Stuyvesant Fish House
19 Gramercy Park South | also 126 East 20th Street, 20 Gramercy Park South | Gramercy | built 1910
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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.
- 1887
Stanford White remodels the house into a mansion for the Fish family
Architect Stanford White enlarges and remodels the existing 1845 rowhouse at a cost of $130,000, adding an interior marble staircase and a top-floor ballroom. The renovated mansion is renumbered 19 Gramercy Park, replacing its earlier address of 86 Irving Place. In the ballroom, Mamie Fish entertains New York society at lavish parties.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1898
The Fish family departs and the mansion is divided into apartments
After the Fish family moves to a new home on 78th Street, the mansion is broken up into small apartments. Actor John Barrymore lives here while performing on Broadway, and other residents over the years include playwright Edward Sheldon and diplomat William C. Bullitt.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1903
Robert Collier and his wife give a dinner and musicale here in honor of Mrs. Astor
After the Fishes moved uptown, they leased the house to well-off families. Mr. and Mrs. Philip Lydig took it in 1902 but that September passed it on to Robert Collier and his wife. On January 25, 1903, the Colliers held their first large party there, a dinner followed by a musicale, honoring Mrs. Collier's grandmother, Mrs. Astor.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1909
An apartment building replaces the stable, and tenants come to include John Barrymore and Cecilia Beaux
In 1909 an apartment building was added at the southern end of the lot, where the stable had stood, and the whole complex was run as a high-end multiple dwelling. Its residents over the years included the portrait artist Cecilia Beaux, the actor John Barrymore, David Lamar, known as the Wolf of Wall Street, the playwright Edward Sheldon and the diplomat William C. Bullitt. Norman Thomas, the Socialist Party candidate for president, was listed among them in 1944.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1945
Benjamin Sonnenberg buys the mansion and merges it with the building next door
Publicist Benjamin Sonnenberg, who has rented rooms here since 1931, buys the entire house from Stuyvesant Fish Jr. for $85,000 and joins it to the apartment building to the south. Critic Brendan Gill later calls the result the finest private house still in private hands in New York. Sonnenberg fills the mansion, which now has 37 rooms, with English and Irish furniture and hosts parties that bring old-money society together with show business figures.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1967
A Sonnenberg dinner brings Bob Dylan, Jackie Kennedy, Truman Capote and Tom Wolfe under one roof
The Sonnenbergs revived the Fish era's lavish entertaining, once serving 150 dinner guests. A friend recalled that Benjamin Sonnenberg wanted each dinner to include an actress, a businessman, an artist and a banker. The guests at a 1967 dinner included Bob Dylan, Jackie Kennedy, Ethel Kennedy, Truman Capote, Tom Wolfe, Alistair Cooke, Jacob Javits and Brooke Astor.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1970
Jack Finney sets his time-travel novel Time and Again in a boarding house at 19 Gramercy Park
In Finney's 1970 illustrated novel, an advertising illustrator time-travels from 1970s New York to January 1882 and takes a room at 19 Gramercy Park, which the book turns into a boarding house. Finney pictures a modest brownstone of three stories with white window trim. The house also appears in the series Iron Fist, as the home of Joy Meachum and Danny Rand's childhood home.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1978
Benjamin Sonnenberg dies a day after a heart attack, and Sotheby's clears the house for sale
Benjamin Sonnenberg suffered a heart attack on September 5, 1978, and was dead a day later. The house was opened for a day so prospective buyers could survey the publicist's collections, and Sotheby Parke Bernet then emptied it and put it on sale for $1.9 million.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1981
Jane Ashley moves into the mostly empty mansion at the owner's request and starts redecorating
After the sale, Baron Walter Langer von Langendorff, creator of White Shoulders perfume, staffed the house but did not move in, so for years it was in effect the residence of servants. In 1981 he asked Jane Ashley to live there and start redecorating. She stayed on for years, until the house was put on the market for $10 million.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1995
Designer Richard Tyler buys the mansion and turns Mamie Fish's ballroom into a fashion-show space
In 1995 the couple Richard Tyler, a fashion designer, and Lisa Trafficante bought the house for $3.5 million. Mrs. Stuyvesant Fish's ballroom on the top floor was redone as a white space for staging fashion shows. The house, 18,000 square feet in all, returned to the market in January 2000.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 2000
Psychologist Henry Jarecki buys the mansion for $16.5 million
After Sonnenberg's death in 1978, the house passes to Baron Walter Langer von Langendorff and then, in 1995, to fashion designer Richard Tyler. Jarecki buys it in December 2000 for $16.5 million. He plans to use the 18,000-square-foot mansion as his residence and as the base for his family's foundation.
Source: Wikipedia
Further reading
- 19 Gramercy Park SouthWikipedia
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