A blast from the past discovered at Waldo Avenue home

A home renovation in Fieldston revealed tens of thousands of historical documents created by the late award-winning architect, Dwight James Baum (b. 1886-1939.)

Jeff Mueller moved to the neighborhood with his wife Jennifer Unter in 2010. In recent years. They began remodeling their home and uncovered more than 50,000 documents produced by Baum, including letters to the Ringling family of circus fame.

During the renovation of his home, Mueller received a phone call from one of the remodelers and told him there were “a number of files and records” stored within the walls of the home.

“I didn’t know what he meant by that,” Mueller said. “I had no idea what to expect.”

When he returned home, he saw piles of blueprints, photographs, structural hand drawings, sketches, materials, specifications and correspondence letters. Given Baum’s death in 1939, the documents were stored within the walls of the Waldo Avenue home for at least 83 years.

Mueller immediately realized the documents were important and began organizing Baum’s files by month and year and placed the files in his climate-controlled basement.

Baum, graduated from Syracuse University in 1909 with an architectural degree and in the early 1910s, while working for several architectural firms in New York City, purchased a plot of land in Riverdale and built a Dutch Colonial style home on the property.

In 1923, he was recognized as the youngest person to ever receive the gold medal from the Architectural League of New York at age 37. In 1931, he won the Better Homes in America gold medal for the best two-story house constructed in the country.

From 1914 until his death, Baum used 4401 Waldo Ave. as his architectural studio where he illustrated blueprints for approximately 140 residences in the greater Riverdale area. Many were constructed in the Tudor and Greek Revival styles.

“My favorite Baum work is the addition he built onto the Hadley House at 5122 Post Road, part of which predates the American Revolution,” Nick Dembowski said, Kingsbridge Historical Society historian. “You might think that putting a 20th century addition on a 18th century house would ruin it, but Baum's work on the building somehow enhances its charm and adds to its historic significance.”

Baum also designed the Anthony Campagna Estate at 640 W. 249^th St., served as the home for wealthy Manhattan builder Count Anthony Campagna and his wife. At the time, it overlooked the Hudson River. Today, Wave Hill, founded in 1965, sits in the vista and the home is used as housing for students of Yeshiva of Telshe Alumni.

Of the thousands of letters, Mueller was specifically impressed by one set of documents.

“It’s all really neat — but the correspondence letters between John and Mabel Ringling were probably the most intriguing documents I came across,” Mueller said excitedly.

Baum’s correspondence with John Ringling, an entrepreneur and one of the five brothers who founded Ringling Brothers Circus, led to the curation of Cà d’Zhan, a Sarasota, Florida mansion of Mediterranean revival style completed in the early 1930s.

The mansion is now part of the John & Mable Ringling Museum of Art.

“Seeing these hand-written troves on onion skin paper gives you a sense of history,” Unter said.

At West 239th Street and Henry Hudson Parkway, sits the Riverdale-Spuyten Duyvil-Kingsbridge Memorial Bell Tower, also designed by Baum. The 50-foot monument was completed in 1930 to acknowledge local World War I veterans.

The tower, listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2012, hosts seasonal events including Memorial Day ceremonies, Christmas tree lightings and during Hannukah, the largest menorah in the Bronx.

“Baum definitely left a mark on the neighborhood,” Dembowski said. “The many single-family homes he designed around Riverdale are all different and yet they all seem to fit perfectly into the landscape.”

Mueller and Unter are speaking with museums and historical societies to preserve the documents and said they expect to come to a final decision sometime in the next few weeks.

“Given the importance and size of the collection, we want to take a considered approach when it comes to making this decision,” Mueller said.

Baum died after he suffered a heart attack in Times Square at age 53 while running to catch a bus home to Fieldston, according to the Sarasota Herald-Tribune.

“We may never know the answer to who put these documents in the walls or why they were stored there,” Mueller said. “That’s the $64,000 question.”