The Lost Biltmore Hotel - 335 Madison Avenue

photo by Bryon Company from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York.

The New York Central and New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroads embarked on a grand real estate project called Terminal City in 1903.  On May 12, 1912, The Sun reported that the Grand Central Terminal "plan of improvement" covered 79 acres--from 42nd Street to 50th Street and from Lexington to Madison Avenues.  Saying it "surpasses the Panama Canal in some respects," the project comprised commercial, apartment and office buildings, including the Biltmore Hotel.  

The commission to design the hotel was given to Allen H. Stem and Charles A. Reed.  Their plans were in work when Reed died in 1911.  According to architectural historian Christopher Gray, "The day after the funeral, [Whitney] Wetmore secretly approached the railroad and got it to void the initial contract, naming Warren & Wetmore sole architects for all future related work."  

The following year, in March, Warren & Wetmore filed plans for the 26-story hotel to cost $4.5 million (about $150 million in 2025 terms).  It would span the block from Madison to Vanderbilt Avenues and 43rd to 44th Streets.  The New York Times remarked on March 31, "Twelve sets of tracks will run under the hotel, giving immediate access from the trains to the hotel without going to the street."  

A "novel feature," reported The Times six months later, was "a number of private apartments...built into the hotel by the tenants themselves from plans and designs prepared by their own architects."  Ranging from 8 to 12 rooms, the dozen apartments would be located on the 18th through 20th floors.  Each would include, "quarters for maids and servants."  The article said that several tenants had already signed leases, paying yearly rentals of $10,000 to $15,000.  (The most expensive would translate to a staggering $41,000 per month today.)  

Among the permanent residents would be Whitney Warren (one of the architects of the building); William Rutherford Mead, partner in McKim, Mead & White; William Washington Cole, owner of W. W. Cole's circus; and William H. Newman, Chairman of the Board of the New York Central.  There was one restriction.  The New York Times reported, "it is not intended to have cooking done in these suites."  The article explained, "Meals for the various families will be prepared in a special culinary department of the hotel and served in a special way in the dining rooms of the several suites."  The article commented, "Some of the apartments will cost a small fortune to build in accordance with the wishes and needs of the tenants."

Construction began on March 1, 1913, the steel construction was completed on August 15, and on December 26, The Sun reported, "This week 1,300 men are working night and day putting on the finishing touches."  By the time of the article, the cost of  the hotel had risen to $10 million, including furnishings.  The craftsman mentioned by The Sun were working furiously because the opening of the Biltmore Hotel was scheduled for New Year's Eve.

The Brickbuilder December 1914 (copyright expired)

The Sun said, "Warren and Wetmore...designed the exterior of the Biltmore so that it might harmonize with the architecture of the station and other buildings of the terminal.  The exterior is of granite, limestone, brick and terra cotta in the Italian Renaissance."  There were three entrances: one on 43rd Street and two on Vanderbilt Avenue.  (The northern entrance on Vanderbilt was for women only, "and leads directly to the rooms provided for their comfort," reported The Sun.)

The hotel had 1,000 bedrooms, nine elevators and six "continuous staircases."  The New York Times listed the up-to-the-minute technology, including the "telautograph, dictograph, telephone, and pneumatic tube systems...which, it is said, are the most complete in existence."  The newspaper described the main dining room as "the chief" of the "elaborate rooms."

The carpet, upholstery, and window draperies are in subdued red and the furniture in dark oak.  The ceiling has classical figures in low relief of gold against a background of white.  The walls are of marble in panel effect.  The room is lighted from three large prismatic glass electroliers.

The lobby's Palm Court (above) and Main Dining Room The Brickbuilder December 1914 (copyright expired)

The grill room, two bars and the men's clubroom were decorated in the Elizabethan style, while the women's clubroom was "treated in the Gregorian style.  "The lobbies and palm room have marble walls with mural decorations in bronze," said the article.  The main ballroom on the 22nd floor was decorated in blue and gold in the Louis XV style.  The New York Times said it would be called The Cascades.  "The reason for its name is a big waterfall which will occupy one end of the room."  A secondary ballroom could accommodate 300 persons.  The furnishings and interior decorating were done by W. & J. Sloane.

Atop the six-story section on Vanderbilt Avenue was the Italian Garden.  The New York Times described it on June 16, 1914 saying it had, "real grass and shrubs, walks, and a fountain in which goldfish play.  A pergola runs for 200 feet along the front, and back of it are a lot of gay-looking French umbrellas, under each of which is a tea table."

photo by Bryon Company from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York.

The Biltmore Hotel was run with military precision by Gustav Baumann.  On October 15, 1914, The New York Times said, "It was Mr. Baumann's custom each morning to make a thorough inspection of the building from the lowest floor to the roof."  The previous morning, just before 11:00, he had visited the carpenter's shop on the 22nd floor, after which he was to inspect the hotel's waiters in the Italian Garden.  The first waiter to arrive was Frederick Rugen.  He found Baumann's body on one of the paths.  It was surmised that Baumann had leaned out to see if the waiters had assembled and lost his balance.

