Harry F. Sinclair House

Infobox nrhp
name = Harry F. Sinclair House
nrhp_type = nhl

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caption =
location = 2 East 79th Street and Fifth Avenue, Manhattan, New York City, New York
lat_degrees = 40 | lat_minutes = 46 | lat_seconds = 36| lat_direction = N
long_degrees = 73 | long_minutes = 57 | long_seconds = 50.2 | long_direction = W
area =
built = 1897-1899 White, Norval & Willensky, Elliot; "AIA Guide to New York City", 4th Edition; New York Chapter, American Institute of Architects; Crown Publishers/Random House. 2000. ISBN 0-8129-31069-8; ISBN 0-8129-3107-6. p.417.]
architect =C.P.H. Gilbert
architecture = French Gothic
designated = June 2, 1978 cite web|url=http://tps.cr.nps.gov/nhl/detail.cfm?ResourceId=1778&ResourceType=Building
title=Harry F. Sinclair House|date=2007-09-11|work=National Historic Landmark summary listing|publisher=National Park Service]
added = June 2, 1978 cite web|url=http://www.nr.nps.gov/|title=National Register Information System|date=2007-01-23|work=National Register of Historic Places|publisher=National Park Service]
visitation_num =
visitation_year =
refnum = 78001882 [Nrhp source1|NY|New+York|state8]
mpsub =
governing_body = Ukrainian Institute of America

The Harry F. Sinclair House at 2 East 79th Street at Fifth Avenue, Manhattan, New York City was designed by Charles Pierrepont Henry (C.P.H.) Gilbert for the New York banker and stockbroker Isaac D. Fletcher in 1897 and completed in 1898. [ [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A04E1D61539F930A35752C1A960958260 Christopher Gray, " Limestone Remnant of Fifth Avenue's Chateau Days", "New York Times", 3 November 1996] Accessed 7 October 2008. When it was built, the house faced Isaac Brokaw's 1891 Gothic mansion across the street on the northeast corner, at 1 East 79th.] When Fletcher died in 1917, he left the house and his art collection to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which sold the house to create the Fletcher Fund for purchases of primnts and drawings. The purchaser in. 1918 was the self-made oil millionaire Harry F. Sinclair, who lived in the house until 1930. Sinclair is best known for founding Sinclair Oil in 1916 and was made notorious by his involvement in the Teapot Dome scandal in in 1922. After Sinclair sold it in 1930 it became known as the Augustus and Anne van Horne Stuyvesant House; the unmarried brother and sister, descendents of Peter Stuyvesant, had moved from their house at 3 East 57th Street, when that stretch of Fifth Avenue had become unalterably commercial. [Gray 1996.] Today, it is owned by the Ukrainian Institute of America.

In 1996 architectural historian Christopher Gray quoted an anonymous critic writing for the "Real Estate Record & Guide" in 1899, who in praising the design noted that much of the ornament was ecclesiastical in origin rather than domestic. The writer closed with the observation that the Fletcher mansion had "too much the air of an archeological reproduction to be accepted as an appropriate New York City house of 1898." [Gray 1996.]

It was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1978,,cite web|url=PDFlink| [http://pdfhost.focus.nps.gov/docs/NHLS/Text/78001882.pdf "Harry F. Sinclair-Augustus Van Horne Stuyvesant, Jr., House", June 1977, by George R. Adams] |455 KB|title=National Register of Historic Places Inventory-Nomination|date=1977-06|publisher=National Park Service] ,cite web|url=PDFlink| [http://pdfhost.focus.nps.gov/docs/NHLS/Photos/78001882.pdf Harry F. Sinclair-Augustus Van Horne Stuyvesant, Jr., House--Accompanying 5 photos, exterior and interior, from 1977.] |1.19 MB|title=National Register of Historic Places Inventory|date=1977-06|publisher=National Park Service] and remained "refreshingly unrestored", according to Christopher Gray, until 1997, when modest renovations were undertaken.

In popular culture

The house was used as a location in the film "Cruel Intentions", as well as many other films and advertisements.

Other Views

References

External links

* [http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/hh:@field(NUMBER+@band(NY1286)) American Memory from the Library of Congress]
* [http://www.ukrainianinstitute.org/ Ukrainian Institute of America]