The Lost Duveen Brothers Bldg -- No. 720 Fifth Avenue

At the time this photograph was taken, the Duveen Brothers building was already scheduled for demolition -- from the collection of the Library of Congress

In 1879 George Kemp had come a long way since he arrived in New York from Ireland with his family at the age of five.  Active in real estate development, The New York Times would later note “He erected many fine buildings upon the real estate that he owned.”  He was also the proprietor of the Buckingham Hotel; but his great fortune was made in Lanman & Kemp, a perfumery nationally-known for its Florida Water and Eau de Cologne.  Florida Water was so popular (today we would call it a “body splash”) that baseball teams used it as a refresher during hot games.

Kemp hired Tiffany & Wheeler to decorate his new five-story, 50-foot mansion at No. 720 Fifth Avenue, at the northwest corner of 56^th Street.  It was the firm's first residential commission and the scope of the project was such that work began in August 1879 and was not completed until April 1881.

On November 3, 1893 The Evening World reported that “The condition of millionaire George Kemp, who has been seriously ill at his home…was reported as more comfortable this morning.”  But three weeks later he was dead.   “He leaves a wife and four children to lament his loss,” wrote The New York Times.

Julia Kemp remained in the mansion.  As the wedding of her son, Arthur, to Belle Neilson neared in April, she became ill.  On May 2, 1897 The Times reported “At the time of the wedding Mrs. Kemp’s illness became alarming, and Mrs. Neilson suggested that the reception be postponed.  Mrs. Kemp was unwilling, however, that any alterations should mar the wedding ceremonies as first planned, and the reception was not changed.”  The stress of the social event was too much.  Hours after the reception at the Neilson mansion at No. 100 Fifth Avenue, Julie Kemp died.

The Kemp mansion was leased to the Edwin Gould family.  In 1899 the millionaire commissioned architect Robert T. Lyons to do $4,000 in “improvements” to the house, including “the construction of an elevator plant.”

The Goulds would stay at No. 720 at least through 1908; but by then the Avenue was changing.  High-end dressmakers and art dealers were among the businesses which were taking over what had been Manhattan’s most exclusive residential neighborhood.   Among the most respected of these was Duveen Brothers, which had earlier commissioned McKim, Mead & White to alter an impressive French Second Empire mansion at the northwest corner of Fifth Avenue and 31^st Street.

Duveen Brothers' gallery at No. 302 Fifth Avenue (left) was in a brownstone renovated by McKim, Mead & White.  from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

Dealers in fine art, Duveen Brothers was founded in London by Joel Joseph Duveen in the 1870s.  Around 1880 his brother, Henry J. Duveen, arrived in New York to open a small art shop on John Street where he sold “antique silverware, ivory carvings, rare porcelains, period furniture and Oriental rugs,” according to The New York Times.  Shortly afterwards the brothers opened a branch shop in Paris.

Duveen Brothers, now co-partnered by Henry and Joseph Duveen, followed the trend up Fifth Avenue.  On January 7, 1911 the Real Estate Record & Builders’ Guide reported that the Kemp Estate had leased No. 720 Fifth Avenue to the art dealers “for a term of twenty years.”

Later that year, in September, Horace Trumbauer filed plans for the “five-story and basement brick and stone store” to replace the old Kemp house.    The Philadelphia architect, in fact, worked with Parisian architect Rene Sergent in designing the Duveen Brothers store and headquarters.  Sergent had designed the firm’s Parisian store in 1907 following the form of a Petit Trianon.

For the New York store, the architects took inspiration from Ange-Jacques Gabriel’s 1774 Hotel de la Marine on the Place de la Concorde in Paris.  The completed structure cost $400,000 (more than $10 million in 2016).  It was grand, indeed, and announced that while Fifth Avenue may be changing, it was no less exclusive.

The Hotel de la Marine in Paris provided inspiration for the Duveen Building.  photo by Moonik

A rusticated limestone base supported an impressive Corinthian order punctuated by French windows, stone balconies and spandrel panels of carved swags.  The classical pediment was filled with a massive sculptural grouping.  The perfect proportions of the Hotel de la Marine stopped here.  The attic story and a rather ungainly mansard level gave the appearance of an afterthought.

