Payne Whitney House

The Payne Whitney House is at 972 Fifth Avenue on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. It is on the east side of Fifth Avenue, directly across from Central Park, midblock between 78th and 79th Street. The land lot covers with a frontage of on Fifth Avenue and a depth of . Nearby sites include the Harry F. Sinclair House to the north, the Stuyvesant Fish House to the east, and the James B. Duke House and 960 Fifth Avenue to the south. The Payne Whitney House was also built with a rear entrance on 79th Street, measuring wide. The city block between Fifth Avenue, Madison Avenue, and 78th and 79th Streets was part of the Lenox family farm until 1877, when Marcellus Hartley bought the block for $420,000. The railroad magnate Henry H. Cook acquired the site for $500,000 in 1880. Cook built a house on the southwest corner of the block in 1883. Cook intended the block to house first-class residences, not high-rises, and only sold lots for the construction of private dwellings. By the early 1910s, the value of the land had increased to $6 million. == Architecture ==

The Payne Whitney House was designed in the high Italian Renaissance style by Stanford White of McKim, Mead & White. It was commissioned by Colonel Oliver Hazard Payne for his nephew William Payne Whitney and William's bride Helen Hay Whitney. The house was developed concurrently with the neighboring Henry Cook House at 973 Fifth Avenue; the two houses were among the last residences White designed before his death in 1906. According to Henry Hope Reed Jr., the inspiration for the Payne Whitney House's design is unclear, though the Pesaro Palace in Venice may have been one inspiration. The facade is curved slightly outward toward Fifth Avenue. It is designed to appear continuous with the facade of 973 Fifth Avenue directly to the north, which Stanford White also designed. The facade details were evocative of those of the Joseph Pulitzer House on 73rd Street and, by extension, those of Palazzo Pesaro, Venice. The ground floor contains blocks of rusticated stone, with a large marble entryway at the center flanked by a window on either side. The central entrance has a set of double doors with decorated grilles. Flanking the doorway are molded floral designs, as well as vertical pilasters with lions' heads at their bases and acanthus-and-maple-leaf panels above. The fifth floor has square-headed windows between pairs of carved vertical panels. Above each panel are ornamented brackets with foliate details. The tile roof is slightly pitched and is carried by a cornice made of stone. The side garden had been designed simultaneously with the rest of the house. in addition to two elevators, a basement, and a sub-basement. The building also contained 11 bathrooms, some of which had marble baths. The interior has been used as a setting for films such as Gone with the Wind (1939) and Rebecca (1940).'' First floor Just inside the entrance is a rotunda. Measuring , it can fit 75 people. The floors of the rotunda are clad in marble and are arranged in a grid with molded copper borders. Originally, the skins of various animals were used as floor coverings for the rotunda. The ceiling contains a motif of green leaves and yellow-tinted trellises; it is inlaid by eight medallions of playing children. In 2009, the statue was placed on loan several blocks north at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The Venetian Room, measuring square, is just east of the rotunda, on the south wall of the house. It is accessed by wrought-iron doors from the rotunda. Serving as a reception room for the Whitney family, the Venetian Room was used to receive guests before they proceeded upstairs. In place of a cornice, the coved ceiling was originally decorated with a latticework pattern containing plants and enameled flowers. Other decorations include high Renaissance doorways and mantels, as well as a candelabra in the Bavarian rococo style. North of the Venetian Room is a corridor leading from the rotunda to restrooms and private offices. When built, the house had other decorated rooms scattered throughout the interior. One of these was a salon with velvet hangings and pictures on the walls. The dining room had a coffered ceiling and hanging lamps above a tapestry. and also had a mantel and paneling in the Louis XVI style. Payne Whitney's private library had brocade walls, a carved-wood ceiling, and a Baroque-style doorway, Helen Hay had a studio with a segmentally-arched ceiling, sparsely-decorated walls, and ornate furniture. On the second and third floors are the Albertine Books bookstore and reading room, designed by French designer Jacques Garcia. Albertine Books is considered part of the French consulate, so sales of books in the store follow French law. The reading room and bookstore are on separate levels, connected by their own staircase. Its ceiling has a mural depicting constellations, with a blue background and decorative gold details that converge at the center. The mural was inspired by one in Germany's Villa Stuck. The Albertine space also has custom furniture and carved busts of French and French-American historical figures. == History ==