The Italian Gardens were transformed the following winter into the Biltmore Ice Gardens.  On December 12, 1915, the New-York Tribune reported, "The first open air ice skating rink that has ever been built in a New York hotel will be ready for skaters tomorrow."  The article said that the Italian Gardens had been turned "into an artificial lake...at a cost of approximately $10,000."  Colored lanterns illuminated the rink at night.  At one end of the 50 by 75 foot oval of "real ice" was a glass enclosed tea room.  "This room is kept at an even temperature by steam heat and a large open fire," explained the New-York Tribune.

The Evening World, December 20, 1915 (copyright expired)

When America entered World War I in 1917, the proprietors of the Biltmore Hotel joined the war effort.  The Food Administration initiated a campaign to conserve meat and wheat that could then be exported American Allies in Europe.  The Hotel World reported on November 10, 1917 that the Biltmore had saved "more than a ton of meat on its 'meatless Tuesday' and of five barrels of wheat flour on 'wheatless Wednesday.'"  On the previous Tuesday, said the article, "1,927 pounds of various meats were saved."

The war came even closer to home in 1918.  Madame Despina Davidovitch Storch, a 23-year-old native of Turkey, checked into the hotel.  Described by The Evening World as "beautiful," she had been married to Paul Storch, a French army officer prior to their divorce.  Unknown to her, she had been trailed by the Secret Service for two years.  On March 18, 1918, she and two men and another woman were arrested and turned over to the French Government.  The Evening World reported, "The web of the world-wide German spy system is believed to have been torn in a vital part today."  

The article said Madame Storch had "mingled in European intrigues for at least six years, since she was seventeen."  She and the other three spies had been financed by Count von Bernstorff, the former German Ambassador to the U.S.

The Ballroom was the scene of the Homecoming Dinner for Baseball's World's Tour Players on March 7, 1914.  image via wikimedia.org

Clarence and Regina V. G. Milhiser checked into the Biltmore in the spring of 1919.  On May 20, Clarence died and that evening Regina brought her jewelry to the front desk, asking that it be placed in the hotel safe.  James E. Foye brought out a metal box and Mrs. Millhiser placed three bundles of jewelry into it--"two of them wrapped in paper and the third in chamois," according to The Sun.

When she called for the jewels a month later, "she was surprised to find the chamois bundle was missing and the paper had been torn from another," according to The Sun.  Foye told the hotel manager that the box had not been touched.  On June 26, the New-York Tribune reported that the Biltmore management had offered a $10,000 reward "for the recovery of the Milhiser jewels."  (The items were valued at the equivalent of nearly $6 million today.)

Eventually, James E. Foye was arrested and charged.  A year after the theft, on June 8, 1920, Mrs. Milhiser was a witness in his trial.  She was shown 82 pearls and a diamond clasp.  The New York Herald reported, "She said they were part of a pearl necklace valued at $325,000 which was among the stolen jewels."  

The Bowman Room, seen here in 1956, had a similar, smaller version of the famed Palm Court clock.  from the collection of the Library of Congress.

The ballroom was the scene of at least one controversial event over the decades.  In April 1927, Gerardo Machado y Morales, President of Cuba, stayed here.  Perhaps not coincidentally, the U.S. President, Calvin Coolidge was also in residence.  Machado was the official guest of New York City and Governor Al Smith traveled to town to greet him.  The Biltmore Hotel was decorated with the flags of the United States and Cuba.  Not everyone agreed with the "royal welcome," as reflected by the coverage in The Daily Worker.  Its headline on April 27 read, "Murderer of 200 Island Unionists Guest of Mayor and Financiers."

from the collection of the Columbia University Library

Half a century later, an advertisement in New York Magazine on March 26, 1979 touted, "Great times in New York begin Under The Clock."  That clock was in the lobby, or Palm Court, and was famous as a meeting place.  Newsday journalist Nathan Cobb would later explain, "'Under the clock at the Biltmore' was the place where hundreds of young women who always seemed to have names like Bitsy and Bunny began dates or assignations with equally preppie young men who always seemed to be called Skip or Chip."

But at the time of that advertisement, the end of the Biltmore Hotel was on the near horizon.  In 1981 owners Paul and Seymour Milstein announced their plan "to strip the historic Madison Avenue hotel to its steel skeleton and rebuild it as the Eastern headquarters of the Bank of America," as reported by The New York Times on September 20.  Demolition started on August 13, 1981 "catching preservationists by surprise," said the article.  The Milsteins agreed to preserve the 19th-floor ballroom and the lobby as part of the new building.  In return, the LPC agreed not to designate the exterior a landmark.

However, on August 26, 1982, Norman Pfeiffer, a partner in the architectural firm of Hardy Holzman Pfieiffer Associates, told The New York Times, "we discovered that further demolition had taken place" and there was nothing left of the ballroom or lobby to restore.  His firm told the New York Landmarks Conservancy that they would no longer be a part of the project.

The sole relic to survive was the clock.  On March 24, 2013, The New York Times columnist Christopher Gray remarked, "The Biltmore clock was placed in the lobby of No. 335, but has the pickled aspect common to architectural elements divorced from context."  He suggested that the structure that replaced the Biltmore Hotel--the "brutal red granite 335 Madison Avenue, designed by the firm Environetics"--might be promoted by preservationists a hundred years hence, adding, however, that would be, "hard to imagine."

many thanks to reader Doug Wheeler for suggesting this post.