In 1912 construction still continued.  The sculptural grouping has yet to be placed within the pediment and scaffolds hang from the rooftop.  from the collection of the New York Public Library

The patrons who entered No. 720 Fifth Avenue were among the foremost art collectors in the world.  The Duveens sold masterpieces to Henry Frick, Henry E. Huntington, William C. Whitney, J. Pierrepont Morgan, John D. Rockefeller, and Benjamin Altman, among others.  Not long after opening the new location, Joseph Duveen sold Van Dyck’s portrait of Queen Henrietta Maria to William Randolph Hearst for $375,000—nearly the cost of the Fifth Avenue building.

According to historian David F. Burg in his The Great Depression, “by 1914 [Joseph Duveen] held a virtual monopoly on the transatlantic trade in works by Frans Hals, Rembrandt, Thomas Gainsborough, Johannes Vermeer, Raphael, Leonardo da Vinci, and other great masters.”

A tragic incident occurred that year when a large consignment of paintings for Duveen Brothers was loaded onto the steamship Mississippi in Le Havre.  Shortly after sailing, a fire was discovered in the hold.  The ship pulled into Brest where a careful inspection showed that the vessel had not been damaged; however the cargo was not so lucky.

The Evening World reported on December 4, “Included were both paintings and antique objects of art.  The cases containing them were badly charred and the paintings suffered when the hold was filled with salt water.”

Joseph Duveen was reticent to release details of the $800,000 loss.  “He intimated that among them were some famous paintings but refused to reveal their names or the identity of the artists.”  The Evening World reported that the artwork was insured by Lloyds of London “but this is regarded as secondary to the fact that the objects destroyed cannot be replaced.”

 

The extent of the Duveen Brothers’ financial resources was made clear the following year.  When J. P. Morgan died in 1913, his extensive and invaluable collection of Chinese porcelains and ceramics had been on display in the Metropolitan Museum of Art for 20 years.  Called “the finest assemblage of Oriental porcelains the world had even seen,” the collection had become too large for the Morgan mansion.

The Museum was no doubt stunned and devastated when, in February 1915, J. P. Morgan, Jr. sold the entire collection to Duveen Brothers for $3.9 million.  “They propose to sell it in single pieces and small groups,” reported The Times.

Edward Robinson, Director of the Metropolitan Museum, lamented “The Museum and the public are losing something which can never be duplicated, for the Morgan collection is pre-eminent among the world’s great ones.”

Following Henry J. Duveen’s death at the age of 64 on January 15, 1919, Joseph continued the business.  In 1921 the gallery received international attention when it exhibited Thomas Gainsborough’s famous portrait known as The Blue Boy.

Joseph Duveen was internationally recognized as an authority on Old Masters.  In 1920 he made a comment about a portrait of Lucrezia Crivelli entitled, La Belle Ferroniere, by Leonard da Vinci.  The painting had been purchased by Mrs. Andree Hahn, a niece of the Marquis de Chambure and the wife of American aviator Capt. Harry J. Hahn who had been on General Pershing’s staff.

Duveen dismissed it as a forgery, calling it “a copy, hundreds of which have been made of this and other Leonardo subjects and offered in the market as genuine.  Leonardo never made a replica of his works.  His original La Belle Ferroniere is in the Louvre.”

Mrs. Hahn was enraged.  She sued Joseph Duveen in November 1921 for half a million dollars redress.   Duveen, however, was unconcerned.  He thanked the process server “most cordially when she thrust the documents in his hands,” according to The New York Herald on November 5.  The artwork was sent for forensic authentication based on fingerprints in the paint.

