Stanford White's 1901 Henry B. Hollins House -- 12-14 West 56th Street

photo by Alice Lum

The years following the Civil War saw New York’s wealthy citizens inching northward along Fifth Avenue.  As the turn of the century approached, the avenue below 59^th Street was lined with the mansions of the Vanderbilt family and their social equals.  Wide brownstone rowhouses on the side streets, originally built for middle-class families, were either razed and replaced with fashionable residences, or  remodeled and updated for their new, moneyed owners.

West 56^th Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues would become known as Bankers’ Row as financiers like Henry Seligman, E. Hayward Ferry and Arthur Lehman of Lehman Brothers built elegant residences.   Here Harry Bowly Hollins would join the crowd.

Hollins was a close personal friend of J. P. Morgan.  A respected banker and broker, he founded the investment firm of H. B. Hollins & Co.  In 1899 he purchased the still-undeveloped lot at 12-14 West 56^th Street and his business partner and close friend Frederick Edey purchased the adjoining lot at No. 10; their planned homes would fill the last two empty lots on the block.

A snag due to an 1881 prohibition on construction as far as the lot line for twenty years forced Edey to wait two years to begin building.  In the meantime Hollins steamed ahead.   The foremost architectural firm in the country at the time was McKim, Mead & White and Hollins went right to the top.  Stanford White would take on the project, designing a cutting-edge neo-Georgian brick and limestone home.

The choice of the refined Georgian design was somewhat surprising.  While the Centennial had awakened interest in things colonial; New York’s upper class was still building Italian palazzi and French chateaux.  It would still be a few years before society embraced the style with such mansions as the Andrew Carnegie or Paul Tuckerman homes.  The Architectural Record recognized the trend and commented that “It is because McKim, Mead & White have been consciously seeking to naturalize certain European architectural forms in this country that they place their work in vital connection with the one living American architectural tradition.”

Completed in 1901, White’s structure was understated elegance.   The entrance was centered in the rusticated limestone first floor, above which three stories of brownish-red brick supported a stone cornice and balustrade.  White left a narrow courtyard between the Hollins house and the proposed Edey mansion.  



Miniature evergreens and vines grace the balconies five years after the house was completed -- Architectural Record July 1906

The Hollins property extended to West 55^th Street where an existing stable still stood—previously owned by Robert Bonner for his famous trotting horses.  Hollins and his wife, the former Evelina Knapp, moved in with their children, Marion, John, Harry and McKim.   Mrs. Hollins did not fit the mold of the socialite whose soul interests were gossip and teas; she was a member of the Archaeological Institute of America and a keen collector of fine art.

The 56^th Street mansion was used throughout the New York social season.  During the summer and early autumn months the Hollins lived and entertained in their Islip, Long Island estate Meadow Farm.

Things were going well for the family – or at least it seemed so to New York society and the banking industry—until October 1913 when the Hollins family quietly moved into the fashionable Hotel Gotham.   Hollins leased the mansion, fully furnished and including Mrs. Hollins’ valuable paintings and rare works of art, to Mrs. John Astor.  Mrs. Astor, the mother of Vincent Astor, agreed to pay $25,000 rent for the winter which included use of the adjoining 55^th Street stables.

The stables, in the meantime, were sold to a developer who intended to erect a “large apartment hotel” there; with the agreement that demolition would not start until Mrs. Astor’s lease expired.

A month later an attorney affixed a court order to the brass gates of Hollins’ grand Wall Street office.  The New York Times reported that “Then it was publicly known that one of the most highly regarded houses in Wall Street had collapsed.”

The scandal was no doubt crushing to the family which was referred to by The Times as “notable in New York’s society life.”    They left Manhattan and moved permanently into the Long Island home.   In January 1915 Mrs. Hollins’ collection of art and antiques from the 56^th Street house were auctioned off by the Anderson Galleries.  Included were paintings by Thomas Lawrence, Joshua Reynolds, Caravaggio and Romney.  The two-day auction netted $84,481.

Six months earlier the Calumet Club had met to vote on moving north from the clubhouse at Fifth Avenue and 29^th Street where they had been for a quarter of a century.   The Hollins house was suggested as a possibility; certainly taking over the mansion would preclude the expense of building.   Before 1915 the house was purchased for $400,000 and the club was opened in the new location.

The house was conveniently within what was becoming the new club district.   The Brickbuilder magazine noted in January 1916 that “The clubs in New York have been steadily moving farther and farther north, and while the University Club was for many years a solitary outpost at 54^th street and Fifth avenue, it is now no farther north than many of the others.  The pleasant new building of the Calumet Club is on 56^th street, just west of Fifth avenue.”

The club had been formed in 1879 by twenty young men from distinguished families.  They named it after the calumet, a tobacco pipe that the American Indians used in peace treaties.  Membership was limited to 300.

In 1924 architect J. E. R. Carpenter was commissioned to renovate the building.  He added a two-story extension in the courtyard, set back behind a one-story arched entrance.  The original centered entrance and portico were replaced by a window that deftly blended with the others.

Carpenter's addition included a new entrance, replacing the original centered doorway -- photo by Alice Lum

Despite being one of the oldest social organizations in the city, the Great Depression proved too much to withstand.  On May 31, 1935 the club was disbanded and the clubhouse closed.   In September the Hollins house was sold at foreclosure and became home to the antiques dealer Charles of London.

For the next decade commercial tenants would come and go, with the house sitting empty for periods.  The Salvation Army acquired it in 1943 to be used as a servicemen’s canteen during World War II.

Over the door a handsome cast iron ornament simulates a leaded fan light -- photo by Alice Lum

Finally in 1947 the government of Argentina purchased the mansion, renovating it as the Argentine Consulate.    The Hollins mansion remains astonishingly preserved; one of the few residences in the area to survive without significant commercial alteration.  The handsome Georgian house was designated a New York City landmark in 1984.

The Lost Cyrus W. Field Mansion -- Gramercy Park

A double staircase led to the entrances of the two mirror-image Field mansions.

Samuel Ruggles’ ambitious plan to transform part of the old Gramercy Farm into an elite residential enclave was well under way when Cyrus West Field and his attorney brother, David Dudley Field, purchased side-by-side lots at the northeast corner of Lexington Avenue and 21^stStreet.  A total of sixty building plots surrounded a large, central park enclosed by a high iron fence.  Ruggles had begun landscaping of Gramercy Square in 1844 and soon afterward imposing mansions began rising.

