Henry Clay Frick House
The Henry Clay Frick House is a mansion and museum building on Fifth Avenue, between 70th and 71st streets, on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. Designed by Thomas Hastings as the residence of the industrialist Henry Clay Frick, the house contains the Frick Collection museum and the Frick Art Reference Library. The house and library building are designated as a New York City landmark and National Historic Landmark.
The house has three stories and is separated from Fifth Avenue by an elevated garden. It has three wings to the north, center, and south, arranged in an L shape. The limestone facade contains several carved pediments and tympana. Most of the house remained essentially unchanged from the time of its construction until 1931. The first floor contained the family's communal rooms; the second floor contained their bedrooms and private rooms; and the third floor contained the servants' quarters. There was also a basement with service areas. The first and second-floor rooms have been adapted into museum spaces over the years.
Frick bought the site of the Lenox Library in 1906 and 1907 but could not redevelop it for several years. Initially, Frick sought designs from Daniel Burnham, but ultimately he commissioned Hastings, who designed a three-story mansion in the Beaux-Arts style. Construction took place between 1912 and 1914. Frick lived in the building only until his death in 1919, but his wife Adelaide and daughter Helen continued to live there until Adelaide died in 1931. Following a renovation, and in accordance with Frick's will, the house opened to the public as the Frick Collection in 1935. The building was enlarged slightly in 1977 and 2011, which has altered the original appearance of the house. From 2020 to 2025, the house was closed for an extensive renovation that expanded the museum. Over the years, the mansion has received generally positive architectural commentary.
Site
The Henry Clay Frick House is at 1 East 70th Street in the Lenox Hill section of the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. It is bounded by Fifth Avenue and Central Park to the west, 70th Street to the south, and 71st 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. The mansion originally occupied a smaller, site, which covered about a third of the block. The rest of the city block is composed of townhouses, including 11, 15, 17, 19, and 21 East 70th Street to the east. 880 Fifth Avenue is on the block to the south, while the Gertrude Rhinelander Waldo House is one block to the northwest. The mansion is part of Fifth Avenue's Museum Mile and houses the Frick Collection, the southernmost museum on that strip.The site had been part of the Lenox family's farm until the late 19th century. The site of the Frick House then became the Lenox Library, designed in a neo-Grec style by Richard Morris Hunt. The library had contained paintings and books owned by the philanthropist James Lenox. Frick's house occupies a site that includes both the library and an adjacent strip. The eastern half of the block was sold to other developers, who had erected residences there by 1910. The entire block was restricted to residential use until 1929, although the Frick House was excluded from this restriction in 1926. After the mansion became a museum, its site was expanded to include the land occupied by the Widener House at 5 East 70th Street ; 7 East 70th Street ; and a third house at 9 East 70th Street.
When Frick built the house in the early 1910s, he planted 13 chestnut trees on the sidewalk of Fifth Avenue between 70th and 71st streets, each of which were at least 30 years old. To accommodate the trees, he excavated the sidewalk to a depth of, then obtained soil from Long Island, in which the trees were planted. The trees were planted on the property for only a year and a half before all dying, because the soil was contaminated with poisonous illuminating gas. Afterward, they were replaced with sycamores. A single poplar tree, which had existed on the block before even the Lenox Library was built, remained on Frick's estate until 1918.
Gardens
Most of the house, except for the gallery wing at the north end, is recessed behind a garden on Fifth Avenue. This contrasted with similarly large mansions built in Manhattan during the early 20th century, which were generally built as close as possible to the boundaries of their lots, and was unique for a mansion on Fifth Avenue. Original plans called for a sunken garden facing Fifth Avenue, flanked by the house on two sides, with a pool in the center. The William H. Jackson Company designed a wrought iron fence around the Fifth Avenue garden, while John Williams Inc. designed entrance gates in the same style. When the house was completed, there was a stone wall with a balustrade along Fifth Avenue, and the garden itself had evergreen trees. A pebbled path ran through the garden. A small formal garden sat at the south end of the Fifth Avenue garden, at the same level as the house's first floor. Three magnolia trees were planted during a 1939 renovation; by the late 20th century, the Fifth Avenue garden was cited as containing roses, violets, lantana, blue Egyptian lily, and white petunias. The garden was rarely open to the public until the late 2000s.There is another garden on 70th Street, which was completed when the Frick Collection renovated the house in 1977. The garden, the only one designed by Russell Page in New York City, spans about. A temporary garden had been proposed on that site in 1973 in advance of the development of a six-story annex, but the garden became permanent after the annex was canceled. Although there are gravel paths, the garden was intended to be viewed rather than strolled through. The garden contains plantings such as boxwood, water lilies, quince, wisteria, and pear trees, as well as a central pool. The pool and trees were arranged to make the garden look larger than it actually was. There is an iron fence on the south edge of the garden, as well as a one-story parapet wall on the north and west edges. The eastern wall has three nautically themed lunettes, which face three large windows on the eastern wall of the house's annex.