By 1922 all traces of the old mansion district were gone.  photo from the collection of the New York Public Library

Just weeks after the end of World War II Duveen Brothers staged a patriotic exhibition entitled “Soldiers and Sailors in American Wars” to benefit the Soldiers and Sailors Club.  The collection of military portraits on loan ranged from the 18^th century through the 20^th.   The New York Times described it on November 17, 1945 saying “The long span begins back in the days of the French and Indian Wars and includes, among the paintings of men identified with the recent World War, Kenneth Frazier’s portrait of Gen. Douglas MacArthur.”

In a sort of déjà vu of 1911, on August 21, 1951, The New York Times reported “One of the world’s most famous and influential art firms, Duveen Brothers, is moving its paintings by da Vinci, Rubens and other immortals into a celebrated town house at 18 East Seventy-ninth Street in the heart of the elite residential section.” 

Considering that the firm had infiltrated the elite Fifth Avenue residential neighborhood four decades earlier, a Duveen spokesman’s explanation for vacating No. 740 Fifth Avenue was ironic.  The neighborhood, he told reporters, “is growing too commercial.”

photo by Wurts Bros., from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

In October 1952 Emery Roth & Sons designed the $1.25 million, 15-story replacement office building which survives today.

The Andrew J. Miller Mansion - No. 14 East 78th Street

In 1886 developers Charles Graham & Sons began construction on a row of six high-stooped houses on East 78^th Street.  Steps away from Fifth Avenue and Central Park, their reserved, four-story stone facades would reflect the respectable, upscale families who occupy them.

The row was completed in 1887, but it was not until March 1888 that Charles Graham & Sons sold No. 14.   On March 17 the Real Estate Record & Guide reported that Albert G. Morganstern had purchased the 20-foot wide house for $45,000—in the neighborhood of $1.2 million in 2016. 

As was customary, the title to the property was placed in the name of Morganstern’s wife, Madlon.   A wealthy rubber merchant, Albert was active in charitable causes.  He was, for instance, a director of Primrose House, a branch of the Society to Befriend Working Girls.  

In a surprising transaction on October 5 1891, Madlon sold half of the house to Albert for $22,500.  Possibly, this Albert was the Morganstern’s adult son; although the absence of the designation of “Jr.” or “Sr.” in the paperwork makes it a mystery.

Madlon Morganstern died in 1908 at the age of 69.  Her funeral was held in the 78^th Street house on Tuesday morning, February 4 at 9:30 a.m.  Albert stayed on for another nine years before selling it in July 1917 to banker Andrew J. Miller for $70,000.

In the 30 years Morganstern had lived in the house, the block had changed.  Vintage, high-stooped rowhouses were being demolished or transformed as even wealthier New Yorkers moved into the neighborhood.  Now, directly across the street from the Morganstern house was the magnificent, five-year old free-standing palace of James B. Duke.  In reporting on the sale of No. 14, the Record & Guide pointed out “The building may be demolished and a residence of the English basement type erected by the buyer for his own occupancy.”

As Albert Morganstern had done, Miller put the property in the name of his wife, Grace Saunders Miller.   Two months after the sale he commissioned architect Harry Allen Jacobs to design a “5-story brick and stone dwelling” with a projected price of $50,000.  The Real Estate Record & Guide predicted it would be a “handsome private residence.”   And the journal was right.

The completed mansion was a dignified—nearly austere—modern take on the Italian Renaissance.   Above the centered, arched entrance was the home’s most distinctive feature; a deeply recessed set of French doors fronted by two richly-veined Ionic columns.  An unembellished set of grouped, diamond-paned openings were at the third floor; while one story above three delicate bas-relief panels were separated by the two windows.  Above the limestone cornice was a sloping roof of deep red Italian tiles.

Born in Washington DC, Andrew J. Miller was graduated from Georgetown University in 1888 and arrived in New York in 1897.  He was a member of the banking firm Boissevain & Co. and a director, along with millionaires William Rockefeller and Henry Huddleston Rogers, of the Anaconda Copper Mining Company. 

The 50-year old banker and his wife had one daughter, Frances.   As was often the case with the wives and daughters of wealthy men, Grace and Frances sometimes left Andrew in New York conducting business while they traveled.  And so Andrew spent Christmas alone with his servants in 1920 while the female two-thirds of the family spent the holidays with Grace’s mother in Cleveland.