The exclusivity of the square was furthered by the locked gates to Gramercy Park, opened only for residents -- vintage postcard, copyright expired

Cyrus Field’s rise from an errand boy in A. T. Stewart’s dry goods emporium to one of the city’s wealthiest men was meteoric.  Years later the Daily Alta California would remind readers “His brother, David Dudley, was given a collegiate education; instead of a classical education Cyrus received $25 in cash and his father’s blessing.”

After working three years for $2 a week for Stewart’s, he took a job as a salesman for a paper manufacturer.  Before long he started his own business.  The California newspaper said “on the first day that he took possession of his new office he made the sanguine remark: ‘I shall make a fortune here in twenty years.’  Better than his word, he made his fortune in twelve years and retired, still in the prime of life, to enjoy the rest which he had never known since his boyhood.”  

The “prime of his life” was age 33 and Field left business with a comfortable fortune of $250,000—between $6 and $10 million today.

Cyrus and David built mirror-image mansions.  Cyrus took the more agreeable corner lot, affording windows on three sides.  The brownstone-clad houses featured a wide shared stoop that accessed the side-by-side entrance doors.  Cast iron balconies adorned the parlor levels where floor-to-ceiling arched windows could capture the park breezes; and another iron balcony ran the length of both homes along the second floor.

The New-York Tribune noted that “they were arranged so that they could be thrown into one.”  The main entertaining rooms—the dining rooms and ballrooms—could be opened up creating a single grand space.

If Field intended to relax; his intentions were short-lived.  He traveled with artist Frederick Church through Bogota, Guayaquil and Ecuador.  On this expedition Church painted some of his more memorable works, such as “The Heart of the Andes,” and not surprisingly several of the artist’s works ended up in the Field mansion on Gramercy Park.

Back in New York Field met Frederick Newton Gisborne in 1853.  A year earlier the Canadian inventor and electrician had successfully laid the first deep-sea cable in North American waters—connecting Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick.   Gisborne laid out the possibility of an even grander project—a transatlantic cable between Britain and the United States.

Field reportedly mulled over the globe that stood in his library and finally came to the conclusion that laying the cable could be done.  In 1854 he called a group of his friends together in his library—Peter Cooper, Moses Taylor, Marshall O. Roberts, Chandler White and Wilson G. Hunt.  A newspaper later said he “preached the Atlantic cable to them until they were converted to his plans.”

Decades later, in 1895, Daniel Huntington would paint his account of the meeting around Field's globe.  The painting was presented to the New York City Chamber of Commerce.  The globe eventually landed in the Smithsonian Institution.  New-York Tribune (copyright expired)

It would not be an easy task.  Cyrus Field obsessed and labored on the project for twelve years and crossed the ocean 51 times.  The first cable failed.  The group tried again.  “The second cable spoke for three weeks, then parted and was dead as the first,” said a newspaper. 

On October 31, 1865 Field prepared to try again.  The Field mansion was the scene of a grand entertainment that evening, The New York Times reporting that “Mr. Cyrus W. Field invited many of our most prominent citizens to meet Sir Morton Peto and party…prior to their departure for Europe to-day.”  Field’s brother, Stephen Johnson Field, a Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, was among the distinguished guests including Chief Justice Chase, Senators Sherman and Morgan, two major generals, several judges, two university presidents and, of course, the original investors who had met in Field’s library eleven years earlier.

The third cable dropped slowly from the Great Eastern, reaching Europe in 1866.  It succeeded.  Not only was the laying of the transatlantic cable a monumental technological and engineering success; it was a colossal personal triumph for Cyrus West Field.  He was presented a gold medal by Congress; the Paris Exposition of 1867 awarded him the grand medal; and according to the Daily Alta California, “the Queen of England knighted his [British] associates, and he would have been Sir Cyrus had not his American birth and prejudices prevented.”

Across the park stood the mansion of Samuel J. Tilden, Governor of New York and 1876 presidential candidate to succeed Grant.  Tilden and Field were, for awhile, business associates; but would become outspoken adversaries.  Their combative rhetoric about issues like the elevated railroad would be fodder for the press for years.  The intense dislike between the pair was possibly sparked by David Dudley Field’s idea for the Electoral Commission in 1876 which resulted in Tilden’s losing the election.

It was not surprising, therefore, when Tilden was not present when many of the most esteemed names in the city assembled in the Field library on April 15, 1874.  The group, deemed by The New York Times as “the leading bankers, capitalists, and merchants of this City,” met to discuss what action should be taken “to represent the feelings of the business men of New-York to the President regarding the Senate bill for the expansion of the currency.”  Among those present were August Belmont, Theodore Roosevelt, Peter Cooper, and William E. Dodge, John Jacob Astor, W. H. Macy, A. A. Low and A. T. Stewart.

A rare glimpse inside the Cyrus Field mansion was offered when Count Ferdinand De Lesseps “and a select party of friends” were guests at a breakfast in the house on March 31, 1880.  The Times described “The breakfast-room and glass-covered veranda adjoining were aglow with flowers and tropical plants and the sideboard and tables were loaded down with vases of choice flowers…The walls of the room were decorated in fresco with paintings of Columbus, Washington, and Franklin, and the sideboard was the identical one purchased by Thomas Jefferson in London, and adorned the dining-room of the White House from 1801 to 1809.  After the repast the company inspected Mr. Field’s collection of paintings, embracing views of the Atlantic cables of 1865 and 1866, in the various processes of laying; the great Falls of Tiquandama, in New-Grenada, and the Volcano of Cotopaxi, in New-Granada.”

Cyrus West Field’s long run of triumphs and happiness in the Gramercy Park mansion came to an abrupt halt, beginning on in November 1891.  One year earlier, on December 2, the house was aglow with cheer as the Fields celebrated their golden wedding anniversary.  The Evening Worldremembered that “Mrs. Field was Mary Bryan Stone, daughter of a Guiford (Conn.) clergyman, when, on Dec. 2, 1840, she was led to the altar by Cyrus W. Field, then a poor boy of twenty-one years.”

