Chester A. Arthur Home

You are approaching a five-story brownstone at one hundred twenty-three Lexington Avenue that served as the private residence of the twenty-first president of the United States, Chester A. Arthur. While many presidential homes are preserved as museums, this building functions as a bustling international grocery store called Kalustyan's. Arthur moved into this house in the late eighteen fifties and considered it his primary home for the rest of his life. He returned here both to retreat from the pressures of his political career and to seek refuge after the death of his wife, Ellen, in eighteen eighty. Today, the storefront occupies the ground levels, but the upper floors remain as apartments, maintaining a direct physical link to the man who rose from a city lawyer to the highest office in the country.