William Payne Whitney and Helen Hay married in February 1902. Construction In March 1902, Oliver Payne paid Henry H. Cook $525,000 for a lot measuring on the east side of Fifth Avenue between 78th and 79th Streets. The purchase included a parcel that led to 79th Street, creating an L-shaped assemblage. As a condition of the sale, Cook required that any structure on the parcel be made of "light-colored stone". McKim, Mead & White were hired as the architects for both Cook's house at 973 Fifth Avenue and Payne Whitney's at 972 Fifth Avenue, and the firm filed plans for both houses around the same time. The Real Estate Record and Guide indicated in February 1904 that the Payne Whitney House had been "enclosed". However, by that November, the windows and doors had not been installed yet. In April 1905, the same publication noted that the windows had been installed, but the entrance was unfinished and the interior work was underway. That June, the Elektron Manufacturing Company received the contract to install three dumbwaiters at the house. During the long period of construction, Helen gave birth to the Whitneys' two children, John (Jock) and Joan. Helen said to White: "It made me so disgusted I felt like chucking the whole thing and getting a nice ready-made house that I could have when I wanted it." From 1903 to 1905, he spent much of his time in Europe to select antiques and art. This increased the total construction cost by $1 million, to Oliver Payne's consternation. When Oliver objected to the high cost of decorating the Payne Whitney House, White apologized, Ultimately, Oliver was compelled to forgive White. The Whitneys reportedly moved into the house in April 1906, although the house was "not yet completed", according to the New-York Tribune. White had finalized plans for the house's Venetian Room the same month. and a dinner with music in 1908. Payne Whitney purchased a small parcel on the south side of the site, measuring , from his neighbor James B. Duke in September 1909. Helen's mother Clara Stone Hay died at the house in 1914 while visiting her daughter and son-in-law. The house continued to host events including a speech on World War I fighting conditions in 1915, a "food bazaar" featuring a live pig in 1916, entertainments for schoolchildren during Christmas 1920, and a speech by conductor Kurt Schindler in 1924. The 1920 United States census indicated that fifteen servants lived with the four members of the Whitney family. In his will, Payne Whitney had bequeathed 972 Fifth Avenue to his wife. Through the 1930s, Helen Hay Whitney continued to host social events, including a bazaar to benefit the unemployed, a fashion show for charity, and a supper dance honoring film producer David O. Selznick. In 1941, the Venetian Room's ceiling was restored. Helen had her favorite space in the mansion, the Venetian Room, removed and preserved before her death; the decorations were placed in 75 crates and stored at Greentree. and $70,267 on its second day, for a total of $101,386. Even after the auction, many original furnishings remained, and a caretaker was hired to maintain the furnishings. In May 1949, Jock Whitney sold the house to a private investor, 972 Fifth Avenue Inc., in an all-cash transaction. The buyer, who was unidentified at the time, intended to convert the house into apartments. 972 Fifth Avenue Inc. was headed by Lony Arnault, a Frenchwoman who headed who took out a loan from the Lurie Mortgage Corporation to fund the project. By February 1950, the building had been divided into 15 suites and two doctors' offices. That November, Sonnenblick Goldman Corporation placed a $160,000 first mortgage loan on the building. 972 Fifth Avenue Inc. transferred title to the building to Arnault in February 1951. French Cultural Services Arnault transferred the building in May 1952 to the Title Guarantee and Trust Company, who in turn transferred it to the Republic of France, subject to two existing mortgages on the property. After the French government bought the Payne Whitney House, the building was used by the Cultural Services division of the French embassy to the United States. This made the Payne Whitney House one of a few embassy buildings outside a country's capital city. By 1964, the French Cultural Services office was among the United States' busiest cultural-exchange buildings. The office directed exhibitions of French creative works, such as visual art and performances, in the United States. As early as 1966, the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) was considering designating the Payne Whitney House as part of a city historic district. The LPC designated the house as a city landmark on September 15, 1970. The roof and a section of the facade were renovated in 1980, followed by a portion of the ground floor in 1981. The restoration uncovered an artwork that had long been hidden in the ceiling. The house was restored in 1987, uncovering John La Farge's stained-glass window. Among the other discoveries in the late 1990s was that of the statue in the rotunda which was authenticated in 1996 as a Michelangelo work. The French Embassy celebrated the Payne Whitney House's centenary with a party in July 2006. The genuine Michelangelo statue in the rotunda was loaned to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2009, and a replica was installed in the rotunda. The Albertine Books bookstore and reading room opened in September 2014, functioning as a cultural space with public events. The Venetian Room was restored again in the late 2010s, reopening in 2018. The Venetian Room's restoration cost $250,000 and was partly funded by a $100,000 gift that the Selz Foundation had given to the World Monuments Fund. In June 2021, the French-American Foundation donated the Venetian Room to the French government. == Reception ==

David Carrard Lowe, in a 1992 book about White's work, described the curved facade as having "an almost mannerist quality", emphasized by its vertical pilasters, horizontal entablatures, and cornices. In a 2008 book, White's great-grandson Samuel G. White wrote that the design of the house "illustrates [Stanford] White's ability with settings for elaborate social rituals and also with the patterns of family life". Several publications praised the house's interior. Architecture magazine wrote that the decorations were "an illustration of his incomparable cleverness in discovering and purchasing antiques, valuable not only from a standpoint of their costliness, but also because of their intrinsic beauty". Town and Country magazine praised the Italian decorations as "a triumphant blending of decorative art, old and new". When the Venetian Room was restored in 1998, John Russell wrote for The New York Times that, while he considered the design "imperfect", "White's appetite for life is everywhere present, as is his sense of affectionate companionship". Lowe said that the smaller rooms "are among the most delightful of Stanford White's creations". ==See also==