The New-York Tribune reported “The venerable couple received their guests in the drawing-room, which was profusely decorated, and although the invitations had been limited to members of the family and intimate friends, more than a thousand persons came to offer their congratulations.  The object of interest, next to the central group, was the certificate of marriage of 1840, which was displayed on a table near the receiving party, and next to it the golden wedding certificate, signed by General W. T. Sherman, Benjamin H. Field, and a number of other well-known citizens.”

The couple had seven children in the house, now all grown; and despite never sharing in her husband’s spotlight, Mary was “companion and intelligent counsel, as well as wife and helpmate.”  When Mary died in their country home at Irvington-on-the-Hudson in November 1891, Cyrus Field was incapacitated with grief.

Mary Field as she appeared around 1860 -- photograph by Charles D. Fredericks & Co., from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult_VPage&VBID=24UAYWEDNRGO&SMLS=1&RW=1280&RH=915

Only days later things would get worse when son Edward’s stock brokerage business, Field, Lindley, Wieehers & Co., failed.  The Sun reported on November 29 “nearly all of those who have spoken on behalf of the firm have attributed to the alleged mental derangement of Edward M. Field all the damaging irregularities in the firm’s business methods which have come to light.  The statement that Mr. Field is insane and has been for some time was reiterated yesterday with a great deal of circumstantiality and was denied also.”

To make matters even worse, Edward’s partner Daniel A. Lindley was married to one of the Field daughters, Grace.  The ugly and public state of affairs was affecting her severely.  The Sun reported on November 29 “Mrs. Daniel A. Lindley was removed from the Everett House shortly after noon yesterday in an ambulance to the house of her father, Cyrus W. Field.  She has been in New York for about three weeks, and her husband has been with her at the Everett House.  When she came here she was suffering from nervous prostration and a cold was followed by pleurisy and pneumonia.”

Her condition deteriorated to the point that doctors felt it best to take her to the Field residence.  “It was impossible to take her there in a carriage, and Mr. Lindley hired an ambulance from the New York Hospital.  The change was accomplished in a few minutes, and Mrs. Lindley felt no evil effects from it.”

The multiple blows were evident on Cyrus Field.  His grandson told reporters “The shock he received at my grandmother’s death was terrible.  He did not realize that she was dangerously ill at the time, and when she passed away, it shattered him completely.  He had not recovered at all from that when this second shock came, and he is now completely crushed.  And when a man gets to be 72 years old such things are likely to be very serious.”

A physician gave an even graver assessment.  “Mr. Cyrus W. Field’s health is much more serious than I fancy the members of his family imagine.  Just at the moment he is in a state of artificial excitement.  His nerves are all on end.  But a reaction is sure to follow.

“Just how long before it will come it is difficult to say; it may be to-morrow or considerably later.  But I have little hope that he can withstand it.”

A few days later, on December 3, Cyrus Field’s secretary, Philip H. Harris gave a more hopeful prognosis, telling newspapers “Mr. Field’s condition had improved very greatly and that now he believed he would rally and recover.  When asked if he thought that Mr. Field knew the whole story of his son’s misbehavior, Mr. Harris said that he believed that the whole story had been told to him gradually and that the old gentleman knew everything.”

On January 11 Grace Field Lindley died in the mansion.  For the second time in three months Cyrus W. Field attended the funeral of an immediate family member—this one in his Gramercy Park home.  Grace was just 51 years old and left five children and her husband.  The New York Times remarked “The death of his daughter, although not unexpected, was a great shock to Cyrus W. Field.”

As summer neared, Field went to his country estate in Irvington.  There at 9:45 in the morning on July 12 he died in the house where his beloved Mary had died a few months earlier.  The accounts of his life and death filled full pages of newspapers across the nation.  The Times said “The name of Cyrus W. Field will pass into history as that of the man whose grit and genius succeeded in connecting the continents of Europe and America by a submarine cable.”

Two years later, on April 14, 1894, David Dudley Field died.  The substantial accomplishments of the attorney who was responsible for the Field Code—the move away from common law pleading towards code pleading—and who represented New York as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives had always been overshadowed by the fame of his brother next door.  Nevertheless his funeral drew thousands of mourners.  Before the service, the David Field house was visited by the United States Supreme Court Justices and other eminent jurists, politicians and scholars.  The New York Times remarked that he was honored in death “in the presence of the largest assemblage of representative men and women Calvary Church…has ever held.”

David Field’s house was sold for $73,800; about $2 million today.  In the meantime, the Cyrus Field house had been stripped of the paintings, historic relics and furniture and turned into a boarding house.  David’s mansion was likewise converted.  The New-York Tribune said “The lofty and spacious rooms were cut up into small apartments, and with the exception of the ceiling decorations and the wall hangings there was nothing left in the Field houses…to remind the visitor of the days when they were a part of New-York’s fashionable centre.”

That was about to change.

On April 23, 1899 the Tribune reported that wealthy banker Henry W. Poor had purchased both mansions with the intention of razing them and erecting a single large mansion.  The newspaper noted that “some of the most brilliant receptions and other society functions in the history of the metropolis took place in the Field houses.”  Now, having bought the properties for $200,000, Poor announced plans to build “a more modern building.”

The New York Times announced that “Plans have been prepared by Architect Stanford White…The new house will be modeled after an old English homestead, and will be novel in many features of its design.”  White, incidentally, lived directly across the street, on the northwest corner of Lexington Avenue and 21^st Street.

It could have been the fact that he lived on the park that drove the architect to convince Henry Poor to renovate the two houses rather than demolish them.  By essentially maintaining the exteriors of the old brownstone mansions the quaintness and historic continuity of the neighborhood would be preserved.  Instead of demolishing them, Stanford White did a massive renovation, combining the two Field mansions into one magnificent residence.

Stanford White's alterations would result in the entrance on Lexington Avenue -- photograph "Old Buildings of New York City" 1907 (copyright expired)

The transformation, costing Poor about $1 million, was completed in 1901.  The stoop and entrances on 21^stStreet were replaced by a shallow glass conservatory.  The entrance was moved to street level to the side—creating the new address No. 1 Lexington Avenue.  The New-York Tribune noted “Henry W. Poor two years ago purchased the twin mansions in Gramercy Park.  One of these belonged to the late Cyrus W. Field, and contained may wonderful oak carvings and other artistic features.  Under the advice of Stanford White, the architect, the two houses were thrown into one, and across the entire length has been arranged a splendid apartment, which is one of the largest ballrooms in the city.”