There was also originally a private courtyard at the rear or east side of the building, accessed from the living room. The rear court had a pool with a central fountain. The rear court was demolished when the current garden court was built in the 1930s.
Architecture
of the architectural partnership of Carrère and Hastings designed the mansion for the family of industrialist Henry Clay Frick in the Beaux-Arts or Italian Renaissance Revival style. Following multiple expansions over the years, the present structure is about double the size of the original mansion. John Russell Pope designed the entrance on 70th Street and the Frick Art Reference Library, completed in 1935. A one-story annex on 70th Street, finished in 1977, was designed by Harry van Dyke, G. Frederick Poehler, and John Barrington Bayley. Another expansion in the 2020s was designed by Annabelle Selldorf.Indiana limestone was used for the exterior and parts of the interior of the mansion. Frick hired limestone contractor William Bradley & Son, steel contractor Post & McCord, and masonry contractor Cauldwell-Wingate Company to build the house. The Piccirilli Brothers designed several pediments for the facade, while Samuel Yellin and John Williams were responsible for grilles and ornamental steelwork.
Form and facade
Original residence
The original residence has a facade made of limestone. The massing is composed of three parts: a three-story central section and two wings of shorter height. Elaborate pediments decorate the outer wings and the house's former porte-cochère. When the mansion was being constructed, Frick had mandated that a large picture gallery be constructed in the same style as his main house. The gallery wing was placed along 71st Street because it was a narrow side street, while the main mansion was recessed from Fifth Avenue to visually distinguish it from neighboring residences.The central section is eleven bays wide and faces the garden on Fifth Avenue. Its design was likely influenced by that of the Hôtel du Châtelet in Paris. On the western elevation of the central section's facade, the central three bays of comprise a portico flanked by four double-height pilasters in the Ionic order. A staircase, flanked by urns, rises from the garden into arched doorways at the first story of the portico. The rest of the first floor is clad with rusticated blocks and contains French doors, with carved plaques above each set of doors. A belt course runs horizontally above the first-story windows and extends across to both wings; the belt course doubles as a sill for the second-story windows. The windows on the portico's second story have balustrades. There is also a balustrade above the second story, interspersed with the vertical piers between each bay. The third story is designed to appear like an attic and is set back from the facade.
The north wing is known as the gallery wing and measures across. It extends west to Fifth Avenue and rises one and a half stories. The southern elevation of the north wing is designed like a loggia, with fluted Ionic columns between each bay. The westernmost bay of the loggia has a rusticated facade and an arched window topped by a carved, curved tympanum. The western elevation of the north wing borders Fifth Avenue and is divided into four bays. The southernmost bay on Fifth Avenue contains an arch, while the other three bays on that elevation contain rectangular windows topped by bas-reliefs. The northern elevation of the gallery wing, facing 71st Street, is one story high and is divided into bays by Doric pilasters. Most of the bays on the 71st Street elevation lack windows and are topped by stone plaques. The outermost bays contain archways that are flanked by Ionic pilasters and topped by carved tympana. Attilio Piccirilli designed the two tympana, which were called Orpheus and Sculpture.
The south wing is two stories high and contained the house's porte-cochère. The western elevation of the south wing is two bays wide and protrudes slightly from the central wing. At the first story, the south wing is rusticated, and there are triangular pediments above the western elevation's windows. On the 70th Street elevation of the south wing, there are rectangular windows topped by bas-reliefs, similar to the facade of the central section. At the far eastern end of the south wing's 70th Street elevation is the museum's main entrance, originally the porte-cochère's entrance, which is topped by an ornate tympanum. The tympanum, sculpted by Sherry Edmundson Fry to designs by the Piccirilli Brothers, depicts a female figure modeled on Audrey Munson. When the house was built, the porte-cochère was set back significantly from the street and was enclosed by a pair of metal gates; a barrel vault led north to another entrance at 71st Street. The rear facade of the house faced the porte-cochère. After the house was converted to a museum in the 1930s, the tympanum above the porte-cochère entrance was moved forward, closer to 70th Street.