Colony Club
- Architect
- McKim, Mead & White
- Year
- 1903
- Style
- Colonial Revival
- City
- Manhattan, NY
The Colony Club was founded in 1903 by Florence Jaffray Harriman as the first social club in New York City established by and for women, modeled on the era's gentlemen's clubs. Harriman and other wealthy women, including Anne Tracy Morgan, raised $500,000 and commissioned Stanford White of McKim, Mead & White to design the original clubhouse at 120 Madison Avenue, built between 1904 and 1908 in imitation of eighteenth-century houses in Annapolis, Maryland.
the building
Interiors by Elsie de Wolfe. The clubhouse interiors, largely unchanged since, were created by Elsie de Wolfe, a former actress who would later become Lady Mendl.
the style
The Colonial Revival design deliberately echoed eighteenth-century Annapolis houses, lending a founding women's club the architectural authority of the colonial gentry.
More on Colonial Revivalthe architect
Stanford White of McKim, Mead & White designed the clubhouse, one of the firm's period commissions in a career defined by grand Beaux-Arts and revival work across New York.
significance
The building is an NYC Individual Landmark (LP-00236) and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, designated 5/17/1966.
nearby
- Church of the Transfiguration
- Hotel Seville (now The James NoMad Hotel)
- The Wilbraham
- 261 Fifth Avenue
- Marble Collegiate Church
- Hotel Wolcott