Cornelia Mitchell Clinch Stewart and Olive Tjaden left an imprint by building with style in Garden City

Much of what makes Garden City a desirable suburb for the well-to-do springs from the efforts of two untraditional women born a century apart.

Cornelia Mitchell Clinch Stewart, widowed at 67 in 1876 when her merchant mogul husband, Alexander Turney, died suddenly, fulfilled many of their dreams for the village. The couple had begun with a hotel, a rail link to a ferry to New York City, and gas- and water-works. She went on to build the Cathedral of the Incarnation in her husband’s memory — persuading Brooklyn’s Episcopal diocese to relocate there, and schools for boys and girls.

Olive Tjaden, a 1925 Cornell University graduate with an architecture degree, was still in her 20s in the 1920s when she began designing revival homes in Garden City that remain masterworks of graciousness and spaciousness. And they often incorporate fine details, from stained glass to cascading staircases.

March is Women’s History Month; to Suzie Alvey, the former village historian: “As far as Women’s History Month, you could really go with either one of them.”

Bill Garry, president of The Garden City Historical Society, agreed, saying the village could do more to memorialize the pair.

“Mr. Stewart died and Cornelia picked up and ran with the ball,” Garry said. “Much of what you see here is the result of her efforts … Cornelia really kind of made that happen.”

She and her husband of over five decades — a son died in infancy, a daughter at birth — were partners in their suburban creation, financing all their buildings; A.T.’s estate — a 55-room marble mansion where the Empire State Building now stands, and a retail empire that became part of Wanamaker’s — was estimated at as much as $60 million at his death.

Referring to a subgroup at the historical society, Garry said “We determined that there is no celebration of women in Garden City and considering her role, among others, but principally her, we need to recognize her.”

Now a sculpture of Cornelia, or perhaps a bench, with an expanded garden at its 109 11th St. location, are being considered.

Tjaden designed and built as many as 600 homes, which cost from $5,000 to $50,000 — and commercial buildings in and around Garden City, said Alvey.

“She very much established the blueprint for what a Garden City house should look like, even if she didn’t design all of them; many of her colleagues seemed to work in the same vein,” said Lauren Vollono Drapala, who co-authored an article with her mother, Millicent Vollono, of Freeport.

In 1928 — at 24 — Tjaden built her own remarkable Garden City home, which echoed a French château, and became a center for many of her social and business groups that drew possible clients, explained Millicent.

Tudor and colonial revivals were among her specialties but her gifts included versatility.

Tjaden’s first marriage to Carl Johnson was not just acrimonious — her correspondence, Vollono Drapala said, illustrates a dilemma other career women have faced — a rival in a spouse. Tjaden had worked with Johnson on some of her approximately 2,000 projects.

“Her ex had tried to claim credit for a lot of work that she had done, which I think was not atypical in that time,” said Vollono Drapala.

Cornell inherited her papers and much of her $12 million estate after her death at 92 in 1997. Wrote the Cornell Chronicle: “Tjaden, who for many years was the only woman member of the American Institute of Architects, was considered the most prominent woman architect in the Northeast for more than two decades.”