The entrance hall and staircase of the renovated mansion -- photograph McKim Mead & White, from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult_VPage&VBID=24UAYWEDTSIW&SMLS=1&RW=1280&RH=915

One of the first grand entertainments in the renovated mansion would be the debut of Edith Poor in January 1902.  The Tribune said “There will be a ball, and there is much curiosity concerning the house, as it is a veritable museum, of all of Europe having been ransacked for artistic furnishings.”

Indeed, White had scoured the continent for antique paneling, doorways, carved mantels and flooring.  On December 20, 1901 the Poors hosted the first of the string of entertainments for Edith.  The New York Times noted “It was the first large entertainment of the kind given there since the two Field houses were made into one.  The house is admirably adapted for entertaining, and is furnished with rare mural paintings, antique furniture, tapestries, statuary, etc., from abroad.” 

The guests entered into a large marble hall where they were awed by a large Roman fountain and statue.  Fifty young people were invited for the dinner.  A dais had been constructed in the hallway outside the dining room where The Hungarian Band played during dinner.  Another group, Schubert’s Band, arrived to play for the dancing in the drawing room overlooking Gramercy Park.  The Times remarked “This room has fine examples of mural painting on the ceiling, and is hung with tapestries, the general effect being dull, rather light green, and white, with touches of antique gold.”

White installed imported ceilings, antique mantels and carved doorways.  photograph McKim Mead & White, from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult_VPage&VBID=24UAYWEDTSIW&SMLS=1&RW=1280&RH=915

The Poors were not done impressing yet.  Following the dance in the drawing room, the ballroom was thrown open for a cotillion.  Another 200 guests filed in.  The Times reported that “After the cotillion supper was served at small tables placed in the large upper hall and dining room.  The squash court and conservatory were also open.”

It was the first of the lavish entertainments held in the Poor mansion.  In March 1902 the house was the scene of a musicale “one of the largest of the season,” according to The Times.  300 guests, some from Philadelphia and Boston, heard a full 60-member orchestra under the direction of Emil Paur.  Soprano Kate Huntington sang, and famed violinist Charles Gregorowitch performed as did Hamilton J. Orr who played a piano concerto with the orchestra.  After the program supper was served in the dining room, followed by “dancing of the young people, for which the Hungarian Band furnished the music.”

A charming breakfast room with intricate plaster ceiling opened onto the conservatory -- photograph McKim Mead & White, from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult_VPage&VBID=24UAYWEDTSIW&SMLS=1&RW=1280&RH=915

Edith Poor continued her social successes when she married Capt. James K. Cochrane of the British Army on January 5, 1904.  The Times called it “one of the largest and most fashionable weddings of the season” and it was followed by reception in the Poor mansion.  “Capt. Cochrane and his bride received congratulations and felicitations in the large red and gold drawing room on the second floor, under a bell of ferns and smilax,” reported the newspaper.

It would be among the last grand fetes held in the Poor household.

On December 27, 1908, the shocking news was published on the other side of the continent.  The San Francisco Call ran the headline “Henry W. Poor, Banker, Fails For 5 Million.”  The newspaper seemed as surprised as its readers.  “Poor was looked upon not only as a very wealthy man, but his family has long held a high social position.  He has two magnificent homes, one the old Cyrus W. Field mansion at 10 Lexington Avenue [sic], and the other a stone chateau at Tuxedo, which have been gathering places of the fashionable for years.”

It was the end of the line for the Gramercy Park mansion as a gather place of the fashionable.  Less than a decade after Stanford White had plundered Europe’s castles and palaces for rare and costly architectural elements, the house was slated for dismantling.  On April 18, 1909 The New York Times reported on the upcoming exhibition of the furnishings, artwork and architectural elements to be auctioned off.

Potential buyers, and the curious, filed through the mansion.  “In the drawing room the picture panels of the ceiling are in a light, yet opulent scheme of silvery grays and rose, with occasional cooling touches of blue.  Another extremely rich ceiling taken from an old Umbrian palace contains twelve panels depicting the divinities of Olympus in a color scheme of violets and grays with deep notes of blue, dusky red, and orange, all subdued by the tone of time to a smothered splendor,” said the newspaper.

The imported mantels would all be sold.  The Times said “Some of them are comparatively simple, but the one in the main hall is highly elaborated in the style of Francia, first period, and with its ornament of mascarons and cherubs, birds, and fruits in high relief it gives opportunity for a delightful play of light and shadow over the mellowed surface of the marble.”

There were Spanish doors, Colonial wooden mantels in the bedrooms, carved door frames and wrought iron gates and stair railings going under the hammer.  The house was hung with medieval tapestries, including several French 15^th century millefiori examples; a 15^th century Gothic tapestry depicting Hercules and Theseus wrestling; and Italian and Flemish tapestries from the 16^thcentury.  The furniture spanned several periods and styles—Chippendale, Louis XV, American Colonial, and Adams.

The Times tempered its sadness at the loss of a residential treasure with a positive note.  “The spectacle of the disintegration of a house in which the appointments have been assembled with such exacting taste cannot but be melancholy, but the opportunity for collectors is one to inspire enthusiasm.”

Despite Stanford White’s successful urging to preserve the Field mansions eight years earlier, Gramercy Park was changing.  In 1909 there were already two large apartment houses that had replaced old mansions.  Now in February 1910 it was announced that developer Charles W. Buek would raze the Poor house “and erect another towering apartment overlooking the park.”

Buek paid $200,000 for the property that had cost Poor $1.2 million less than a decade earlier.  He told reporters his apartment building would be “in the Italian Renaissance style, the façade being finished in Indiana limestone and buff brick.”

The corner as it appeared in 1929 with the new No. 1 Lexington Avenue building -- photo by Wurts Bros. from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult_VPage&VBID=24UAYWEDTSIW&SMLS=1&RW=1280&RH=915

Before long a handsome new building, designed by Herbert Lucas, replaced the old brownstone homes.  No. 1 Lexington Avenue survives today; a dignified Italian Renaissance-inspired building with a plaque on its façade reminding passersby that once the home of the man responsible for the Transatlantic Cable lived here.

photograph taken by the author

The Lost New York Herald Building -- Herald Square

The newly-completed New York Herald Building -- photo Library of Congress

James Gordon Bennett, Sr. founded The New York Herald in 1835.  Under his masterful leadership it became the dominant newspaper in the city for most of the century.  Although his son, James Gordon Bennett, Jr. was raised in Paris, it was expected that he would return to New York to take over the business.  And he did, in 1866 shortly before his father’s death.

