Adelaide L. T. Douglas House | |
 (2012) | |
    | |
| Location | 57Park Avenue Manhattan,New York City |
|---|---|
| Coordinates | 40°44′57″N73°58′46″W / 40.74917°N 73.97944°W /40.74917; -73.97944 |
| Built | 1909–11 |
| Architect | Horace Trumbauer |
| Architectural style | Beaux Arts[1] |
| NRHP reference No. | 82003373 |
| NYCL No. | 1045 |
| Significant dates | |
| Added to NRHP | July 15, 1982[3] |
| Designated NYCL | September 11, 1979[2] |
TheAdelaide L. T. Douglas House is a historic building located at 57Park Avenue between East 37th and 38th streets in theMurray Hill neighborhood ofManhattan inNew York City. Designed by architectHorace Trumbauer, the six-story building was constructed from 1909 to 1911 as a residence for Mrs. Adelaide Townsend Douglas. The house was later converted to offices and serves as the permanent mission ofGuatemala to theUnited Nations.
The Adelaide L. T. Douglas House is located at 57Park Avenue, on the east side of the street, in theMurray Hill neighborhood ofManhattan inNew York City.[4] Theland lot has an area of 2,000 square feet (190 m2), with a frontage of 25 feet (7.6 m) and a depth of 80 feet (24 m).[5] Nearby buildings includeOur Saviour Roman Catholic Church to the north,Scandinavia House – The Nordic Center in America to the west, and theUnion League Club to the south.[5]
The site at 57 Park Avenue was previously occupied by a four-story residence owned by John J. Murphy, which was severely damaged on March 21, 1902, during a tunnel cave-in caused during construction of thefirst New York City Subway line.[6][7][8] As part of a settlement to avoid a lengthy court case,[9] Murphy's house, along with some of the other buildings that had been damaged on the east side of the block, were purchased by theInterborough Rapid Transit Company (IRT) in April 1902 and then demolished.[10][11] After the IRT tore down the houses at 53-57 Park Avenue, the sites remained "unimproved" for several years.[12]
Prominent New York socialite Mrs. Adelaide L. Douglas bought the site at 57 Park Avenue in 1909, intending to develop a new residence.[2][13][14] Mrs. Douglas was married to William P. Douglas, a businessman who had inherited most of the land in the area that becameDouglaston, Queens, and was known for being the owner of the yachtSappho that was successful in defending the secondAmerica's Cup challenge in 1871,[2][15][16] but she was having an affair withJ. P. Morgan and her husband had separated and moved out.[2][17][18] Morgan reportedly financed the new residence for Mrs. Douglas, and a plaque in the lobby listed him as the original owner of the building.[18][19]
Plans for the new building were filed in 1909,[2][20] and the home was completed by March 1911, when Mrs. Douglas began hosting parties there.[21] In its early years, the house hosted events such as a wedding reception for the Douglases' daughter Edith Sybil Douglas.[22] After Mrs. Douglas died in 1935 at the age of 83,[16] the house was leased to Arthur Charn in 1937.[23][24] The townhouse was sold by the estate of Mrs. Douglas in 1942.[13][25] The buyer, a client of lawyer Richard Gordon Babbage, paid $100,000 for the structure and lived there.[25]
The building was subsequently converted to offices and accommodated a variety of tenants in the early 1950s including the New York offices of the American branch ofAssociated British Oil Engine Company,[26] the Welfare League for Retarded Children,[27] and advertising agencies headed by Louis deGarmo[28][29] andRegina Ovesey.[30] The building was sold to George P. Tateosian and Evelyn Tateosian Cotterman in 1955, when the adjacent property at 59 Park Avenue had been selected for the construction of the Church of Our Saviour.[31]
In 1959, theUnited States Olympic Committee (USOC) purchased 57 Park Avenue to serve as its headquarters, which it called Olympic House.[32] TheLos Angeles Times described the house in 1973 as "ideally matched" with the USOC, which had "a real turn-of-the-century mentality".[33] The USOC occupied the house for two decades, announcing in 1977 that it would contemplate relocating its headquarters toColorado Springs, Colorado.[34] The committee moved to Colorado Springs the next year.[19][35] The building was designated as a New York City landmark by theNew York City Landmarks Preservation Commission in 1979[36] and was purchased by the Republic of Guatemala the same year[35][37] at an estimated cost of $1 million.[38] Since then, the building has served asGuatemala's permanent mission to the United Nations.[39] The house was placed on theNational Register of Historic Places in 1982.[3]
The residence was designed by Philadelphia architect Horace Trumbauer.[4][40] Similar to other residences designed by Trumbauer, the Adelaide L. T. Douglas House was patterned in theLouis XVI style of eighteenth-century France and has limestone and granite cladding.[18][41] The building'sfaçade is divided vertically into threebays and recessed behind anareaway at ground level, which in turn is surrounded by awrought-iron fence.[42] The ground floor's façade isrusticated, with the doorway and windows placed withinsegmental arches; the doorway is in the southernmost bay. Above each arch arekeystones with brackets bearingbellflower motifs. Above the ground story runs a cornice, which doubles as a balcony with wrought-iron railings for theFrench doors on the second floor. The balcony is carried onmodillions withfestoon ornaments.[1][42]
On the second and third stories, the bays are flanked bypilasters. The second-floor French doors are topped by carved stone panels, which depict children playing instruments or singing. The third floor has casement windows with wrought-iron railings, set between decorative carvings of urns at the tops of the pilasters. A cornice with modillions and afrieze with bellflowers is located between the third and fourth floors. On the fourth story are arched windows set back in acolonnade; the windows on this story also have iron railings, and there is a cornice andparapet above the fourth-story windows.[1][42] The fourth-floor colonnade supports a slate-coveredmansard roof on the fifth floor with pedimenteddormers and a coppercoping.[41][42] The sixth floor contains a penthouse that is set back from the rest of the building.[18][41]
When built, the house included an elevator.[24] The interior also featured a spiral staircase[42] and a second-storydrawing room withpaneling.[33][42] There were imported fireplaces made of marble in some rooms, as well as two levels of vaults under the ground level.[33] While numerous changes have been made to the interior of the building, such as the redesigning of rooms to accommodate additional space for offices, the exterior of the structure has remained almost entirely intact.[19][35]
Media related toDouglas House (Guatemalan UN Mission) at Wikimedia Commons