Pursuant to my previous blog entry (in the link above) about Manhattan mansions, I recently learned/researched more about the Robert Plant Mansion. Standing on Fifth Avenue and 52nd Street, it is the most talked about building in NYC, because its current owner will soon unveil a multi-year restoration/refurbishment.
Characteristic of New York City, here is its unique history:
1879 - In their eagerness to "bang down the door" of Mrs. Astor's NYC High Society, the (railroad robber baron) Vanderbilt family erects 4 houses along 5th Ave., making their presence known.
1892 - The Catholic Church finally builds its Orphan Asylum (they had raised the money decades earlier, but the archbishop decided to build the cathedral first, seen below on the right). *The church obtained the land from NYC in the 1850s, when the only other attraction in that "rural" area was the massively tall reservoir (where the Fifth Ave Library stands today).
1898 - Despite rave reviews by the NY Times and society matrons for the orphanage, the greed of development finally erupted. Aforementioned supporters suddenly urged that the children would be happier in another location (in cheaper property). The church a(greed). The orphans were shipped to of sight, and their building torn down. The cathedral stayed, of course. The Vanderbilts bought the property, to prevent commercial buildings from occupying it. Below is a view of 2 of their mansions, taken from where the orphanage formerly stood.
1905 - (Son of railroad tycoon) Morton Freeman Plant deals with the (railroad) Vanderbilts and builds his mansion, using architect Robert W. Gibson. The Vanderbilts stipulated that no retail enterprise could occupy the land for 25 years. They also build 2 more side-by-side (adjoining) mansions next to Plant--called the "Marble Twins". The elite Union Club erects its clubhouse on the other corner (51st Street), closest to St. Patrick's Cathedral. All 3 edifices are seen below.
Plants installs a carriage house across 52nd Street. Seen below, it's now occupied by La Grenouille restaurant.
1905 - The Plant mansion towers over its neighbor to the left, a townhouse built by Mr. Holbrook (both are owned by the current owner). Notice the fence, gate, steps and windows of the basement. They will be forcibly removed by the city soon.
1908 - Here's a view northbound along Fifth Avenue, with Cornelius Vanderbilt's palatial "castle" at the end on the left (after the tall building). It occupied the entire block... probably hated daily by average New Yorkers who disapproved of his railroad/stock terrors. The "Marble Twins" are on the right. On the left are the identical Vanderbilt mansions (seen previously). Across the street from them is another Vanderbilt "palace" (seen in the first picture here). Notice the arrival of an automobile!
That view now looks like this:
1911 - NYC made mansion owners remove their stoops, gardens, fences, and porte-cocheres. That was done to widen the streets for more traffic to pass. It also allowed pedestrians peek in the mansions' windows.
1913 - Mansion owners begin fleeing to the Upper East Side. Without anyone to protect the buildings--as society does in other countries--the structures were demolished... like this beauty at Fifth Ave & 56th (below), erased from the city landscape in 1953.
1913 - Plant's wife dies. At 61-years-old, he meets 31-year-old Mae Caldwell Manwaring. She's already married (her husband 1874 - 1921).
1914 - In April, Mae divorces her husband. In May, she gets engaged to Plant. In June, they're married at his Groton CT estate. She can't wait to move into her new NYC address (seen below with even more cars around it, and no more fences along Fifth Ave.).
1914 - Plant only lived there for a few years, but he disliked the way his neighborhood changed, so he built a new mansion on upper 5th Ave. Mae lived inside it until her death in 1944.
*[Across the street from them, Grace Vanderbilt (1870-1953) lived in what is now the Neue Galerie Museum (seen below).
Plant's second mansion didn't do so well; it was replaced with a luxury apartment building, seen below].
1915 - Louis Cartier made a double-strand of natural pearls. It required searching through 25,000 oysters to get each one. An epitome symbol of Edwardian status, the necklace toured the company's 3 flagship stores, ending in NYC. His brother, Pierre, used it in an exchange to buy Plant's mansion--thus delighting the pearl-hungry Mae! Their deal was possible with the consent of William K. Vanderbilt, who leased-then-sold the property to Cartier in 1917.
The signpost below announces the mansion's successful occupant, still today. (In fact, the jeweler never vacated any of its 3 flagship boutiques).
1916 - Plant moves into his new 40-room home at 1050 Fifth Ave., but dies in 1918.
1918 - Pierre Cartier hired Rockefeller's architect William Welles Bosworth convert to mansion into a store, and he lives upstairs until 1922. At that point, he moved to mansion on 15 East 96th Street. Below, is the converted mansion. Notice the clock atop the corner fencepost.
1927 - Pierre buys the Holbrook townhouse (seen above at the left) and turns it into L'Alliance De Fr de New York, as French School & French Chamber of Commerce until 1950s. In 2000, it was joined to Mansion.
1938 - Next to the Mansion, American Express occupies "Marble Twin" #647. Twin #645 was demolished in 1945.
1970 - The mansion becomes a NY Historic Landmark (notice all the fencing is gone, by then. The clock sits atop a window on the avenue side).
*1919 Maisie Plant married Col, William Hayward, who died in 1944 and left her $50 million. She kept his country home, Claredon Court, seen below.
In 1954, Mae married financier John Rovensky, but she died in 1956 in the second home that Plant built. Her pearls were auctioned for $150,000. Her former home has been the better end of the deal.
A terrific job of research report on the mansion ;)
ReplyDeleteLoved having the pictures fro reference!
ReplyDeleteDo you know anymore about Mae's pearls that were auctioned?