But the younger Bennett had enjoyed a carefree, playboy lifestyle in France that would raise eyebrows in the buttoned-up parlors of Victorian Manhattan.  When he attended a New Year’s Day party hosted by his fiancee’s family in 1877 he put an end to his engagement and his life in New York by urinating in the fireplace.

The larger-than-life publisher felt it best to avoid New York society -- Library of Congress

Bennett went into a self-imposed exile in Paris, virtually sneaking back into New York occasionally to make surprise visits to the Herald offices.  His physical absence did not alter the fact that the flamboyant and eccentric publisher was fully in charge.

As the 19^th century entered its last decade, Bennett decided on a move from the Herald’s white marble building on Newspaper Row in lower Manhattan.  Furiously battling Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst for newspaper supremacy at the time, he made a gutsy decision to abandon the publishing district altogether.  Recognizing the northward expansion of commerce, he leased the triangular plot of ground at the intersection of Broadway and 6^th Avenue between 35^th and 36^th Streets from William De Forest Manice.   

Bennett signed two leases—one for twenty years and the second for ten.  The yearly rental for the first ten years was $55,000, $65,000 for the second ten years, and $75,000 for the third.  When his manager questioned Bennett on building with only a 30-year lease, the publisher replied “Thirty years from now the Herald will be in Harlem, and I’ll be in hell!”

A contemporary postcard view shows a remarkably similar structure.

For the design of his new headquarters James Gordon Bennett went to Stanford White of McKim, Mead & White.   How much influence Bennett had on the design is a matter of contention; however by 1893 preliminary sketches were released to the public.  White based his design on the 1476 Venetian Renaissance Palazzo del Consiglio in Verona.    Completed in 1895, its one criticism was that it was “too perfect” a copy.

In 1894, as the building nears completion, only one owl has been set in place on the roof -- photo New York Historical Society

If Bennett had no influence on the style of the building, he most definitely gave direction on its decoration.  By now the publisher had become obsessed with hoot owls.  He had run editorials in the New York and Paris editions of the Herald fighting for the preservation of the species.  The owl became the symbol of the newspaper.   Along the roofline he had twenty-six four-foot bronze owls installed.  The birds at the corners, with spread wings, were given green glass eyes that eerily glowed on and off with the toll of the Herald’s clock.  The owls were intended to symbolize the wisdom of the newspaper’s printed words.

The owl motif was carried further in the magnificent bronze grouping that surmounted the 35^th Street façade.   Minerva, goddess of wisdom whose traditional attendant was the owl, stood over a large bell.  Two mechanized typesetters wearing leather printers’ aprons swung mallets, tolling the hour.  Atop the bell perched yet another bronze owl.  The sculptural group was commissioned in Paris at a cost of $200,000 and executed by French artist Antonin Jean Paul Charles.

Bennett paid for the sculpture and the owls from his own pocket to ensure his personal ownership.

Bennett’s owl infatuation would culminate a few years later when he called upon Stanford White again to design a 125-foot tall stone owl for his Washington Heights estate.  The towering sculpture would stand on a 75-foot pedestal and was designed to hold his future sarcophagus.  Bennett envisioned tourists climbing a circular staircase surrounding Bennett’s suspended coffin; finally reaching a platform at the top where magnificent views of the city could be enjoyed.

Although White completed the designs, his murder on June 25, 1906 halted the anomalous tomb’s construction.

In the meantime, White’s magnificent Italian palazzo was a show stopper.  A deep  and graceful arcade along the sides offered passersby the opportunity to watch the giant presses in motion inside.   On March 21, 1895, at noon, the bronze figures above the roof first tolled the hour.  Editor & Publisher wrote that “thousands of persons cluttered up the neighborhood and gazed at the two figures.”

Progressive Architecture pointed out the intricate and delicate terra cotta detailing --copyright expired

Architectural critics approved.  John Vredenburgh Van Pelt, in Progressive Architecture, said “Stanford White’s work in terra cotta is the best of the period.”  James Gordon Bennett was not so sure.  Shortly after the building’s completion he traveled to New York to inspect the finished goods.   Editor & Publisher later reported that “He stood on a street a block below and said: ‘It looks a little ‘squattier’ than I thought it would.  It could have had one more story.’”

The 6th Avenue elevated train runs alongside bustling Herald Square -- photo NYPL Collection

Squat or not, the New York Herald building was now the costliest newspaper office building in the world.   The New York Times suggested that Stanford White must have been thrilled with the expensive and highly-visible site.  “...The architect may very well view it with delight, since it gives him a chance to convert a commercial building into an ‘exhibit’ of a great industry, and even to give it a monumental character.”

The newspaper praised White’s disciplined following of the 15^th century style.  “There is no straining after originality in the design, the detail being of the early Italian Renaissance and the architecture recalling, perhaps too specifically, some of the monuments of the fifteenth century, of the period of the Certoso at Pavia.  The great and almost unprecedented profusion of the decorative detail is a point that will arrest attention.”

The Times ended its assessment saying “Upon the whole, Mr. Bennett and his architects are to be congratulated upon a graceful and effective piece of architecture which constitutes an ornament to the city.”

But the ornament to the city would not last long.   The New York Herald building was iconic.  It defined what was now called Herald Square and it attracted scores of tourists and New Yorkers alike every day who would press against the expansive street level windows to watch the printers at work.  Tens of thousands of postcards and stereopticon slides of the extraordinary architectural gem that held a printing plant were published.

Passersby stare into the large windows to watch the giant presses churn out the newspaper -- photo Library of Congress

Yet on May 12, 1921 the New-York Tribune ran a head line that read “Old Herald Building Soon to Come Down.”    Bennett’s 30-year lease was coming to a close and, as he anticipated, the newspaper was moving further north.    By the time the Tribune ran the article, preparations were already under way.

“The heroic bronze smiths, known as Guff and Stuff, who had been striking out the hours night and day on the big bell on top of the southern façade of the building for the last twenty-eight years, and the goggling owls that had watched from their lofty perch on top of the building during those years were removed last month, for they were the property of the late Mr. Bennett,” said the newspaper.