Nevertheless, more often than not, the family traveled together.  In March 1923 they went to the fashionable resort of Hot Spring, Virginia.  The New York Times noted that Frances “is attending the Farmington School and is on her Easter vacation.”  They were back that fall and on September 5 a local newspaper reported that “Mr. and Mrs. Andrew J. Miller of New York gave a riding party yesterday afternoon for their daughter.”  The article noted “Mr. and Mrs. Miller and their guests rode over Cole’s Mountain and through the jungles of the Jackson River, and on their return had dinner at Valley View.”

Frances’s education continued in France where she attended finishing school.  She returned for the winter season of 1924 in time for her coming out entertainments.   Andrew and Grace threw a “large dinner party” on the night of December 20 at Pierre’s.  The young men and women who dined and danced that evening included the cream of young society.  The guest list included names like Dodge, McAlpin, Bouvier, Gould, Cushing and Bostwick.

By 1930 the Millers had moved to No. 53 East 70^th Street.  The 78^th Street mansion became home to the John Nickerson family.  That spring Mrs. Nickerson hosted a series of lectures on municipal hospitals in the house.   Their residency would not be long-lasting, however.  In 1931 they sailed for Europe and in July 1932 leased the house to Hicks Arnold Weatherbee for three years.  The New York Times noted at the time that Nickerson “is abroad and upon his return will occupy the house.”

Weatherbee was the grandson of James M. Constable and the great grandson of Aaron Arnold, founder of the Arnold, Constable & Co. department store.  Born in 1885 he was educated at the exclusive Andover Academy, at Yale University, and the New York Law School.  Despite his legal education, he joined Arnold, Constable & Co. in 1912 and three years later became its president.  It was under Weatherbee that the firm moved to its Fifth Avenue and 40^th Street location.  Following World War I the department store was sold and Weatherbee founded Weatherbee & Co., a dry goods business.

On January 5, 1934 Margaret Kip Weatherbee was in Philadelphia visiting relatives.  In her absence Hicks took the opportunity to have a pair of her diamond earrings repaired.  When he opened the safe where they were kept, he found them missing.  Hicks telephoned his wife who confirmed she had not taken the “ear pendants” with her.  He hung up the phone and called police.

Not only were the earrings missing, but so too were a pearl necklace and several rings—a haul of $10,000.   The following day The New York Times reported “Three servants were questioned, but detectives said they had not been able to determine how the jewelry was removed from the compartment.”

The Weatherbees’ lease expired in 1935; but the Nickersons by now had decided to remain in Europe.  In May that year they sold No. 14 East 78^th Street to their tenants for $78,000.  The title was transferred to Margaret Kip Weatherbee, Inc.

On August 1, 1940 Hicks and Margaret traveled to California on vacation.   Less than two weeks later, on August 12, Weatherbee became ill.  When his condition worsened he was admitted to the Good Samaritan Hospital in Los Angeles on Tuesday the 20^th.   He died there of acute pneumonia three days later at the age of 54.

Childless, the bulk of Weatherbee’s estate went to Margaret.  His will also directed that she distribute $25,000 at her discretion among the household servants and his employees.

Unlike so many of the splendid private homes in the neighborhood, No. 14 remained a single-family residence until 1983 when it was acquired by New York University for its Institute of Fine Arts, which already occupied the Duke Mansion across the street.  Called the Stephen Case House, the university described the function of the new facility as “teaching and research in art conservation.” 

Upon its opening The New York Times noted on October 2, 1893 “While more space, skylights and terraces were added, the 19^th-century façade was preserved.”  The newspaper may have gotten the century wrong, but indeed the façade remained untouched.  A highly unusual example of the architectural style, the structure appears much as it did when the Miller family moved in in 1918.

photographs by the author

The L. Alavoine & Co. Facade -- No. 712 Fifth Avenue

To the right of No. 712 is the former Coty Building with its wall of Lalique windows.

