Andrew Carnegie Mansion
The Andrew Carnegie Mansion is a historic house and a museum building at 2 East 91st Street, along the east side of Fifth Avenue, on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. The three-and-a-half story, brick and stone mansion was designed by Babb, Cook & Willard in the Georgian Revival style. Completed in 1902 for the industrialist Andrew Carnegie, his wife Louise, and their only child Margaret, it served as the family's residence until 1946. Since 1976, the house has been occupied by the Cooper-Hewitt Museum, part of the Smithsonian Institution. The mansion is internally connected to two townhouses at 9 East 90th Street and 11 East 90th Street, both of which are part of the Cooper-Hewitt.
The mansion occupies the northern portion of a site, providing space for a garden to the south and west. Although the mansion has a mostly symmetrical design, there is a service wing and a metal-and-glass conservatory protruding off the eastern facade. The mansion was built with numerous mechanical features, including dedicated heating and cooling systems, a steel superstructure, and elevators. It contains at least 64 rooms across three basements and four above-ground stories, including the attic. The first-floor rooms include a stair hall, the conservatory, a picture gallery, a library, and various other family rooms. On the upper floors were the Carnegies' bedrooms, guest bedrooms, and staff quarters. These rooms have been modified over the years; since 1976, the interiors have hosted the museum's exhibition spaces and research facilities.
Carnegie purchased land on the Upper East Side in 1898 and hired Babb, Cook & Willard following an architectural design competition, The Carnegies moved into the mansion on December 12, 1902, spending their time between there and Skibo Castle in Scotland. Carnegie lived in his New York City mansion until his death in 1919, and Louise continued to live there until her own death in 1946. In the early 1920s, the mansion was connected with 9 East 90th Street, where Margaret lived from 1920 to 1948. Following a renovation, the Columbia University School of Social Work occupied the house from 1949 to 1971. The Carnegie Corporation gave the house and property to the Smithsonian in 1972, and the Cooper-Hewitt Museum opened there in 1976 following renovations by Hardy Holzman Pfeiffer Associates. The house underwent further renovations in the late 1990s and the early 2010s.
The mansion is a New York City designated landmark and a National Historic Landmark. The Carnegie Mansion has received architectural commentary over the years. The construction of the mansion spurred other wealthy New Yorkers to build their homes nearby, and Carnegie's presence there influenced the name of the surrounding area, which has come to be called Carnegie Hill. In addition, over the years, the mansion has been depicted in several films and TV series.
Site
The Andrew Carnegie Mansion is at 2 East 91st Street in the Carnegie Hill section of the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. It stands on of land between Fifth Avenue and Central Park to the west, 90th Street to the south, and 91st Street to the north. The rectangular land lot occupies about half of its city block and covers, with a frontage of around on Fifth Avenue and on the side streets. Prior to the acquisition of additional property in the early 20th century, the site measured just over 200 feet on Fifth Avenue and 90th Street, and 230 feet on 91st Street. Built for the industrialist Andrew Carnegie and later converted into the Cooper-Hewitt Museum, the mansion was finished in 1902 and was near the north end of Fifth Avenue's Millionaires' Row. Carnegie initially referred to the area around his home as "the Highlands of Fifth Avenue".The grounds are enclosed by a metal fence with stone posts. A garden, designed by Guy Lowell and Richard Schermerhorn Jr., occupies the southern half of the site and wraps around to the western frontage. During the garden's construction, workers excavated the bedrock around the house to a depth of or. Workers used loam from the old Fleetwood Park Racetrack in the Bronx to fill and grade the pit. The plantings included ivy, rhododendrons, azaleas, roses, and wisterias. The garden originally had around 30 mature trees, which were clustered around the eastern boundary of the site; these included cherry, oak, chestnut, and beech trees, which remained intact in the late 20th century. There were also flower beds and pathways, and, on the eastern side, a rock garden. The garden, which has since become part of the Cooper-Hewitt Museum, was renamed the Arthur Ross Terrace and Garden in 1991. Following a 2015 renovation, the Arthur Ross Terrace and Garden retained its rock garden and pathways, and a seating area and a southern entrance to the mansion were added. There is also an elevated walkway next to the mansion, overlooking the garden., people can access the garden without paying an admission fee or going through the museum first.
