Spotlight on Murray Hill’s Landmarks

1979: Lanier Mansion, 123 East 35th Street
1979: Adelaide Douglas House, 57 Park Avenue
1979: Thomas Clark House, 22 East 35th Street
1997: Bowdoin Carriage House, 149 East 38th Street

 

The Lanier Mansion
123 East 35th Street (Between Park & Lexington)

Built in 1903 for the prominent banker James F. D. Lanier and his wife Harriet by architects Hoppin & Koen. It was landmarked in 1979.

The three-part composition of this opulent French Renaissance house is rich in detail, and of almost overwhelming scale to the neighborhood. It is accentuated by the stone piers with urns at the sidewalk fence. A pair of 1854 brownstones were demolished to make way for this magnificent home.

The Adelaide Douglas House
57 Park Avenue (Between 37th and 38th Street)

Built in 1911 as the Adelaide L. Douglas residence, it is perhaps the most sophisticated house in Murray Hill. It was landmarked in 1979.

 

It is elegantly detailed and proportioned in the French Renaissance style by architect Horace Trumbauer. Each floor is treated differently, as the facade gently steps back from the property line. Details range from the deeply recessed first floor opening, to the second floor balcony, to the recessed fourth floor wall permitting a full colonnade to the dormered mansard roof.

 

It was the former home of the U.S. Olympic Committee, now the Permanent Mission of Guatemala to the United Nations.

 

 

 

The Thomas Clark House
22 East 35th Street (Between Madison and Park Avenue)

Built in 1854, and landmarked in 1979, it is one of a row of six brownstones. A neo-Georgian Stanford White facade was added in 1901 for Thomas Clark, a banker and a collector. The front is distinguished by the quasi-greenhouse bay window that dominates the front wall over a columned entrance porch.

 

The Collectors Club, a stamp collectors association founded in 1896, purchased the building and moved to this location in 1937.

 

 

 

The Bowdoin Carriage House
149 East 38th Street (Lexington & Third Avenue)

Built in 1902, by architect Ralph S Townsend for William R.H. Martin, it was landmarked in 1997. This carriage house was later sold to George S. Bowdoin, a member of the J .P. Morgan firm who lived at 39 Park Avenue. Mr. Bowdoin converted it to a garage in 1918.

The carriage house is modeled after a Dutch townhouse, with stepped gables and elaborate quoining and voussoirs in rich patterns of white granite trim against Flemish brickwork. Notable features are a pair of carved horse heads and the curious little bulldog at its top. This building is now the home of the Gabarron Foundation—Carriage House Center for the Arts.

 

 

This series of articles is part of NYC Landmarks50 Alliance, the multi-year celebration of the 50th anniversary of New York City's Landmarks Law.

This is the second article to feature a group of four landmark buildings in Murray Hill. The landmark buildings are presented in the order that they became landmarked.