The Archer Milton Huntington House -- 1083 Fifth Avenue

photo by Alice Lum

While railroad mogul Collis P. Huntington was in Richmond, Virginia during Reconstruction, he noticed the 19-year-old daughter of a boarding house operator, Arabella Yarrington.  Encouraged by her mother, the two began a steamy affair.  When Huntington’s business in the South was completed in 1869, he returned to New York City.  Not far behind was Arabella and her mother, along with John Worsham who posed as Arabella’s husband.

The following year Arabella bore a son, Archer,—the paternity of whom was never quite decided—and not long afterward she was tragically widowed.  (In actuality, John Worsham had returned home to his real wife in Richmond; but the story of his death was sufficient for newspaper accounts.)

Huntington's wife, Elizabeth, died in 1883, and on July 8, 1884 the millionaire and his mistress were married.  Archer was now 12 years old.  It is unclear whether his step-father ever officially adopted the boy, but Archer Worsham became Archer Milton Huntington.

At his impressionable age, the young boy entered a life surrounded by art and culture. The Huntington mansion at 2 East 57th Street was “a monument to American architecture and art,” as Archer would later describe it. In addition to Huntington’s private art collection, the rooms in which the boy lived “were all highly decorated by artists whose reputations were great,” as he described them decades later.

While Collis P. Huntington ran railroads from his offices in the Mills Building on Broad Street, Arabella took young Archer on tours of Europe where he marveled at the great museums. The seed was planted that would grow into a life-long mission of creating and funding art collections and museums.

On August 13, 1900, Huntington and Arabella were spending time at the luxurious Pine Knot Camp in the Adirondacks.  Just after 11:00 p.m. the millionaire was fatally stricken with cerebral apoplexy.  The now 28-year-old Archer Milton Huntington was suddenly a multimillionaire.

In May of 1902, The New York Times reported that Huntington purchased from developer George Edgar the adjoining mansions at 1082 and 1083 Fifth Avenue between 89th and 90th Streets.  In order to protect the light and air behind the properties, he purchased the land directly to the rear as well, for $150,000 more.  Huntington would sell 1082 Fifth Avenue to Charles S. Phillips of C. D. Barney & Co. in 1908.

Huntington and his wife Helen, moved into 1083 and leased the other properties.  Catered to by the 14 live-in servants, Huntington had time to devote to his passion: art. He donated the land for the group of museums to be called Audubon Terrace, at Broadway and 155th Street in 1904.  It would be just the beginning. That same year he founded the Hispanic Society of American to advance “the study of the Spanish and Portuguese languages, literature, and history, and advancement of the study of the countries wherein Spanish and Portuguese are…spoken.”

While Huntington was busy establishing and donating museums he also set to work remodeling his home. The decorator Ogden Codman, Jr. was extremely popular among the moneyed set and Huntington commissioned him to renovate 1083.  Although Codman had been born in Boston, he grew up in Paris and his love for all things French was deep-rooted.

Codman transformed the mansion into a Parisian row house - photo by Alice Lum

In 1913 he began transforming the façade into a limestone-clad 18th century French townhouse. A four-story bowed front with a rusticated base culminated in a deep balcony behind a stone balustrade at the fifth floor. A stately mansard roof with copper trim composed the sixth floor. Tall French doors above the entrance were finished with a segmental arched pediment.

Codman made use of Huntington’s vacant plot behind the property to enlarge the house with an addition creating an L-shape that extended to East 89th Street. The second floor was dedicated solely to entertaining. The Huntingtons’ living quarters were on the third floor and the top two floors were outfitted as servants’ rooms – enough to accommodate 25 servants.

In time Archer Huntington’s involvement with the arts turned into an involvement with an artist; the sculptress Anna Hyatt whose powerful bronze statue of Joan of Arc in Central Park had been dedicated in 1915. In 1923 the Huntingtons divorced and Archer married Anna Hyatt. Part of the fifth floor was outfitted with a large skylight and remodeled as a studio for the artist and a five-room suite was arranged for her on the fourth floor.

Huntington was busy building museums, editing and writing books such as his “Note Book in Northern Spain,” and was a member of no fewer than eight societies such as the American Geographical Society, American Numismatic Society and the New York Zoological Society; and more than seven social clubs.

By 1940 Archer Milton Huntington had built or helped establish the Museum of the American Indian, The Brookgreen Gardens in South Carolina, The Hispanic Museum, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Mariners’ Museum in Newport News, and an art museum in Austin, Texas among others. On June 12 of that year he announced that he was donating his home to the National Academy of Design, of which his wife was a member, for its new headquarters. The Academy was founded in 1825 and was one of the oldest organizations of artists in the United States.  The Academy offered free instruction in painting, sculpture, drawing and other artistic areas to students between 15 and 30 years of age.

The Huntingtons moved to their 27.5-acre country estate,” Pleasance,” in what is now Pelham Bay Park in the Bronx. After Archer Huntington died in 1955 Anna Hyatt Huntington kept a small apartment and studio in the Academy until her death at the age of 97 on October 4, 1973.

In 1997 the organization changed its name to the National Academy Museum and School of Fine Arts; a title more descriptive of its functions. Fully 8,000 works of art are displayed in the permanent collection.

A year later the architectural firm Buttrick White & Burtis initiated restoration and renovation of the mansion, including a new roof, masonry repairs and updating of the heating and air conditioning systems.

The Museum's alterations sensitively melt into the architecture -- photo by Alice Lum

The outward appearance of Archer Milton Huntington’s stately mansion is essentially unchanged since Ogden Codman, Jr. revamped it in 1914. While the three other homes purchased by Huntington in 1902 have been demolished and replaced with a sterile white brick apartment building, 1083 Fifth Avenue elegantly survives.