At the southeast corner of the main mansion is the McAlpin–Miller House at 9 East 90th Street, formerly owned by George L. McAlpin and then by Carnegie's daughter Margaret Miller. The mansion is connected with 9 East 90th Street, and the two buildings share a land lot. The mansion is also internally connected to 11 East 90th Street, and it abuts 15 and 17 East 90th Street and the Spence School to the east. The Church of the Heavenly Rest is directly across 90th Street to the south, while the Otto H. Kahn House, James A. Burden House, John Henry Hammond House, and John and Caroline Trevor House are across 91st Street to the north. The mansion is also part of Fifth Avenue's Museum Mile; it is near the Jewish Museum in the Felix M. Warburg House one block north, as well as the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum one block south.
Architecture
The Carnegie Mansion was designed by Babb, Cook & Willard. Though the brick-and-limestone facade is designed in the Georgian Revival style, it also includes Beaux-Arts design elements. The Chicago Daily Tribune wrote that, during the mansion's construction, the structure was variously described as Dutch Colonial Revival and French Renaissance, although it incorporated elements of several architectural styles. The Washington Post described the house as "modified Georgian eclectic". The site includes 9 East 90th Street, which was completed in 1903 or 1905. The latter house was designed by George Keister in the Georgian Revival style and includes Beaux-Arts design elements.Form and facade
Main mansion
The mansion is a -story structure, finished in brick and stone. All four elevations of the facade are visible from the street. To maximize the size of the garden, the Carnegie Mansion is placed along the extreme northern boundary of the site, along 91st Street. The architects intended for the house's symmetrical design, as well as its use of relatively simple architectural details, to de-emphasize its large size. The northern and southern elevations are both divided vertically into eleven bays. The western and eastern elevations have similar decorations to the northern and southern elevations, except that they are five bays wide. A brick-and-stone service wing protrudes off the northern portion of the eastern elevation. Just south of this wing is a metal-and-glass conservatory with a base of rusticated stone blocks and an east-facing pergola. At the rear of the mansion is a passageway made of brick, cedar wood, and granite, which connects with the houses at 9 and 11 East 90th Street.The first story of the facade is clad with rusticated stone blocks. As built, there is a curved sidewalk on 91st Street, which leads to the main entrance. A short flight of steps leads up from the sidewalk to a raised terrace. The entrance itself consists of double doors within a semicircular arch. There is a glass canopy above the main entrance, which was designed by Louis Comfort Tiffany. Early plans for the house called for the terrace to surround the entire mansion, but Carnegie ordered that the terrace be removed when the mansion was nearly completed. When the mansion was renovated in the mid-1990s, the steps in front of the main entrance were extended outward, and a ramp was installed behind a balustrade. On the rest of the first story, there are arched openings topped by ornate keystones. There is an areaway between the house and 91st Street. There is a secondary entrance on 90th Street, which was added as part of a 2014 renovation of the Cooper-Hewitt Museum.
The upper stories are clad with brick and have stone quoins at their corners. On the northern and southern elevations, the nine center bays are clustered in three sets of three, and quoins separate each group of bays from each other and from the bay at either end. On the second floor of the northern and southern elevations, there are protruding balconies within the central group of bays, as well as in the end bays. The center three bays on the western elevation also have a balcony at the second floor. The center bay of the eastern elevation has an oriel window at that story. Each window is surrounded by a stone frame; these surrounds are all topped by cornices, and there are triangular pediments above some windows.
Atop the facade is a stone cornice, which in turn is topped by a stone balustrade and urns. The cornice is ornamented with modillions. There are arched dormer windows with copper sheathing above the third floor. In addition, the roof is topped by brick-and-limestone chimneys.
9 East 90th Street
9 East 90th Street is a five-story structure that has been connected with the Carnegie Mansion since 1920. The southern elevation of the house is largely built of brick with stone trim, except the first story, which is made of rusticated blocks of white marble. On the upper stories, there are marble quoins at either corner of the facade. The window openings consist of both double-hung windows and casement windows. The western elevation is clad in red brick. There is also a brick annex in the rear, with stone quoins and various windows.At the left side of the ground story, Ionic columns flank the entryway and support a triangular pediment above. The second and third stories curve outward, and there is a marble balcony in front of the second story. The balcony is accessed by French doors on the second story, which are topped by arched stone voussoirs. The third story has rectangular windows with splayed lintels above. There is a balustrade atop the curved third story, which is made of marble and iron. Above the fourth story is a marble cornice with modillions. The sloped roof contains projecting dormer windows. The side walls of the house protrude from either side of the fourth story.