It was the above postcard of the Elk's Club in Stapleton that sent me on a hunt for this house years ago. It didn't take much work to figure out where the building was and that it was still standing, if in a much-altered fashion. It's been recently purchased, and the new owner is fixing it up. As with many such older homes, it's lost all its fripperies and finery and has been covered with vinyl siding.
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| Anton Methfessel |
The building appears on the
1874 J.B. Beers Atlas as the Institute of AGM, that is the Anton Methfessel Institute, a precursor to
Staten Island Academy. You can also see, he lived next door at 360 Van Duzer Street, only demolished in 2016. It had been vacant and burned and has been replaced with a fairly ugly commercial building.
The Institute merged with the Staten Island Academy and Latin School in 1885. Later, the new Academy bought property in St. George on Stuyvesant Place. Eventually, they decamped from that area for the Todt Hill property they now occupy.
Institute of Anton G Methfessel - 1874 Beers Map
Anton Methfessel's house - 360 Van Duzer Street - 1940 - demolished 2016
Methfessel Institute - 344 Van Duzer Street - 1885
Steuben Club - 1935
Sign Detail - 1935
Steuben Club - 1936 Sanborn Map (note the bowling alley added to the back)
I'm assume the Steuben Club was German. Stapleton was heavily German, well into the seventies. My old church, Trinity Lutheran, had started as a specifically German congregation and there were still German-language services into the early eighties.
I don't know when the club opened, but it was there in 1929 as evinced by this great Advance front page from 1929 indicates. It was raided for having booze in violation of the Volstead Act. For what it's worth, $10,000 back then is about $190,000 today.
February 29, 1920
Storck's Restaurant (and bowling!) - 1940
Sign Detail - 1940
Realizing 344 was the site of Storck's Restaurant is what inspired me to write this piece. In doing some preliminary research on the Stork's Nest in Tompkinsville, I learned that the owners' name was Storck and had owned other restaurants in the area, among them the Hofbräuhaus in Stapleton.
I already knew all these things about 344 Van Duzer. Researching for this post, though, I learned about a most fascinating resident of the building from the forties: the artist,
Percy A. Leason. He was painter and cartoonist from Australia, who'd emigrated to New York City in 1938, seeking a better life for his family. A year later they moved to Staten Island and in 1948, he opened an art studio at 344 where he also lived.
He was a defender of naturalism in art, particularly in the face of Modernism and Expressionism. Of a conservative bent, that stand alone makes me predisposed to like Leason. He also served as the president of the Section of Art of the Staten Island Museum, getting re-elected at least once to the position. An article about the Snug Harbor Fence Show strongly implies he was instrumental in creating it. He was fascinated with the
cave paintings in Dordogne, France and gave a talk about them at the Stapleton Library. All in all, an interesting man we don't see much of these days.
There were other tenants listed at the address, including an ice company and several dance studios. This, and the lack of any mention of Leason's studio after 1948 leads me to believe it didn't last long, which must have been a real blow (though Wikipedia claims he maintained a school on Staten Island until 1957, two years before his death). According to Wikipedia, he died penniless and "despondent at not having received adequate recognition for his labours." Nonetheless, many of his paintings are on display in several galleries in Australia and Washington, D.C. Among his most important works are a series of portraits of Aborigines. I've seen a few, and they are striking.
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| Mrs Clara Hunt 1934 oil on canvas |
Three Sisters - A picture of his three daughters
344 Van Duzer - April, 2025
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