Architect Breaks Down 200 Years of NYC Mansions
Today Michael Wyetzner of Michielli + Wyetzner Architects joins AD in New York for a walking tour of the city’s mansions. From the early colonial abodes of Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr to the grandeur of the Gilded Age, and 20th century brutalist design, Michael walks you through 200 years worth of homes belonging to wealthy New Yorkers past and present.
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00:00 (gentle music)
00:02 Everybody knows about the Gilded Age mansions
00:05 on Fifth Avenue in New York City.
00:06 (gentle music)
00:09 But what came before them?
00:14 And how have New York City mansions evolved
00:16 since they fell out of fashion?
00:18 I'm Michael Weitzner.
00:20 I've been an architect in New York City for over 35 years.
00:22 And today, we're going to be doing a walking tour
00:25 of 250 years of Manhattan mansions.
00:27 (gentle music)
00:30 So before European colonizers arrived here in the 1500s,
00:36 the Lenape tribe called this island home for 12,000 years.
00:40 And they named it Manhattan, which means hilly island.
00:44 And that's exactly what it is.
00:46 Where we're standing now is called Coogan's Bluff,
00:48 one of the highest elevations in Manhattan.
00:50 The views here were fantastic
00:52 before tall buildings were common,
00:54 and they're still pretty great.
00:56 And that's why some of the wealthiest
00:58 early European settlers chose to build their homes
01:01 right here, including some people you might've heard of,
01:03 like Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr.
01:06 Not only rivals, but neighbors, as it turns out.
01:09 (gentle music)
01:11 This Belgian block street we're walking on
01:17 is Sylvan Terrace.
01:19 And these actually are the original wooden townhouses
01:23 built in 1882.
01:25 As we walk along this street,
01:26 we're walking back in time 260 years
01:30 to the oldest existing mansion in Manhattan.
01:33 (gentle music)
01:36 This is the Morris Jumel Mansion.
01:38 This house was built for Roger Morris,
01:40 a colonel in the British Army in 1765.
01:44 It was built as his country estate,
01:45 and it was actually 11 miles north of New York City,
01:48 which at the time ended at Wall Street.
01:50 Stylistically, it's a Greek revival building.
01:53 And one of the most interesting things about it
01:55 is that it appears to be made out of stone,
01:57 but it's actually made out of wood.
01:59 Some of the elements clearly mimicking stone
02:01 are the coins at the corners, the Doric columns,
02:05 the pediment, and the water line.
02:07 Coins are large stones used to reinforce the corners
02:10 in masonry buildings.
02:11 But these are built out of wood and are purely decorative.
02:14 What they were trying to achieve here in wood
02:15 was an imitation of the architectural expression
02:18 of wealth back in Europe,
02:19 which would've been made in stone.
02:21 And those buildings were referencing
02:23 ancient Greek architecture to project longevity
02:26 and transgenerational wealth.
02:28 But ironically, those ancient Greek buildings,
02:31 which have lasted thousands of years
02:32 because they were made of stone,
02:34 were actually imitating wood buildings in the first place.
02:37 In fact, ancient Greek architecture
02:39 has been called a carpentry in marble.
02:41 So this is a wood building imitating a stone building,
02:44 which were originally imitating wood buildings.
02:48 So above the columns on a Greek temple,
02:49 you would typically see what's called a triglyph.
02:53 Those are actually imitations
02:54 of the ends of wood rafters and joists,
02:56 which were used in earlier wooden temples
02:58 to support the roof.
03:00 So this building is also interesting historically.
03:02 It was actually George Washington's headquarters
03:05 during the Battle of Harlem Heights
03:06 in the Revolutionary War.
03:08 Strategically, this was an ideal location
03:10 'cause it's the second highest point in Manhattan,
03:13 and you could actually get a view from river to river.
03:15 It would be purchased years later
03:17 by a French wine merchant named Jumel in 1810.
03:20 And soon after his death,
03:21 his widow Eliza would marry Aaron Burr
03:24 right here in the parlor of this house.