When this photograph was taken the days of the Herald Building were numbered -- photo NYPL Collection

The lease had been taken over by Nicholas C. Parlos, head of the Partola Manufacturing Company which made “candied medicine.”    The Tribune reported that he “plans to replace the present low structure…with one of twenty stories to be used principally as headquarters for his company.”

A month later the Herald Building got a reprieve of a sort.  The New York Times reported on June 18 that the Rogers Peet Company—a mens’ clothier—had leased the southern half of “the famous old structure.”   Rogers Peet would move from its present location, diagonally across 6^thAvenue, into 33,000 square feet.   The old press rooms and offices were renovated at a cost of $400,000, including the installation of a mezzanine, to selling space.

In February the following year, Rogers Peet moved in.  An advertisement in The New-York Tribune said “To-day, though the Herald Building has been converted into fine selling quarters, flooded with daylight, the general design of the building, which is a replica of the charming Palazzo del Consiglio or City Hall of Verona, remains unchanged—a matter for congratulation to the architect who has so skillfully retained a grace of art while remodeling it to its new prosaic purpose.”

The ad lamented the loss of the blinking owls on the roof, but added “Now it’s birds of fashion who will alight to see up-to-the-minute styles designed for men of the hour!”

In the meantime, Partos demolished the northern half of the building and, as promised, erected a modern high-rise office building.

The stay of execution for the front half of the Herald Building lasted until 1940.  On February 24 The Times reported on the impending demolition.   Owner 1,350 Broadway Realty Corporation announced that a new $250,000 four-story structure designed by architect H. Craig Severance would replace White’s showplace.   The newspaper said the “improvement” would be a “granite and limestone building with bronze store fronts featuring large display windows.”

The 1921 tower to the north and the short 1940 building to the south replaced White's magnificent Italian Renaissance Herald building.

Later that year a 40-foot granite monument to James Gordon Bennet, Jr. designed by Aymar Embury II, consulting architect of the Parks Department, was installed in Herald Square.  It incorporated the mechanized clock grouping of Minerva and the two bell-tollers which had been long crated away in storage.  

The bronze sculptures were incorporated into the Bennett memorial on Herald Square.

Herald Square now features several of the bronze rooftop owls perched on gate posts.  And if you look closely as night falls, you will see that the owls with spread wings atop the monument still flash their eerie green eyes.

The monument and the owls are the last vestiges of one of New York City’s masterpieces of architecture, wiped away in favor of what Nicholas Parlos called in 1921 “a structure of great income producing capacity.”

many thanks to reader MjH for suggesting this post
non-credited photographs taken by the author

The Lost Wm. Whitney Mansion -- No. 871 Fifth Avenue

The startling renovations to the mansion neared completion in 1901.  Further up the avenue another house is being built -- photo by Byron Company, from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult_VPage&VBID=24UP1GW6XN7H&SMLS=1&RW=1280&RH=894

On December 12, 1882 sugar refining magnate Robert L. Stuart died in his brownstone residence at No. 154 Fifth Avenue.  He left his widow an estate valued at between $5 and $6 million and the unfinished hulking stone mansion 48 blocks to the north.  Upon his death The New York Times remarked that “The new residence which Mr. Stuart was building at Sixty-eighth street and Fifth-avenue was to cost $350,000, and the owner expected to occupy it next Spring.  It is very nearly completed, and will prove one of the most notable ornaments of the avenue.  It has a frontage on Fifth-avenue of 55 feet, and on Sixty-eighth-street of 136 feet, and the general style of the architecture is the Renaissance.”

Robert Stuart died just months before his new mansion was completed -- NYPL Collection

Stuart ensured that the sidewalk fronting his mansion would be flawless.  The Times said “The flagstone in front of the main entrance is the largest ever quarried and laid in one piece, being 26 feet 6 inches long, 15 feet 6 inches wide, and 9 inches think, and weighing 430 tons.”

Stuart had commissioned architect William Schickel to design the mansion he would never occupy.  Schickel combined elements of the French Second Empire and Renaissance Revival styles to create a bulky confection of oriels, balconies, dormers and cast iron cresting.  The widowed Mary McCrea Stuart had the mansion completed at a final cost of $640,000 not including the land.  She moved into the new Fifth Avenue mansion, entertaining in the three large parlors, impressive dining room and ballroom. 

Eventually the aging Mary’s health showed signs of decline.  In 1887 she slipped while going to her carriage and broke a leg.  For months she was confined to bed in the house.  In February 1889 she showed symptoms of pneumonia and traveled to Thomasville, Georgia with her companion, Miss Stratton and several servants.  When her condition continued to decline, her doctor was summoned from New York.  The New York Times reported that “Upon his arrival a consultation took place concerning Mrs. Stuart’s wish that she should be removed to her home in Sixty-eighth-street.  The physicians did not fancy this, believing that such a course would be fatal to the patient, but her will was not to be withstood.”

A special train was chartered to transport Mary Stuart home, “under the contract to make Jersey City within a day.”  She 75-year old widow paid $1000 for the special train which traveled at the then-astounding average speed of 41 miles per hour.  Within the contracted 24 hours she was back in her bed at No. 871 Fifth Avenue.  She survived the pneumonia and the trip, but would die here at the age of 81 on December 30, 1891.

After Mary’s charitable bequeaths were fulfilled and the valuable collection of artwork and books were donated to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, an auction of her residual property was held in March 1893.  “The sale, by Mr. Peter F. Meyer,” said The New York Times “was a remarkably successful one in all respects save one.  This exception was the mansion on Fifth Avenue.”

Offers were made on the spacious mansion for over a year, none of which satisfied the executors of the estate.  Finally on December 10, 1894 Amzi L. Barber of the Barber and Trinidad Asphalt Companies purchased it for $675,000.

Barber had renovations done; and by 1895 he and his wife were entertaining in the updated mansion.  Society pages reported on dinners and musicales, like the one for Mrs. Anna Randall Diehl in the residence that year.

But Barber would be here for only about two years.  The mansion became the home of Levi P. Morton, former Vice President of the United States under Benjamin Harrison, and Governor of New York.  Morton’s governorship had ended in 1896 and he leased the house from its new owner, former Secretary of the Navy William C. Whitney. 

