Morris Schinasi House, 107th Street and Riverside Drive, ca. 1907
ornamental wooden ceiling. Perhaps the most important room in the house, at least for the owner—Rice was an inveterate player who developed a famous chess move called the Rice Gambit—was the chess room where many a tournament was held. This room was decorated in the American Arts & Crafts manner with sturdy playing tables surrounded by chairs with leather cushions. According to an article in The New York Times, the Rice family was spending so much time abroad that they decided to sell Villa Julia, thereby forgoing its high maintenance costs, and Rice instead chose to house
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G R E A T H O U S E S of N E W Y O R K
his family in a spacious apartment at the Ansonia. It has also been suggested, however, that Rice may have needed to sell the house due to losses he experienced during the Panic of 1907. In December of that year cigarette manufacturer Solomon Schinasi purchased the house for $600,000. The same year that Schinasi bought the house, his brother Maurice (Morris) was building an imposing white marble mansion at 107th Street and Riverside Drive. After residing at Villa Julia for almost two decades, the Schinasi family leased it to several institutions before finally selling the structure in 1954 to the Yeshiva Chofetz Chaim, under whose ownership it became a designated city landmark. Since 1988 it has been occupied by Yeshiva Ketana of Manhattan.