In 1875 the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church erected its $1 million building on northwest corner of Fifth Avenue and 55^th Street.  Organized in 1808 as the Center Street Presbyterian Church, the congregation had moved to Duane Street in 1836 and to Fifth Avenue and 19^th Street in 1836.  The new location, in the midst of the developing mansion district, would be its final move.

Eight years earlier the church enticed Irish missionary Rev. Dr. John Hall to take the position of pastor.  He moved his family from Dublin that year.  The wealth of Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church was reflected in his salary.  He was initially paid $6,000 in gold (approximately $100,000 in 2016); a salary which would eventually increase to $15,000.

On August 16, 1886 John S. Kennedy filed plans for a $75,000 parsonage to be built next door to the church, at No. 712 Fifth Avenue.  The plans described it as “four stories high, and be built of brick and brownstone.”

Rev. Dr. John Hall was a potent force in the high society congregation.   For more than a decade the parsonage was the scene of high-end receptions, church functions and society evens. 

Hall became ill in March 1898, “suffering from prostration,” however doctors assured the public he would recover.  On March 29 The Sun reported “He passed a very comfortable night, and his condition was noticeably improved by it.”  But Hall did not recover.  He died later that year, in September.

The house was never again used as a parsonage.  The Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church leased it to William Baylis.  The millionaire and his family lived here until 1906.  By now the incursion of commerce into Millionaires’ Row was well underway.  Within the year Charles A. Gould would abandon his mansion next door, at No. 714, and convert it to a commercial building.

On May 9, 1906 The New York Times reported that the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church had leased its parsonage to L. Alavoine & Co., society art dealers and decorators.  The announcement said the firm “will make few changes in the front of the house, which will continue to have the outward appearance of a private dwelling, but on the rear of the lot an art gallery will be erected.”

But apparently Alavoine & Co. and the church were not done with negotiations.   In August L. Alavoine & Co. announced that planned alterations would cost $20,000.  But by spring 1907 nothing had been done.

Then, on March 23, 1907 the Record & Guide reported “One building will be demolished at 712 5^th av for the five-story store and office building…which the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church Congregation…are to build from plans by Albert S. Gottlieb.”  The announcement noted that the building was being constructed for the use of its tenant, L. Alavoine & Co.  “The front will be of limestone and brick…and the cost is estimated at $50,000.”

Completed in 1908 Gottlieb’s handsome neo-French Classic building mimicked the 18^th century row houses of Paris.  The architect carefully carried on the proportions, the mansard roof and cornice line of the abutting Gould mansion.  Corinthian pilasters, wrought iron grills at the upper openings, carved swag panels and balustrade decorated with great stone urns created a high-end residential look.

L. Alavoine & Co. had been in business in America since 1853.  The firm not only sold valuable paintings and artwork to New York City’s wealthiest citizens, it decorated their homes as well.  In fact, its influence was so noteworthy that when millionaire James B. Haggin began alterations to the massive George Crocker mansion at No 1 East 64^th Street in 1912, L. Alavoine & Co. was listed as architects on the plans.

Not long after moving into No. 712 Fifth Avenue L. Alavoine & Co. welcomed a subtenant.  In 1909 high-end Paris jeweler Pierre Cartier opened his New York City branch store here.  Within seven years his business would demand a building of its own; and in 1916 he negotiated a deal to take over Morton Plant’s superb mansion at the southeast corner of Fifth Avenue and 52^nd Street.

The French owners of L. Alavoine & Co. were most likely instrumental in space being leased to L’Union des Arts as war broke out in Europe.  On April 8, 1917 The New York Times explained that the charity “contributes to the assistance and protection of artists, painters, sculptors, and literary men who are victims of the war.”  The organization was patronized by some of Manhattan’s wealthiest socialites, among them Mrs. Vincent Astor, Mrs. Jules Bache, Mrs. Harry Payne Whitney, Mrs. O. H. Harriman, Mrs. Frederick Havemeyer and Mrs. Frederick Vanderbilt.