03:26 And Aaron Burr coincidentally killed the owner
03:29 of the next mansion we're going to look at.
03:31 [upbeat music]
03:33 Behind me is The Grains,
03:38 built for Alexander Hamilton in 1802.
03:42 Sadly, he would only live here for two years
03:44 before he was tragically killed in a duel with Aaron Burr.
03:47 It was built in the Federalist style by John McComb,
03:51 who also designed the lighthouse at Montauk Point,
03:53 Gracie Mansion, where the mayor of New York
03:55 still lives while in office, and New York City Hall.
03:58 The Federalist style is interesting
03:59 because it sort of became the unofficial style
04:02 of the early United States.
04:03 The Federalist style is sort of a stripped-down version
04:06 of the Georgian style,
04:08 which was developed by Robert Adams in England.
04:10 Georgian buildings also imitated classical architecture.
04:13 The Georgian style was, of course,
04:15 named for all the kings named George.
04:16 And so the fact that the Federalist style
04:18 diverges from that has a nice parallel
04:20 to the history of the United States.
04:22 This is also a wood building,
04:24 but an honest expression of wood, not imitating stone.
04:27 And you can also see the form of the townhouse
04:30 starting to emerge here, with the very rectilinear shape,
04:33 the appearance of a flat roof, a deep stairway or stoop,
04:37 and even these protruding octagonal bays
04:40 that are somewhat hidden under these deep porches,
04:42 like you might see on a residential Brooklyn street.
04:45 There are some interesting things going on
04:47 with the roof as well, which appears flat,
04:49 but it's actually a sort of shallow version
04:51 of a mansard roof.
04:53 There are four chimneys, two of which are actually fake,
04:55 placed there just for symmetry's sake.
04:57 This is not its original location.
04:59 In fact, it's its third location, having moved twice.
05:03 Originally, this building was built on a 32-acre estate,
05:07 just one mile south of the Morris Jamel Mansion,
05:09 and had to be moved when the city grid of 1811
05:13 expanded northward.
05:14 And like the Morris Jamel Mansion,
05:16 this was built on a high bluff,
05:17 which afforded it these beautiful views
05:20 all the way out to Long Island Sound.
05:21 [upbeat music]
05:24 Over my shoulder, you can see the Bailey Mansion.
05:33 This was built for the Bailey half
05:35 of the famous Barnum and Bailey Circus, James Bailey.
05:38 It has an engraving on the side of the year 1887,
05:41 but it was actually completed a year late in 1888.
05:44 It was designed by the architect Samuel B. Reed,
05:47 and it's considered Romanesque revival,
05:49 but really it's an amalgamation
05:50 of a number of different styles.
05:52 It has these Romanesque arches, a Gothic spire,
05:55 a Flemish gable, a French chateau-style turret,
05:58 a Victorian roof replete with widow's walk,
06:01 medieval crenellations, and a bay window
06:03 with a Renaissance-style pediment.
06:05 And the end result is a magnificent mansion
06:08 in limestone that somehow really works.
06:10 Inside, the house is possibly even more impressive.
06:13 Remember, this is 1888, but inside there was steam heat,
06:17 electric and gas lights,
06:19 and unlike the first two homes we saw,
06:21 it was built with indoor plumbing.
06:22 Louis Comfort Tiffany's cousin, Joseph Burr Tiffany,
06:26 designed the interiors, which are incredibly ornate
06:29 with extremely intricate woodwork in the screens
06:31 and an ingle nook by the fireplace.
06:33 It has stained glass windows by Henry Belcher,
06:36 who was an inventor that actually held two patents
06:38 for different types of glass.
06:39 This house was built in the Gilded Age,
06:41 but instead of being down on Fifth Avenue,
06:44 it was built out here in the suburbs of Manhattan.
06:47 When James Bailey moved here,
06:48 he thought this would become
06:49 the next fashionable neighborhood in Manhattan,
06:51 but that never materialized,
06:53 and just over a decade later,
06:54 he moved north to Mount Vernon in Westchester County.
