Fletcher-Sinclair Mansion

2 East 79th Street | also 974 5th Avenue | Upper East Side | built 1899

Open on the map11 entries

The lot about 1940
About 1940. Via 1940s.nyc
The lot about 1985
About 1985. Via 80s.nyc

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.

  1. 1898

    C. P. H. Gilbert designs a French Gothic chateau for Isaac Fletcher

    Banker and railroad tycoon Isaac Dudley Fletcher commissioned architect C. P. H. Gilbert to design a limestone chateau at Fifth Avenue and 79th Street in 1898. Gilbert's asymmetrical French Gothic design has sharp turrets along the roofline, ornate dormers and broad chimneys joined together.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  2. 1899

    The Fletchers commission a painting of their new Fifth Avenue mansion

    Isaac D. Fletcher was so taken with C. P. H. Gilbert's design for his house at Fifth Avenue and 79th Street that he asked the French painter Jean-François Raffaëlli to portray it once finished. The house was completed in 1899 for about $200,000. The Fletchers then moved in their large art collection, which included paintings by Rembrandt, Rubens, Gainsborough and Reynolds.

    “The new house's design so impressed Fletcher that he commissioned a painting of the finished residence from Jean-François Raffaëlli in 1899.”

    Source: Wikipedia

  3. 1917

    Isaac Fletcher leaves his mansion and art collection to the Met

    Fletcher died in 1917, and his will left the house to the Metropolitan Museum of Art along with 251 objects from his collection, including works by Rembrandt, Gainsborough and Rubens. The gift was worth about $2 million at the time. A year later the museum sold the mansion to create the Fletcher Fund for prints and drawings.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  4. 1918

    Oil magnate Harry Sinclair buys the mansion

    Sinclair Oil founder Harry F. Sinclair bought the mansion from the Metropolitan Museum in 1918. He had a three-manual pipe organ installed in 1922 but otherwise left the house nearly untouched. After the Teapot Dome scandal, he was sentenced to six months in prison for contempt of court.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  5. 1922

    Harry Sinclair has a pipe organ installed in the mansion

    After buying the house from the Metropolitan Museum, the oil magnate Harry F. Sinclair and his wife Elizabeth left it almost untouched. The main addition was a three-manual pipe organ with an automatic roll player, put in by the Estey Organ Company in 1922. Daytonian in Manhattan sets the Fletchers' staid dinners against the lavish pre-Depression parties the Sinclairs reportedly gave here.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  6. 1930

    Harry Sinclair sells the mansion after the Teapot Dome scandal ruins his reputation

    Sinclair's trial over the Teapot Dome oil scandal began in October 1927 and reached the Supreme Court two years later. Cleared of the graver charges, he was still found in contempt of court for hiring detectives to watch every juror, and he received a six-month prison sentence. His reputation in tatters, he sold the Fifth Avenue house in 1930 and moved west to Pasadena, where he lived until 1956.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  7. 1939

    Augustus Stuyvesant, last bearer of the family name, dines alone in the mansion

    Augustus Van Horne Stuyvesant, the last descendant of Peter Stuyvesant to carry the surname, bought the house after Sinclair left and moved in with his unmarried sister Anne. The two lived cloistered in the home, and when Anne died in 1938 he stayed on with his servants. Fortune magazine reported in 1939 that he ate by himself at the big dining table, waited on by a butler named Vernon and a footman.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  8. 1953

    Stuyvesant dies and an auction empties the mansion

    Augustus Stuyvesant died in 1953, and the great house stood empty for two years. A sale of the Stuyvesant furniture, carpets and artwork left its rooms eerily empty, according to Daytonian in Manhattan. The silence ended in 1955, when a new owner took the building.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  9. 1955

    The Ukrainian Institute of America moves in

    Augustus Van Horn Stuyvesant, a reclusive bachelor, bought the mansion and lived there until his death in 1953. The house then sat vacant for two years, until the Ukrainian Institute of America bought it in 1955 as its headquarters. The institute promotes Ukrainian history, art, music and culture and is open to the public.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  10. 1978

    June 2

    The mansion becomes a National Historic Landmark

    In 1977 the Landmarks Preservation Commission placed the house in the Metropolitan Museum Historic District, and the American Association for State and Local History filed papers nominating it for the National Register of Historic Places. On June 2, 1978, the mansion was added to the Register and named a National Historic Landmark. The Ukrainian Institute of America had owned it since 1955.

    “…added to the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) and was named a National Historic Landmark in 1978.”

    Source: Wikipedia

  11. 2003

    November

    Federal and state grants help the Ukrainian Institute repair the mansion

    Roof work began in late 1996 as an interim fix for a building that an institute board member described as in poor condition. In November 2003 the federal Save America's Treasures program granted $270,000 in matching funds for new wiring and plumbing, and the state added $70,000 in June 2004. By July 2009 the institute had finished the electrical work, installed a security system, replaced windows and restored the skylight above the central stairs.

    “…the US government made a matched grant of $270,000 to the UIA through the Save America's Treasures initiative to cover the costs of modernizing the building's electrical wiring and plumbing.”

    Source: Wikipedia

Further reading

Nearby

All 93 buildings with stories in Upper East Side