houses completed in 1927 Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Queens, New York Kew Gardens, Queens National Historic Landmarks in New York City New York City Designated Landmarks in Queens, New York

History

Description

Landmark designations

See also

References

External links