972 Fifth Avenue

972 Fifth Avenue, also known as the Payne Whitney house, is a historic building on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, New York City. It was designed by Stanford White and is considered one of that great architect's finest mature works. It is currently the home of the Cultural Services of the French Embassy in the United States.

Stanford White designed and oversaw the construction of the exterior and interiors of the house, which had been commissioned in 1902 by Payne Whitney's uncle Colonel Oliver Hazard Payne as a wedding gift for his nephew and his bride. The Colonel had put up $625,000 to build the five-story mansion, the construction of which was still under White's supervision when he was murdered in 1906.

John Hay Whitney's mother, Helen Hay Whitney, continued to live in the house until her death in 1944. (Whitney eventually had her favorite space in the mansion, the Venetian Room, removed and preserved before the house was sold in 1949. In 1997, the room was donated to the French-American Foundation by his widow, who provided funding for its restoration.)

External links

* [http://www.frenchculture.org/ Frenchculture.org] - website of the Cultural Services of the French Embassy in the United States
** [http://www.frenchculture.org/aboutus/index.html About the Cultural Services]
** [http://www.frenchculture.org/people/ News and Events at the Cultural Services]
** [http://www.frenchculture.org/art/972/venetian/ The Venetian Room, article by Diana S. Waite]
* [http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1026/is_4_162/ai_92545136 "The Magazine Antiques" October 2002 article by Jenil Sandberg]
* [http://ecommerce.marist.edu/foy/esopus/photos_payne_whitney_house.htm Richard Foy article at Marist Brothers in Esopus site]
* [http://www.nyc-architecture.com/UES/UES063.htm New York Architecture Images page]