The Edward S. Harkness Fifth Avenue Mansion at 75th Street

Click HERE to go to the Harkness House site.

Senator William Clark Mansion, Fifth Avenue New York

The Senator Clark Mansion on Fifth Avenue & 77th Street. The Childhood home of Heiress Huguette Clark.

View from 77th Street of the Senator Clark Mansion.

The phenomenal mansion of Senator William Andrews Clark at Fifth Avenue and Seventy Seventh Street.
Considered to be the largest and most opulent mansion along New York' Fifth Avenue, " Millionaires Row".

Here is a little  pun about the Clark mansion written at the time of it's construction.

"Senator Copper of Tonopah Ditch made a clean billion in minin' and sich. Hiked for New York, where his money he blew, bildin' a palace on Fift' Avenoo. 'How,' says the Senator, 'kin I look proudest? Build me a house that'll holler the loudest. None of your slab-sided, plain mossyleums! Gimme the treasures of art 'an museums! ...

Build it new-fangled, scalloped and angled, fine like a weddin' cake garnished with pills. Gents, do your duty, trot out your beauty. Gimme my money's worth, I'll pay the bills.' Pillars Ionic, eaves Babylonic, doors cut in scallops resemblin' a shell. Roof was Egyptian, gables caniptian. Whole grand effect when completed was — hell." — Wallace Irwin, 1912

Click HERE for the history of the Mansion and family.
Floor Plans of the Clark Mansion 
Interiors of the Clark Mansion at the Museum of the City of New York
Read MORE on New York Social Diary
960 Fifth Avenue today 
Early Exterior of the Mansion 
Completion of the Mansion
Demolition of the Clark Mansion

Senator William Clark Mansion, Childhood Home of Huguette Clark

Here are some great links to the history of the Senator William Clark mansion which was located on  77th Street and Fifth Avenue. It was at the time of construction considered to be the grandest and most ostentatious mansion in New York City. It was this house that mysterious heiress Huguette Clark lived as a child.

Wikipedia about house
Wikipedia about Senator Clark
The Salon Dore
Huguette Clark
Architectural Record
New York Times story on the death of Huguette Clark

Grey Gardens, East Hampton

Click HERE for a wonderful blog about " Grey Gardens" on," Houses of the Hamptons"

Chestertown House, Southampton, New York

Click HERE to read about the Henry F. du Pont house at Southampton on, "Houses of the Hamptons"

Long Island Landscapes and the Women Who Designed Them

Author to Speak on Landscapes of Long Island’s Great Estates

The Southampton Historical Museum will host Cynthia Zaitzevsky, author of Long Island Landscapes and the Women Who Designed Them on May 20 at The Meadow Club, Southampton. The book is an account of eminent women landscape architects who flourished in the golden age of country estates. All proceeds will benefit the Halsey House herb garden.

The beautiful book covers in depth the work of Beatrix Farrand, Martha Hutcheson, Marian Coffin, Ellen Shipman, Ruth Dean, and Annette Hoyt Flanders and looks at a dozen other less-well-known women. It focuses on the Long Island projects that constituted a large part of their work including Marian Coffin’s designs for Henry Francis du Pont’s Chestertown in Southampton and Charles and Pauline Sabin’s Sebonac estate, Bayberry Land. Ms. Zaitzevsky brings these pioneering women to life as people and as professionals.

The Meadow Club, which celebrated its centennial in 1987, was the first of Southampton’s fabled clubs and has been at the center of the sporting and social life of Southampton’s summer residents ever since. The club boasts a handsome, historic clubhouse and its 36 magnificent grass tennis courts are unrivaled anywhere outside of Wimbledon.  

Ms. Zaitzevsky, an historian of architecture and landscape architecture, received her PhD from Harvard University’s Department of Fine Arts and taught the history of landscape architecture at Harvard’s Landscape Institute. She is the author of Frederick Law Olmstead and the Boston Park System. (1982).

The lecture will begin at 11:30 am, immediately followed by a luncheon. The price to attend the lecture is $35 or $75 including the luncheon. For tickets or information please call the Southampton Historical Museum at 283-2494. Southampton Historical Museum

Lost Houses of the Hamptons

On May 7th 2011, I will be speaking at the Southampton Historical Museum about some of the great mansions of the Hamptons that no longer exist. They will include, Wooldon Manor, the home of Jesse Woolworth Donahue, Black Point, the H. H. Rogers mansion, Bayberry Land, The Duponts Chestertown House, Villa Mille Fiore, Red Maples and a brief history of the founding of the Summer colony. This event is being sponsored by the Southampton Historical Museum, The Rogers Memorial Library and the AIA Peconic. Please click HERE for reservations. To read about some of the Lost Houses of the Hamptons, please click HERE for New York Social Diary's review of " Houses of the Hamptons, 1880 -1930".

Wooldon Manor

Bayberry Land

Villa Mille Fiore