James B. and Nanaline Duke House ARCHITECT: Horace Trumbauer DATE: 1909-12 STYLE: French Classical The impressive splendor of’ the Duke mansion is achieved through the simple grandeur of’ the French Classical style of’ Louis XY. It was designed in 1909 by the well-known architect, Horace Trumbauer of Philadelphia. He modeled it after the Labottiere mansion in Bordeaux, which had been designed by Laclotte in the 18th century.

Mrs. James B. Duke Residence ca. 1979 When Horace Trumbauer, the Philadelphia architect, was asked to design a town house for the Duke family, his firm chose as the model a house in Bordeaux, modifying its proportions to suit the site. Some of the handsomest buildings ever erected in New York were designed by his firm. They included Eleanor Widener's house, now razed, at 901 Fifth Avenue; the Herbert N. Straus house at 9 East 71st Street; the Wildenstein Galleries at 19 East 64th Street; and the old Duveen Galleries, which once stood at the northwest corner of Fifth Avenue and West 56th Street. Many of his designs were directly inspired by those of the French architect Jacques Ange Gabriel.

Henry H. Cook Mansion, ca. 1900. In 1883, Henry Cook, a railroad millionaire, purchased the entire block between Fifth and Madison Avenues and 78th to 79th Streets. His plan was to preserve a particular type of neighborhood (read: not stables, tenements or the wrong type of people). He divided the block into single-family lots and wrote in deed restrictions that were severely limiting. In the 1890s, slowly and with purpose–to create a block of homes occupied only by the types of families he would want to be surrounded by– he sold the lots. Before selling the surrounding lots, he had built for himself a massive mansion on the corner of Fifth Avenue and 78th Street. The mansion was extravagant, with a $15,000 Italian fireplace and mantel and oak paneling that cost $55 a section. The exterior was a layered pile of white, blue and red granite. Cook would die in 1905 and in 1909 his estate sold the building to James Duke. It was a wedding present to his new wife. Duke considered renovating the mansion, but ultimately decided to demolish it and built a new house. Supposedly the contractor hired for the demolition called the mansion “the best-built house ever torn down in New York City.” (Though it is unlikely the contractor survived to mid century to see the wave of grand homes razed prior to the Landmarks Law.)

As the city expanded and the relentless churning of commerce caused New York's population to explode, the city pushed northward. As the city itself moved northward, so did its elite. They settled along the undeveloped edge of the brand new Central Park, building enormous homes and mansions to celebrate their fabulous wealth. This walk takes you through a selection of the Fifth Avenue mansions that would have once dominated the Avenue.

Duke Town House ca. 1979 Originally the location of a mansion built in the mid 1880s for the railroad magnate, Henry H. Cook, James Buchanan Duke replaced that hulking mansion with one of his own in 1912. Duke, a tobacco and electric power industrialist, purchased the plot at the corner of 78th Street in 1909 and considered renovating the earlier building but decided against it. Completed in 1912 the new mansion, seen here, was designed by Philadelphia architect Horace Trumbauer. Trumbaur created for his client a near replica of the Hotel Lobottiere in Bordeaux, France. Interestingly it is believed by architectural historians that Trumbaur did not design this building solo, as had been previous suggested, but that Julian Abele, his African American lead designer, was highly involved. Duke died in 1925 and left the home to his wife and daughter. (He also left $40 million to Trinity College in North Carolina, under the direction that it be renamed Duke University.) Doris Duke, James' daughter, would go on to make a name for herself as an art collector, historic preservationist, and pioneer of the wildlife and environmental conservation movement. (She was also the first female competitive surfer!) In 1958 the home was donated to NYU's Institute of Fine Arts for its graduate programs and it remains in this function today. It has been been completed and sensitively restored by the University.

Duke Town House, January 20, 1938 In the 1870s, upper Fifth Avenue opposite Central Park was a shanty town, but by World War I it had become “millionaire’s row,” lined with the mansions of the captions of industry. Constructed to last for centuries, these urban villas soon gave way to apartment buildings, as the wealthy chose the ease of apartment living over the costs and constraints of palace life. Abbott’s photograph of the mansion of tobacco king James B. Duke contrasted these two ways of life. Built in 1912 to resemble a French chateau, the house was occupied in 1938 by Duke’s widow. Across 78th Street was 969 Fifth Avenue, a new 15-story luxury apartment building. In 1958, the Duke house became New York University’s Institute of Fine Arts.