HISTORY FOR SALE
From the Brooklyn Museum to Columbia University, architects McKim, Mead & White built New York’s most important Gilded Age landmarks. Now a handful of their rare homes have hit the market
A JUST-listed, 6,000-square-foot residence at 16 Sunset Road in Kings Point, NY, may seem like any tony Gold Coast Long Island property, but there’s more here than meets the eye.
For $10.5 million, through Douglas Elliman, its new owner will receive a prized vestige of legendary architecture firm McKim, Mead & White.
Founded in the 1870s and first led by partners Charles Follen McKim, William Rutherford Mead and Stanford White, the company remains nationally renowned for its iconic institutional designs — the Brooklyn Museum and Columbia University among them — that introduced architectural splendor befitting the Gilded Age in New York City and across The East Coast.
On Sunset Road, however, the firm’s mission was far more modest — the remodeling, and apparent expansion, of a home for investment banker Edward Winslow between 1887 and 1889 for $31,339, according to records.
Unlike its cultural and educational icons, McKim, Mead & White’s residences don’t receive as much attention. Of at least 944 total works crafted by the firm between 1870 and 1920, their private dwellings number 300 — about 100 of
which still stand today. (Those figures come via the most reliable archives; the extent of the firm’s commissions from its inception to its 1956 closing has never been recorded.) Now, at least 10 residential properties designed by the office are listed for sale locally — a volume never before seen by industry experts — marking a once-in-anera chance to own property that’s both unusual and highly pedigreed.
“Not only is the design of a rarified caliber, but it truly represents collector value,” says Compass’ Leonard Steinberg of the McKim, Mead & White-designed 235 Middle Neck Road in Sands Point, located some 11 miles from the Kings Point listing. He’s representing the 11,955-square-foot manse — commissioned by New York Junior League founder Mary Harriman Rumsey — that dates to 1928 and is priced at $16.88 million in a co-exclusive with Daniel Gale Sotheby’s.
The firm’s residences are few because partners had other aspirations. McKim, who trained at the renowned École des Beaux-Arts in Paris and established the firm in 1872 (Mead and White joined in later years), aspired to grand projects. These major works — including New York’s massive Municipal Building at 1 Centre St., built in 1914 — became more common as the office’s reputation grew. McKim’s 1887 commission to design the Boston Public Library was a turning point; however, the partners had to start somewhere.
“In the beginning years, their commissions were primarily houses,” says Samuel White, a partner at PBDW Architects and a greatgrandson of Stanford White.
Just like McKim, Mead & White’s larger works, their residences were magnificent — and distinct in style. Their early period is typified by their pioneering shingle-style architecture, which they referred to as “modern colonial.”
“Everybody had to have it,” says White of the moneyed set who would build East Coast homes for vacation use.
One of those clients was the wife of Robert Colgate, then the head of the corporation — founded by his father, William — that became Colgate Palmolive. In 1885, she tapped the firm to design alterations to a home in Quogue for $9,188, according to Leland M. Roth’s “The Architecture of McKim, Mead & White, 1870-1920.” Now known as 4 Sandacres, this shingle-style, nearly 8,000-square-foot spread asks $17.49 million through Douglas Elliman.
McKim, Mead & White’s designs later grew into an elegant mature phase — think marble and terracotta touches — also represented in today’s sales market. A columnadorned property, the Whitefield Condominiums in Southampton, was originally designed in 1898 as a private estate for financier James L. Breese, for $48,830, according to Roth. Thanks to an expansion, its grounds now include 29 units spread over 16.3 acres; several are for sale. One, a 1,740-square-foot, threebedroom unit with a patio, is priced at $1.57 million with Sotheby’s International Realty.
Then there’s the firm’s “transitional” chapter, which bridged their early and late works and signaled a response to changing tastes. The trade from shingles to more elegant materials, like marble, resulted from clients demanding property that better reflected their high-class status. Simply put, it was a period for the partners of on-the-job training.
“It’s the work of a 12-year-old boy, stuck between a cute little kid and a grown person,” adds White.
This doesn’t mean works from this juncture aren’t notable. Take 265 W. 139th St., a turn-of-thecentury townhouse on Harlem’s Strivers’ Row. Singer Bob Dylan lived there for 14 years before selling for $560,000 in 2000; it’s now listed with Elliman for $3.49 million. Features include original woodwork and ornate mantels.
Though their architectural oeuvres vary, these on-the-market homes have at least two commonalities: They’re old, and they’ve undergone renovations. The reported owners of the Sands Point estate, investor James Mai and his wife Chiara — who purchased it for $6.67 million in 2012 — spent three years and millions of dollars on modern upgrades, including an audiovisual setup and an energy-efficient HVAC system. Meanwhile, in Old Westbury, NY, a five-bedroom property at 45 Clocktower Lane — an estate commissioned by the son of former Governor Edwin D. Morgan in the 1890s for $86,495 — now features a gym, a wine cellar and a saline pool. (It was later altered between 1898 and 1900 for an additional $40,591, according to Roth’s archives, bringing the total sum of construction to $127,086 — at least $3.12 million in today’s dollars.) It’s now asking $2.99 million via Douglas Elliman.
Other McKim, Mead & White residences have required far more than a simple face-lift.
Take Dick Cavett’s Tick Hall estate at 165 Deforest Road in Montauk, which originally dates to 1882 and resulted from a $5,000 commission by businessman Alexander Ector Orr. A 7,000-square-foot replica of the former structure came to market this spring for $62 million, repped by Corcoran.
In 1997, a welder working on Tick Hall’s original roof sparked a fire that tore through the home and burned everything, save the chimney, to the ground. With no blueprints, Cavett’s late wife, Carrie Nye, then devised a plan to erect the duplicate using memory and friends’ photographs. Architects also uncovered original building materials from the ashes. The do-over includes a reproduction of a wooden spindle divider between the staircase and the living room, as well as steps designed to creak for that 19thcentury feel.
“I never met [Nye], but I just love her for that,” says Martha Rogers, who’s now married to Cavett.
Another McKim, Mead & White reincarnation is in the works. In 2013, a fire destroyed 471 West End Ave. — a Manhattan townhouse built in the 1880s for $250 — leaving just its facade intact. The site is now listed for $8.9 million with Corcoran, but architect Morris Adjmi has drafted a rebuilding proposal that includes restoring the surviving portion to its 1912 appearance — close to the original design. His plans feature a stoop, strip out non-original stucco and repoint all of the brick.
“It’s a storied firm,” Adjmi says, “and we should maintain as many of their structures as possible.”