06:57 But the next great neighborhood wasn't further north,
07:00 it was actually further south.
07:02 So far, we've seen two Manhattan country estates
07:04 and a Gilded Age mansion on a suburban Manhattan block,
07:07 but now let's jump into this 20th century
07:09 and the beginnings of a whole new kind of mansion
07:12 right in the heart of the city.
07:13 Over my shoulder is what's known simply as the Kramer House.
07:20 This was only the second modernist building ever built
07:23 on the entire island of Manhattan.
07:26 It was designed by William Lascaze in 1935,
07:29 and actually, the first modernist building in Manhattan
07:32 was his own house,
07:33 to which this bears a striking resemblance.
07:36 So the Kramers had seen his house,
07:38 and they asked him to build one just like it.
07:40 So what is a modernist building?
07:42 Well, it doesn't mean new,
07:44 and it doesn't mean contemporary.
07:45 It refers to a movement that began in the 1910s,
07:49 also known as the International Style.
07:52 In architecture, modernism is a rejection
07:54 of historical ornament,
07:56 like you would see in a Greek revival.
07:58 At the time the modernist movement began,
08:00 Beaux-Arts was the prevailing aesthetic,
08:02 which you would see in banks, museums, and office buildings.
08:05 And the Beaux-Arts was very classical, very ornamented.
08:08 Modernism, by contrast,
08:09 was about simplified forms and abstraction.
08:12 It prioritized functionality and hygiene,
08:14 more light, more air,
08:16 a rejection of the dark spaces and slums and tenements.
08:20 And one of the giants of modernism was Le Corbusier.
08:23 He was a Swiss-born French architect, painter, and writer,
08:28 and he outlined five main points of modernism.
08:31 And this house really showcases all five of those points.
08:36 The first thing you can see
08:37 is that the building is built up on pelote,
08:39 which is Le Corbusier's term for slender columns.
08:42 In this case, the party walls act as those pelote.
08:46 And in between those pelote,
08:48 you can see an example of the free plan
08:50 with the curving entrance,
08:52 where they took the main entrance
08:53 and they tucked it back in the site.
08:55 The neighbor's houses, as you can see,
08:57 have stairs leading up to the entrance,
08:59 but here, the stairs were put on the inside.
09:01 With the free facade,
09:02 the windows can be placed wherever they are needed.
09:05 And in this case, you can see he did
09:06 these big horizontal ribbon windows above on the building,
09:10 which allow a lot of natural light to come in,
09:13 compared to the buildings to the side,
09:15 which have these small punched windows.
09:17 And of course, you can see it has a flat roof.
09:19 Of course, most townhouses do have a flat roof
09:21 with just a tiny slope for rain to run off.
09:23 But in this case,
09:24 it also satisfies the intention of modernism
09:27 to create a livable space on top of the building.
09:30 And the other really modernist thing about this building
09:33 is its materials.
09:34 You can see the steel-framed windows,
09:36 glass block, curved enameled metal panels, and stucco.
09:40 So before, where we looked at these freestanding houses,
09:43 now we're looking at a house
09:44 that's part of the fabric of the city.
09:46 It's part of the street wall,
09:48 and it shares walls with its neighbors.
09:50 While it's rejecting the historicism of the past,
09:52 it still embraces the city around it.
09:55 It's not a radical departure
09:56 in terms of the way people lived,
09:58 because wealthy people had been living
09:59 in townhouses for years.
10:01 But it was a radical departure
10:02 in the way wealth was expressed.
10:04 It embraced new ideas, new materials, and new technology.
10:08 So rather than trying to blend in with old money,
10:11 this house chose to stand out.
10:13 [upbeat music]
10:17 [gentle music]
10:19 Behind me, you can see 23 Beekman Place,
10:25 designed by Paul Rudolph.
10:27 Paul Rudolph was one of the great practitioners
10:29 of brutalist architecture.
10:30 He did the Tracy Towers in the Bronx,
10:32 the Endo Laboratories in Garden City on Long Island,
10:36 and the Yale Art and Architecture Building.
