We hope you join us October 5, 2025, for the unique opportunity to see Torkelsen’s legacy in Ardsley homes up-close and in person on our Twenty-One Acres tour.
This one-day only event won’t be offered again, don’t miss out! More info and registration here.
Stanley M. Torkelsen
Stanley M. Torklesen was born in 1917 in Brooklyn. In 1942, he earned his bachelor degree in architecture from New York University. After serving in WWII, he returned to the States and married Norma Skaar in 1946.
The couple raised their children in the Twenty-One Acres neighborhood in the Westchester County, New York, town of Ardsley, where Stanley lived for five decades. The cooperative that developed the Twenty-One Acres neighborhood in the 1950s was one of the early wave of similar collectives in the country that worked together to create progressive communities of well-designed, practically built, affordable homes in settings that would nurture family-oriented, community-focused, and tranquil suburban lifestyles. Torkelsen was one of the architects that served on the cooperative board (which also included architect Roy Sigvard Johnson – who also graduated from NYU and worked alongside Torkelsen in the NYC firm of Edward Durrell Stone!), playing an instrumental role in the design of the 13 homes constructed here and leading the design of his own. He helped to further shape his beloved town through his role as chairman of the planning board.
Torkelsen’s influence in architecture spread far beyond the town of Ardsley. In fact, his legacy extends to other continents! His career was spent at Stone’s firm, where he eventually became partner, and included large institutional, commercial, and governmental projects: the US Embassy in New Delhi, the Phoenicia Hotel in Beirut, the US Pavilion at the 1958 Brussel’s World Fair, the campus at SUNY Albany, and the Garden State Arts Center in New Jersey, to name a few.
Not wanting to shift entirely away from residential design, Torkelsen struck a deal with Stone that permitted him to work on these projects apart from the firm. He designed about a half-dozen homes in Westchester and Putnam Counties, including the Robert and Isabel Case Borgatta House in Dobbs Ferry, the Herbert Dimonstein house in Hastings-on-Hudson, the Robert and Barbara Bielenberg House in Garrison, and the Walter Sassano House in Ardsley. As his son, Steven, notes, Torkelsen’s residential projects were largely influenced by his time spent in Japan during his WWII service and that they are generally of “modest size, in tune with their natural surroundings, and appealing to young families with artistic talent.”
Steven shared with us further details about the Borgatta and Bielenberg homes—both couples were artists with young families. The Borgatta House was featured in the July 1960 issue of House Beautiful. At the time, it was not entirely uncommon for clients to oversee, if not execute, themselves the construction of their homes (more stress, but less cost!). In 1958, Robert Borgatta indeed built much of the house himself.
The Bielenberg House was no exception, Robert Bielenberg was responsible for some of its carpentry work. Decades later, one of the Bielenberg children reached out to Steven to express how special it was to grow up in the exceptional home, that the parents valued the positive relationship they had working with Torkelsen, and that he helped create “the fulfillment of the Bielenberg’s dream.”