19 East 54th Street
- Architect
- Hiss and Weekes
- Year
- 1900
- Style
- Renaissance Revival
- City
- Manhattan, NY
19 East 54th Street was built in 1899-1900 as a private residence for Minnie Edith Arents Young, designed by Philip Hiss and H. Hobart Weekes of Hiss and Weekes in the Renaissance Revival style. Young commissioned the house after inheriting a large bequest from her uncle Lewis Ginter, founder of the American Tobacco Company, who died in 1897.
the building
The palazzo facade. Modeled on an Italian Renaissance palazzo, the four-story 54th Street front has a rusticated first story and decorated windows above. Because the lot was wider than its neighbors, the architects scaled up the ornament to match, and a recessed penthouse on the fifth and sixth stories keeps the upper floors out of view from the street.
The interior. The house was fitted out with a coffered ceiling, a stained-glass conservatory, and staircases finished in oak paneling.
the style
Hiss and Weekes designed the house as a Renaissance Revival palazzo, a style meant to lend an aristocratic, old-world dignity to a wealthy client's new-money fortune.
More on Renaissance Revivalsignificance
The building is a New York City Landmark.
nearby
- 689 Fifth Avenue
- St. Regis Hotel
- William H. and Ada S. Moore House
- AT&T Corporate Headquarters Building (later Sony Plaza, now 550 Madison Avenue)
- Lever House
- University Club