With the war over, space in the building was leased to another high-end art dealer, Arthur H. Harlow & Co.  Harlow had established the firm in 1911 at No. 569 Fifth Avenue.  Like L. Alavoine & Co. the artworks handled by Harlow ranged from Old Masters, like Rembrandt etchings, to more modern paintings like works by Cezanne.

Arthur Harlow opened with an exhibition of American Impressionist painter Paul Dougherty. The New York Herald, February 27, 1921

Edouard Ferman, president of L. Alavoine & Co. died on May 23, 1933.  Although the firm gave up the ground floor space to A. Schmidt Sons, another art dealer and decorator, in 1934, it continued on in the Fifth Avenue building.  In 1936 L. Alavoine & Co. launched its most impressive exhibition to date: five complete French rooms were temporarily installed.  On November 8 The New York Times opined “In these paneled interiors, brought over entire from Old World palaces, a rare opportunity is offered to see French decorative art at its best.”

By the time L. Alavoine & Co. decorated the Jesse Isidore Strauss residence on Park Avenue, the Art Deco style was all the rage.  photograph from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

That same year Arthur H. Harlow & Co. moved from No. 712 Fifth Avenue to Rockefeller Center.  L. Alavoine & Co. and A. Schmidt Son remained nearly until mid-century.  In 1948 A. Schmidt Son discontinued business, selling at auction its stock of French and English furniture, paintings, Georgian silver, porcelains, tapestries and Oriental rugs.

In its place Louis Carr Gallery moved in.  Unlike its predecessors, the gallery dealt in modernist paintings “of the last decade” according to its opening announcement.  The art and antiques tradition continued in the building as Associated American Artists Galleries moved in during June 1956 from across the avenue at No 711; and the Albert Landry Gallery opened in January 1959.

Change would come after Harry Winston sold the building in October 1963.  The jeweler, whose business was at the southwest corner of 56^th Street at No. 718, also owned No. 714.  The purchaser was Gotham Development Corporation for the Italian Rizzoli-Editore Corporation.

After gentle renovations, Rizzoli opened its vast bookstore with green marble floors, polished walnut woodwork and cultured atmosphere.  No run-of-the-mill bookstore, it offered Fifth Avenue shoppers one-of-a-kind Christmas gifts in 1959.  Available here were the 30-copy edition of Picasso’s Cocu Magnifique, with 12 signed etchings for $36,000; or Chagall’s The Circus, priced at $6,500. For the less extravagant shopper, Salvatore Dali’s Alice in Wonderland could be purchased for $750.

In 1983 the magnificent Art Deco Bonwit Teller building designed by E. J. Kahn diagonally across the avenue was demolished to be replaced by the splashy Trump Tower.  Paul Goldberger, writing in The New York Times said “the overall effect was to change the nature of the avenue, replacing the dignity of the old masonry buildings with the glitter of the new.”

On the tail of Donald Trump’s spectacle came the threat of another.  In 1984 rumors of plans to demolish Nos. 712 and 714 to create an L-shaped 44-story skyscraper circulated.  Preservationists scrambled to protect the buildings, noting in part that the Coty Building next door contained three stories of irreplaceable and priceless Rene Lalique windows.

Although both buildings were granted landmark designation; it applied only to the facades.  In 1985 the architectural firms of Kohn Pederson Fox Associates and Schuman Lichtenstein Claman & Efron designed a 56-story tower for Solomon Equities “to slip behind the facades of the landmark Rizzoli and Coty Buildings.” 

The new trend of “facadism” was highly controversial.  While it maintained the historic face of the Fifth Avenue block, the two buildings were now, as described by Paul Goldberger, “a doormat for the tower, a small stoop cowering before a ponderous skyscraper of entirely different scale.”

The facades serve as false fronts to the soaring skyscraper behind.

The L. Alavoine & Co. building, as well as the Coty Building, survive in the form of stage sets in front of the looming skyscraper.  But, at least, the early 20^th century commercial personality of the block has been preserved.

photographs by the author