The New York herald., 1922-12-03
NEW YORK'S FIRST
FINE SALES STABLE
Amateur Venture in Horse
Market Which Yielded More
Experience Than Profit.
by @. CHAPLIN.

Memories OF other days. and better
ones. como to tho mind or the horseman
passing through West Sixty-third street
near Broadway. where wreckers are now
tearing down the handsome building at
Nos. II and l3 which once was the
palatiai sales stable of tho Standard
Coach Horse Company
Twenty years have slipped away since
Allan Macnaughtan, a young banker with
strong and prominent connections in the
financial district. conceived the idea OF
a sales stable de luxe where Ward
McAllister's -Four Hundred could buy
their brougham horses and victoria pairs
in an atmosphere of luxury and refine
ment quite unknown to the metropolitan
market.
He had started out in West Sixtfeth
street. and making a success Of It In a
modest little converted private stable he
"visualized" the possibilities Of the bus
mess through a rose hued magnifyins
glass. So enthusiastic. sincere. per-
suasive and polished was the good look
ing, we'll bred. well groomed young horse
fancier-Mr. Macnaughtan's proper clas-
sifcation was always that OF diletante
dealer in fine horses and a connoisseur of
every kind--that he drew around him
such men as George Cromwell. William
Barbour, Henry Seligman, Sheffield
Phelps, Arthur Man and Clarence Whit
man, all of whom bred or owned fine
carriage horses These directors would
have given prestige to almost any bank
In New York, and they were the first di-
rectors Of the Standard Coach Horse
Company, of which Mr.. Macnaughtan
was the president.
Fatty Bates in his day kept stable
so attractive IN West Sixty-ninth street
that I have seen women who were then
the social leaders of the New York drive
UP and enter unattended to inspect and
select their brougham and victoria pairs.
but when Mr.. Macnaughtan had finished
building and furnishing the SiXty-third
street place 1t would have made the
lamented Bates turn green with envy II
he could have seen it.
Everything was just like the finest
kind OF a large private stable. The
apartment for horses was completely cut
off from the office and the carriage floor
where the high stepping beauties were
brought out one at a time and shown
I'D and down the carpeted runner by
the trained English grooms' chosen as
carefully as the horses for "conforma-
ton, style and action" and smertly
liveried In the apple green colors OF the
stable
The visitor. If he chose. could view
the horses through an expanse of plate
glass from one Of the luxuriously up
holstered armchairs In the office, which
was furnished and finished like the board
room Of q life insurance company or
a bank. Mr.. Macnaughtan's cultivated
taste for art objects was reflected here
by antique Oriental rugs on the noor,
Barye bronzee on pedestals and the
presidents desk, and rare old sporting
prints and paintings OF Ehglish coach
ing and posting scenes In the great
days of the road.
It was indeed fittfng place 30 hyp-
notixe a wealthy buyer, and with superb
hacISneys and docked trotters in the
stables, an accomplished salesman who
could meet the biggest man In Wall
Street on even terms. and "all appli-
ances and means to boot" its early his
tory was marked by many profitable
deals.
But Il was not long before the
names of the distinguished directors OF
the Standard Coach Horse Company dis
appeared from its Advertisements on the
horse page OF the Sunday HERALD, and
a little later II was whispered about in
other sales stables that the wealthy men
hOSSNS
of valuable horses by sickness or acci-
dent and a thousand other things un-
foreseen by the amateurs ate UP all the
profits, and finally ate up everything
else, compelling Mr.. Macnaughtan to
dispose OF the building and the busl-
ness to the Fiss. Doerr & Carroll Horse
Company, of which J. ID. Carroll was
then the leading spirit. Mr.. Carroll
maintained It as an uptown branch of
his coach horse department until the
encroaching automobile destroyed the
business OF breeding. developing and
selling nne carriage horses.
Mr.. Macnaughtan was the husband OF
Myra Kelly, gifted writer OF stories
about the foreign born children OF the
lower East Side. His summer home was
at the training farm OF the Standard
Coach Horse Company on the William
Walter Phelps estate at Teaneck, n. j.,
where he had built a pretty country
house and extensive stables, with all
appointments in keeping with those OF
the city establishment. Both husband
and wife died years ago. After Fiss-
Doerr g. Carroll took over the place
Mr.. Carroll made II his summer home
until he died, ten wears ago.