Benjamin N. Duke House
1009 5th Avenue | Upper East Side | built 1901
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The city photographed every building for its tax records around 1940 and again in the 1980s. NYC Municipal Archives.
Written with AI from the source each entry cites, then fact-checked.
- 1901
Critic Montgomery Schuyler scorns the mansion's sheet-metal cornice as vulgar
Writing in Architectural Record in October 1901, the critic Montgomery Schuyler singled out No. 1009's sheet-metal cornice painted to look like stone. A man who spends six figures on a house, he argued, should not cap it with sheet metal, a cheap pretense he said could not be told apart from vulgarity. The remark did not hurt sales: the Hall brothers sold all four mansions in the row.
Source: Ephemeral New York
- 1901
Developers complete a Beaux-Arts row that includes No. 1009
Developers William W. and Thomas M. Hall built No. 1009 as the northernmost of four speculative Beaux-Arts mansions along Fifth Avenue, hiring the firm Welch, Smith & Provot to design French Renaissance-style interiors. The seven-story, red-brick townhouse was completed in 1901.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1901
Tobacco magnate Benjamin Duke buys the new mansion
Benjamin N. Duke, who with his brother James had built a fortune co-founding the American Tobacco Company, purchased the new mansion in June 1901 as a home for his family. He didn't move in right away, though, continuing to live at the Hoffman House hotel for several years after the purchase.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1906
James Duke meets his future wife at a reception in his brother's new house
In December 1906 Benjamin and Sarah Duke, still living at the Hoffman House hotel, held a reception at 1009 Fifth Avenue. There James Duke, Benjamin's recently divorced brother, met Nanaline Holt Inman, a Southern-born widow. According to The New York Times, he paid her constant attention afterward, and the two married on July 23, 1907.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1907
James Duke marries and moves into his brother's mansion
James Duke had met the widow Nanaline Holt Inman at a reception in the house in December 1906. The two married on July 23, 1907, and Benjamin moved his own family to the Plaza Hotel in 1909, leaving James and Nanaline to occupy No. 1009 with nine servants.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1908
James Duke gives antitrust testimony from his bedroom in the mansion
James B. Duke was living at 1009 Fifth Avenue by early 1908. That year the federal government's antitrust suit against the American Tobacco Company was underway, and Duke gave his testimony from his bedroom in the house. The 1910 census later recorded him there with his wife Nanaline, her mother Florence Holt and nine servants.
“…when he gave testimony from his bedroom as part of an antitrust lawsuit that the federal government had brought against the American Tobacco Company…”
Source: Wikipedia
- 1915
Angier Biddle Duke is born in the house
After James Duke moved out and Moses Taylor of the bank Kean, Taylor & Co. leased the mansion, it became the home of Angier Buchanan Duke, one of Benjamin Duke's sons, and his wife Cordelia Biddle. Their son, Angier Biddle Duke, was born there in 1915.
“Their son Angier Biddle Duke was born at the house in 1915.”
Source: Wikipedia
- 1960
Mary and James Semans buy the house from her mother's estate to keep it from the wrecker
When Mary Lillian Duke Biddle died in 1960, Fifth Avenue's park-facing blocks were filling with luxury high-rises and the old mansions were being demolished one by one. Her daughter, Mary Duke Biddle Trent Semans, and her husband bought the house from the estate. They never lived there again, but kept the parlor level for family stays and divided the rest into apartments and offices.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1974
A granddaughter saves the mansion from demolition and wins it landmark status
After Mary Duke Biddle's death in 1960, her daughter Mary Duke Biddle Trent Semans bought No. 1009 to spare it the fate of its three neighbors, Nos. 1006-1008, which were torn down between 1972 and 1977 for a new tower. Semans secured landmark designation for the house in 1974, leaving it the row's only survivor.
Source: Wikipedia
- 2006
Tamir Sapir pays $40 million, a record for a Manhattan townhouse
Mary Semans listed the mansion in 2005 for $50 million because none of her descendants lived in the city. Around 40 prospective buyers toured it, and rock musician Lenny Kravitz was among the bidders. In January 2006 the former taxi driver and billionaire Tamir Sapir paid $40 million, the highest price yet paid for a Manhattan townhouse.
Source: Wikipedia
- 2010
Carlos Slim buys the mansion for $44 million
In July 2010 Sapir sold the roughly 20,000-square-foot mansion for $44 million, $6 million under his asking price, to the Mexican telecom magnate Carlos Slim, sometimes called the richest man in the world. Daytonian in Manhattan called the house an architectural and historic treasure and a reminder of how the very wealthy lived on Fifth Avenue a century earlier.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
Further reading
- Benjamin N. Duke HouseWikipedia
- The Benjamin Duke House - 1009 Fifth AvenueDaytonian in Manhattan
- The last “vulgar” survivor of a row of four Fifth Avenue mansionsEphemeral New York
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