Carnegie, Andrew, Mansion

About this property

The Andrew Carnegie Mansion is a historic house and a museum building at 2 East 91st Street, along the east side of Fifth Avenue, on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. The three-and-a-half-story, brick and stone mansion was designed by Babb, Cook & Willard in the Georgian Revival style. Completed in 1902 for the industrialist Andrew Carnegie, his wife Louise, and their only child Margaret, it was the Carnegie family's residence until 1946. Since 1976, the house has been occupied by the Cooper-Hewitt Museum, part of the Smithsonian Institution. The mansion is internally connected to two townhouses at 9 East 90th Street (which became part of the building in the 1920s) and 11 East 90th Street, both of which are part of the Cooper-Hewitt. The mansion occupies the northern portion of a 1.2-acre (0.49 ha) site, providing space for a garden to the south and west. Although the mansion has a mostly symmetrical design, there is a service wing and a metal-and-glass conservatory protruding from the eastern facade. The mansion was built with numerous mechanical features, including dedicated heating and cooling systems, a steel superstructure, and elevators. It contains at least 64 rooms across three basements and four above-ground stories, including the attic. The first-floor rooms include a stair hall, the conservatory, a picture gallery, a library, and various other family rooms. On the upper floors were the Carnegies' bedrooms, guest bedrooms, and staff quarters. These rooms have been modified over the years; since 1976, the interiors have hosted the museum's exhibition spaces and research facilities. Carnegie purchased land on the Upper East Side in 1898 and hired Babb, Cook & Willard following an architectural design competition. The Carnegies moved into the mansion on December 12, 1902, spending their time between the New York City house and Skibo Castle in Scotland. Carnegie and his wife Louise lived there until their respective deaths in 1919 and 1946. In the early 1920s, the mansion was connected with 9 East 90th Street, where Margaret lived from 1920 to 1948. Following a renovation, the Columbia University School of Social Work occupied the house from 1949 to 1971. The Carnegie Corporation gave the house and property to the Smithsonian in 1972, and the Cooper-Hewitt Museum opened there in 1976 following renovations by Hardy Holzman Pfeiffer Associates. The house underwent further renovations in the late 1990s and the early 2010s. The mansion is a New York City designated landmark and a National Historic Landmark. The Carnegie Mansion has received architectural commentary over the years. The construction of the mansion spurred other wealthy New Yorkers to build their homes nearby, and Carnegie's presence there influenced the name of the surrounding area, which has come to be called Carnegie Hill. In addition, over the years, the mansion has been depicted in several films and TV series.

Location

Categories

Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).

Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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