10:38 This building takes standing out to a whole other level.
10:41 It was described as one of the most amazing pieces
10:44 of urban, modern, domestic architecture
10:47 in the entire country, according to Michael Sorkin,
10:50 the great architect and critic in "House and Garden" in 1981.
10:54 Paul Rudolph himself said it was worth taking risks
10:57 to create architecture that provoked strong reactions.
11:01 In a way, he was trying to redefine space
11:03 by maximizing natural light and openness.
11:07 He made this penthouse extension on the roof
11:09 made of precast concrete panels, steel, and glass.
11:12 And he created wonderful outdoor spaces
11:14 and rooftop gardens as part of that.
11:17 It takes free plan to a whole other level.
11:19 There are very few interior walls.
11:21 Instead, it's a series of balconies,
11:23 one looking over the other.
11:24 There are actually 27 different floor levels
11:27 in the penthouse triplex.
11:29 And he also used mirror finishes
11:31 and transparent materials throughout
11:33 to break down how the space is defined
11:35 and further enhance the visual aesthetic
11:37 of openness and natural light.
11:39 So it makes it harder to discern the limits of the space
11:42 where one room begins and the other one ends,
11:45 almost giving it a feeling of endlessness.
11:47 He created this amazing mansion in the sky,
11:50 but he actually had renters
11:51 on the lower floors of the building.
11:52 And this really is a unique and beautiful expression
11:55 of penthouse living in New York City,
11:58 which is maybe why Sorkin called him
12:00 the best designer of his generation.
12:02 [upbeat music]
12:06 Behind me is the Spire Mansion at 176 East 72nd Street.
12:10 And this was a mansion that was built
12:12 at the end of the 20th century.
12:14 From what I understand, the site was chosen
12:16 because two brownstones became available
12:19 and now they had a double wide lot to build on.
12:21 Typically in a row house, light is an issue
12:24 because you have buildings on either side.
12:26 You can only get light in the front or the back.
12:28 But in this case, because they have a double wide lot,
12:31 there's opportunities for a lot more glass
12:34 to bring in a lot more natural light.
12:36 But it appears the architects decided
12:38 it might be too much light
12:39 and added this expansive limestone for privacy.
12:42 And actually what I find most interesting
12:44 about this building is its use of materials
12:46 in that it references the modernist movement
12:48 with this metal and glass,
12:50 but also harkens back to more classical architecture
12:53 in its use of limestone.
12:55 So the metal and glass facade is very reminiscent
12:57 of a Mies van der Rohe design.
12:58 But on closer inspection,
13:00 you see that it's not a regular grid like Mies' favorite,
13:02 but in fact more closely resembles
13:04 the composition of a Mondrian painting,
13:07 which is fitting because the owners of this home
13:08 are actually known art enthusiasts.
13:11 And the limestone harkens back
13:12 to both classical architecture and the city itself.
13:16 Along with brick, limestone was really
13:18 the traditional building material of New York.
13:20 So by adding this limestone piece,
13:22 it gives it a sense of history
13:23 and also a sense of warmth that feels more domestic,
13:26 but in an elevated way
13:27 that lets you know a rich person lives here.
13:29 And even though it is this traditional material,
13:32 the combination of this punched window
13:34 in this slot shape is very referential to Le Corbusier.
13:38 One last note about this building that I really like
13:40 is this north-facing skylight at the top,
13:42 which was typically used for artist brownstones
13:44 throughout the city.
13:45 And I feel like it's a signal that lets you know
13:47 that an art enthusiast lives here.
13:49 So at the end of the 20th century,
13:51 with the buildings we've just looked at,
13:52 you can see an evolution.
13:54 So we started out with country houses north of the city,
13:56 and then they became more woven into the fabric of the city
14:00 and the street wall.
14:00 These are just a small sample
14:02 of the homes of wealthy New Yorkers, past and present.
14:05 If you'd like to see more New York City mansions,
14:07 let us know in the comments below.
14:09 (gentle music)
14:12 [BLANK_AUDIO]