While Morton was in the house, Whitney and his wife were living at the southwest corner of 57^th Street and Fifth Avenue.  Whitney had purchased that brownstone mansion from the Duchess de Dino thirteen years earlier.  Now, Whitney’s son, Harry Payne Whitney, was on his honeymoon with his new bride, Gertrude Vanderbilt, and the 57^thStreet house was his father’s wedding present to the newlyweds.  “Mr. Whitney will continue to occupy the house he is in now until his son returns,” reported The Sun on November 25, 1896.  The newspaper added, “What he paid for the Stuart house is not made known.”

In the meantime Governor Morton made full use of the 68^thStreet mansion.  On Christmas Eve 1896 he hosted a dinner in honor of the Governor-elect, Frank S. Black.  Around the dining room table that evening were Mayor Strong, Mayor Wurster of Brooklyn, Mayor Gleason of Long Island City, General Benjamin F. Tracy, former Mayor Thomas F. Gilrov, Seth Low, Justice John F. Dillon, General Stewart L. Woodford, Senator Clarence Lexow, Lieutenant Governor Thomothy L. Woodruff and a host of other political luminaries.

William and Edith Whitney had been married in 1895, two years after William’s first wife Flora had died.  They were pleased with the location of the former Stuart mansion, but not its style.  The 14-year old house was already out of fashion and the couple commissioned Stanford White to remodel it into a modern showplace.  The renovation would take six years and--just as Robert L. Stuart had not lived to see his completed mansion--Edith Sibyl Randolph Whitney died during construction.

By March 1902 the mansion was nearing completion and a United States Circuit Court judge was required to make a decision regarding three ceilings.  The ceilings were removed from the Barberini Palace in Florence and, according to The Sun on March 14, “are exquisitely painted in oils, on wood, and date back to the fourteenth century.  The artists who painted them are unknown but the work is said to be worthy of the masters.”  Although the Museum of Art of Berlin was eager to acquire one of the ceilings, “Mr. Whitney bought all three at a price that was higher than any museum could afford,” said The Sun.

Now that they had arrived in New York, there was a question on how duty should be charged.  “When the Board of Appraisers was called upon to assess the duties, the question arose: whether the ceilings should be classed as manufactures of wood or as paintings by foreign artists.”  The Board classified them in the first, more expensive duty category, like Vienna chairs or umbrella handles.  William Whitney filed a protest and won.

“Judge Coxe, in his decision, points out that the value of the wood in the ceilings is infinitesimal, as compared with their value as paintings” reported the newspaper.

Rooms were dismantled from European palaces and shipped to New York -- photo McKim, Mead & White, from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult_VPage&VBID=24UP1GW6DINF&SMLS=1&RW=1280&RH=894

Among other imported architectural features was the music room, 60 feet long by 30 feet high, which was originally in the castle of Phoebus d’Albert, Baron of Tours during the time of Louis XIV.  The room was moved to Paris in the reign of Louis Philippe, and then to New York by Whitney.  The elaborately wrought iron and bronze entrance gates came from the Doria Palace in Italy.  The main hall contained 16^th century stained glass windows.

photo McKim, Mead & White, from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult_VPage&VBID=24UP1GW6DINF&SMLS=1&RW=1280&RH=894

Finally the house was completed and there was little trace of the Stuart mansion remaining.  The entrance was now centered on 68^th Street (although the more impressive Fifth Avenue address was retained).  White retained some elements—the slightly projecting central section on 68^th Street, the row of arched openings along the third floor, the cornice and remnants of the mansard roof—but transformed the bulk of the house into a stylish, modern residence.

The New York Times said that Stanford White “entirely remodeled it.  Mr. Whitney refitted it with art treasures, which he had selected during various trips to Europe.  Panelings from European palaces, wrought iron work from Florence, marbles from Roman temples, and carvings from cathedrals are all included in the decorative scheme.”

On December 18, 1903 Whitney gave the first grand entertainment in the house.  “William C. Whitney gave the first notably brilliant ball of the season last night at his home, 871 Fifth avenue,” said The Sun.  “It was a coming out festivity for Mr. Whitney’s niece, Miss Katherine Barney.”

The widowed millionaire’s mansion was gaily decorated for the occasion.  “The walls and ceiling of the wide lower hall were trellised with vines in which were myriads of electric bulbs,” said The Sun.  “Red velvet carpets were thrown on the marble floor, and the stairways were filled in with plants and made into a big picturesque cosey corner.”

On February 1, 1904 The Evening World reported that Whitney was seriously ill.  He had been operated on for appendicitis a few days earlier and complications set in.  “Mr. Whitney’s chances are not of the best,” said a doctor  “He is in very critical condition and anything may happen at any moment…The operation on Mr. Whitney was a success as an operation, but Mr. Whitney did not recover from the shock and has steadily lost strength since.”

The Evening World published a disturbing headline and photo of the mansion as Whitney faded (copyright expired)

The following day, at 4:00 in the afternoon, Whitney died in the 68^th Street house.  He left an estate valued at over $21 million including the mansion which was assessed at $1.4 million in which he had lived only two years.

A little-known, bachelor stockbroker purchased the mansion, its furnishings and artwork as a package.  James Henry “Silent” Smith not only had his own fortune, but had inherited several million dollars from his uncle, George Smith.  Like its previous owners, Smith would not live long in the mansion at No. 871 Fifth Avenue.  Although the broker had been termed “mousy” prior to moving in to the house, he now hobnobbed with the upper echelon of society, including Mamie Fish.  He became fast friends with Annie and William Rhinelander Stewart, sharing his opera box with them and going on extended yacht trips.

Annie Stewart and James Smith became such good friends, in fact, that in August 1906 she divorced William and a month later married Smith.  The couple boarded a steamer for Japan for their honeymoon.  Smith would not return to New York alive.

He arrived in Kyoto seriously ill and died there in March 1907.  Smith’s body was sent home in a coffin that weighed a ton and took eight men to carry.   The new Mrs. Smith, her sister the Duchess of Manchester, and her daughter, Anita Stewart “were all in deep mourning” when the coffin arrived at Grand Central Depot on May 5, 1907, according to The Sun.  “They went to the Smith home at 871 Fifth Avenue.”  It was the first time that Annie Stewart Smith had entered the house as an occupant.

