1906–1926: Twin Mansions on a Vacant Block

1014 & 1015

The six-story, limestone-clad building at 1014 Fifth Avenue was designed for no one in particular. Built in 1906-07 by speculative developers William W. Hall and Thomas M. Hall, the house was originally one of a pair of upscale homes on an otherwise vacant block. The rapidly-expanding Metropolitan Museum of Art, facing the townhouses across Fifth Avenue, set the architectural tone. Twenty years later, as mansions gave way to apartment buildings, only one of the two houses remained.

Modern Fireproof Residence

Architect Alexander McMillan Welch dressed Nos. 1014 and its adjoining twin, No. 1015, in then-fashionable Neoclassical garb. Both originally stood 100 feet long and 25 feet wide—noticeably more ample than a typical Manhattan rowhouse. Differing subtly in their facades, the two homes mirrored each other on the inside. Coffered ceilings and elaborate moldings embellished the reception halls. White marble stairs, mantel, and base trim contrasted with the quarter-sawn oak floors.  In addition to the main stair, each building boasted a fireproof service stair and a passenger elevator. Splendid walk-in dressing closets included mirrored walls set at oblique angles.

Domestic Labor

The house was designed to accommodate a substantial domestic staff. Configured as a servants’ dormitory, the sixth (top) floor had seven single bedrooms, two double bedrooms, two bathrooms, and storage room. The basement kitchen was connected to the ground-floor dining room by two sets of stairs and a “dumbwaiter” lift. An enclosed, fireproof service stair adjoined the butler’s pantry at the rear of the ground floor. This stair terminated at the fourth floor, but a hidden passage led to another stair, next to the elevator, that continued to the upper levels.

The Architect Influenced by Paris

Alexander McMillan Welch was one of a generation of New York architects who leveraged their European training and social connections. Welch graduated from Columbia University in 1890 and studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. In the spirit of the French École, Welch combined rational space planning with skillful embellishment in a variety of styles. Welch and his firm, Welch, Smith & Provot, designed a series of brick-and-limestone townhomes, the most notable of which is the landmark-designated Duke-Semans Mansion at 1009 Fifth Avenue, just steps from No. 1014. Welch also served as the restoration architect for historic structures such as Hamilton Grange and the Dutch Colonial Dyckman House.

Dialogue Across the Avenue

The grand entrance pavilion of the Metropolitan Museum of Art faces 1014 across Fifth Avenue. This imposing structure, designed by Richard Morris Hunt, was completed in 1902, only a few years before 1014 and 1015 Fifth Avenue were built. The townhomes, in an appropriately scaled-down manner, echoed the museum’s Beaux-Arts styling and exterior materials. Architect A. M. Welch appears to have taken a contextual cue from the museum in giving 1014 a smooth Indiana limestone façade with horizontal rustication at the base, round-arched French windows on the second level, bracketed cornices, and a copper Mansard roof. The museum’s north wing, directly across from 1014, was complete by 1910. Its once-prominent copper roof was replaced in the 1930s.

 Real Estate Commodity

Offered for sale at $335,000 in the year 1907 (equivalent to around $10 million in 2021), 1014 Fifth Avenue was finally bought in 1909. James. F. A. Clark, a banker, and his wife, Edith Evelyn Bigelow, purchased the 13,600-square-foot home at a reported 18 percent reduction from the asking price. After furnishing the mansion and throwing a dinner party in the fall of 1910, the couple relocated so they could lease out their Fifth Avenue home in 1911. The rent they charged is equivalent to about $45,000 per month in 2021. One of the tenants, Ada Sorg Drouillard, moved from nearby 1008 Fifth Avenue, a similar townhouse, now demolished, that had also been developed by Hall’s Sons and designed by Welch. Later, the Clarks lived at No. 1014 again, but in 1926, as construction began on a new apartment building next door, they decamped to a 20-room apartment on Park Avenue.

New Apartment Types

Within only a few years of the home’s construction, Fifth Avenue mansions began to give way to apartment houses. The construction of 998 Fifth Avenue, a 12-story residential building designed by McKim, Mead & White, foreshadowed the 1920s boom in Upper East Side apartments designed by Rosario Candela and James E. R. Carpenter. By 1928, even 1014 Fifth Avenue was sandwiched by similar structures to the north and south. Its former twin, No. 1015, was demolished to make room for a 15-story apartment building at the northern corner of the block. In Yorkville, near the East River, housing reformers organized the construction of several “model tenement” affordable apartment buildings designed to provide access to light and fresh air.