Raymond C. and Mildred Kramer House

The house was designed by William Lescaze for the textile merchant and U.S. Colonel Raymond C. Kramer and his wife Mildred. Prior to the house's construction, the Kramers had lived at One Fifth Avenue. The Kramers decided to hire Lescaze after walking past the architect's own house, the Lescaze House, on 48th Street in the eastern section of Midtown Manhattan. In April 1934, the Trepur Realty Corporation sold a site at 32 East 74th Street, with the Worthington Whitehouse Company acting as the real-estate broker. Kramer was recorded as the owner. It was one of fewer than six houses being built in Manhattan during that year due to the Great Depression. The Kramer House was completed by January 1935. The 1940 United States census records the Kramers and two servants as having lived in the house; one of these servants was the house's longtime cook, Maria Warren. as did Mildred until she died in 1969. and the house was subsequently used as Madagascar's mission to the United Nations. and it was again placed for sale two years later. Christopher Gray, writing for The New York Times in 2013, said that the house had deteriorated over the years. In particular, some of the facade's steel panels had rusted, and stucco was peeling off the facade. In December 2017, after renovation, the house was back on sale. The real estate agent who was marketing the Kramer House, Todd Vitolo, said in 2021 that he had received numerous calls from people who were interested in buying the house. == Description ==

The Kramer House is located at 32 East 74th Street on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City, New York, U.S. The townhouse is on the south side of the street between Park Avenue to the east and Madison Avenue to the west. Designed by William Lescaze, the building is an early example of modern architecture in New York City Exterior As planned, the house was supposed to have a facade measuring wide and four stories high. The first story is clad in blue-enameled steel panels, with a concrete marquee protruding above a curved, inset front entrance. The main doorway is to the right, and there is a recessed service doorway to the left. The glass walls were intended to provide soundproofing to the house while also illuminating the interiors. When the house was built, it had beige, gray, and white interiors. The house originally had a large number of custom-designed, built-in pieces of furniture, including wooden shelves. The basement had a game room measuring . The ground floor included a kitchen and dining room, as well as a terrace raised above the rear garden. The upper stories had five bedrooms and four bathrooms. The linen room and three of the bedrooms were on the second floor, while the other two bedrooms were on the third floor next to a library and sewing room. Mildred's grandson Scott Tower recalled that one of the third-floor rooms was used as an office for Mildred's assistant. The fourth floor included a living room measuring , with a curved rear wall, a fireplace, and a sunroom at the front. All of the stories were connected by an elevator. Over the years, the original interiors have been extensively modified, and the original elevator was removed. , the building was subdivided into three duplex apartments, each accessed by an elevator; the current elevator was added during the 2010s renovation. There are three bedrooms (one of which has a terrace) and two-and-a-half bathrooms in the uppermost duplex. The middle duplex also has three bedrooms, an office, and three bathrooms. Within the lowermost duplex are two bedrooms (one of which abuts a patio) and two-and-a-half bathrooms. In total, this gives the house eight bedrooms and seven bathrooms. Each of the apartments has marble bathrooms and hardwood floors. In the basement is a winter garden, which is located below the house's actual garden. There is also a library on the top level, as well as a yoga room. A Curbed article from 2021 said that the house's interiors blended contemporary and neoclassical architectural elements, These features included balustrades, curtains with swag motifs, and wooden floors laid in herringbone patterns. == See also ==