For the second time in three years the body of the mansion’s owner lay in one of the parlors.   Annie’s son, William Rhinelander Stewart, Jr., told reporters “We will probably not keep the house, but I suppose that is provided for in the will.”  The Sun said “He intimated that the house might be sold back to the Whitney family.”  (Indeed, when Smith’s will was read “he instructed his executors to give the first refusal to buy the premises No. 871 Fifth avenue to Harry Payne Whitney,” said the New-York Tribune later.)

Instead, Annie lived here for a few years, before putting the house on the market for $2.5 million in 1908.  On January 3, 1909 the New-York Tribunereported that a buyer had been found.  That buyer was Harry Payne Whitney who purchased the house complete with his father’s furniture, artwork and antiques, just as Smith had done.  “Included in the list of paintings are works by Van Dyck, Costa, Cranach, Murillo, Gainsborough, Diaz, and John La Farge,” said The Times.

Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney in 1916 -- photo Library of Congress

On February 7, 1910 Mrs. Whitney gave a reception for about 200 guests.  Nahan Franko’s orchestra played and Anna Pavlowa and Michael Mordkine of the Imperial Opera House of St. Petersburg and Moscow made their American debut.  “Last night’s was the first large entertainment given by Mrs. Whitney since the former home of William C. Whitney was bought by Mr. Whitney from the estate of the late J. Henry Smith,” noted The Times.

In 1915 the Whitneys had a large overmantel decoration installed.  The New York Times described it as “a remarkable bas relief cast from solid tin, which is said to be the largest work of art of that material ever made in this country.  The relief bears the portraits of their children, Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney and Miss Flora Whitney.  The original work was modeled in 1907 by James Earle Fraser, the sculptor.”

The piece was six feet long and five feet high, weighing more than 900 pounds.  “The material is so treated as to have the appearance of old silver,” said The Times.  “The boy and girl are shown mounted on ponies, and there is in the work the spirit of the out-of-doors life.  Both are bareheaded.”

As World War I erupted, the Whitneys turned their attention to war relief.  On May 17, 1918 an auction was held in the ballroom for the benefit of the Italian Red Cross.  Socialites bid on diamond horseshoe boxes at the Metropolitan Opera House and publisher Frank Crowninshield urged the women to donate generously.  “Come, ladies,” he said, “now’s the time to take your diamond tiaras out of moth balls.”

The auction raised approximately $10,475 for the cause.

Flora and Barbara Whitney would prove to be models of social decorum--unlike their brother.  On April 19, 1920 Flora was married to Roderick Tower in St. Bartholomew’s Church.  “Not only was New York’s ‘Four Hundred’ represented, but Philadelphia’s as well,” reported the New-York Tribune.  The church was decorated with 15,000 lilies.

The reception was held in at No. 871 which “like the church, was decorated with lilies and roses.  These flowers, with bay trees, were used throughout the reception rooms and great hall, as well as the ballroom, and likewise in the dining room, where the buffet was served.”

The following year was Barbara’s coming out and the ballroom was the scene of a grand ball on January 5, 1921.

The Fifth Avenue neighborhood around the Whitney house in the 1920s was still one of private homes -- photo NYPL Collection

The publicity brought to the house by Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney was less positive.  In August 1921 dancer Evan Burrows Fontaine filed a $1 million suit against him saying “that her eighteen-months-old baby is the son of young Whitney and that repeated promises of marriage were never fulfilled.”

Cornelius Whitney vehemently denied the allegations and eventually succeeding in having the case dismissed.  In 1923 he married the debutante Marie Norton; who later filed for divorce in July 1929.

In October 1930 Harry Payne Whitney contracted a slight cold, but went about his business as usual.  When the malady worsened, Dr. John A. Hartwell and several other physicians were called in and although pneumonia had developed, it was not believed to be severe.  Within a few days Whitney died in his bed at No. 871 Fifth Avenue.  He left an estate of over $61 million.

Two years later the house would be in the headlines as a bitter custody battle ensued over little Gloria Morgan Vanderbilt.  Gloria’s mother, Gloria Morgan, was the sister-in-law of Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney.  On a Friday afternoon Gloria allowed little Gloria to be taken to “feed the pigeons in Central Park.”  Instead she was whisked off to No. 871 Fifth Avenue. 

Court battles lasted for over two years in which Gertrude Whitney, little Gloria’s nurse and doctors, and others testified that Gloria Morgan was an unfit mother.  The Timesreported that “Mrs. Whitney said that while the child has been living with her for more than two years past, ‘her mother has rarely seen her,’ and to Mrs. Whitney’s best recollection ‘her mother has had her overnight on only one occasion since the visit commencing Sept. 18, 1934.”

In 1939 Gertrude Whitney purchased the four-story Eila Haggin McKee house at No. 874 Fifth Avenue, possibly to protect her own mansion from demolition.  “With the property at 871 Fifth Avenue,” said The Times, “Mrs. Whitney now controls a plot 100 by 200 feet on the northeast corner of Sixty-eighth Street.”

But by 1942 Gertrude Whitney was spending less and less time in the Fifth Avenue mansion.  Finally, on April 10 that year, The New York Times reported on its scheduled demolition.  The newspaper said “it has been a center of social life in a neighborhood formerly made up of private residences of the wealthy.  One by one these have given way in late years to apartment houses.”

The article described some of the rare interiors.  “The main hall is of imposing size, with a floor of marbles inlaid with 10,000 pieces of brass.  The Renaissance ceiling formerly was in the Bardini collection in Florence.  The fireplace, of carved white stone in the style of Henri II, formerly in the chateau of the Sieur Franc de Conseil at Aigues-Mortes, France, has a depth of five feet.  The walls and the stairway, with its elaborately carved balustrade, are of Istrian marble.  French seventeenth-century stained glass, rare old hangings and paintings complete the decoration of the hall.

“Opening off this spacious passage are two large rooms facing on Fifth Avenue, one the drawing room, with ceiling from a Roman palace and wall coverings of damask, the other the library, with fifteenth century Italian white marble fireplace, Italian antique ceiling, and elaborately carved old walnut bookcases built in.”

A massive mid-century apartment house of stone and brick stands on the site of the Whitney mansion.  It was sometimes called the most palatial house in New York; but then others claimed that title as well.  It was nevertheless a remarkable and irreplaceable example of architecture and art.