James A. Burden House
7 East 91st Street | Carnegie Hill | built 1905
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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.
- 1895
William Sloane marks his daughter Florence's wedding to James Burden Jr. with a gift of a mansion
James A. Burden Jr., heir to the Troy iron fortune, married Florence Adele Sloane in 1895 at Lenox, Massachusetts. Her father William D. Sloane chartered special trains and brought 180 carriages by freight car for the guests, and the bride's jewels were worth about $700,000. Sloane's biggest present was a mansion, built on land he bought from Andrew Carnegie, which became 7 East 91st Street.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1905
Warren & Wetmore finish what the landmarks report calls the finest Beaux-Arts town house in the city
Built from 1902 to 1905 for Burden and Florence Sloane Burden, the house was designed by Warren & Wetmore, the firm behind Grand Central Terminal and the Biltmore Hotel. Whitney Warren gave it detail drawn from his Paris training. The report singles out the piano nobile, whose great arched ballroom windows sit in deep concave openings, over a rusticated granite-like base with a carriage entrance.
- 1905
A workman's forgotten clay pipe starts a fire in the nearly finished Burden house
On December 6, 1905, a workman left his lit clay pipe in a room off the main hall. The foreman opened the door to a rush of flames. A hundred workmen tried to pry off the burning carved paneling, and smoke blackened the Caen stone of the hall and the Italian frescoes on the stair ceiling, while soot coated the ballroom. The stair ceiling murals were later painted by Hector d'Espouy of Paris.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1910
The Burdens' chauffeur takes the touring car on a drunken joyride while the family is away
On June 18, 1910, the Burdens were in the Adirondacks and the 17 servants were minding the house. The family chauffeur took the big touring car out with two women, and all three were drunk. He swerved across 129th Street toward Lexington Avenue and hit a taxi, breaking the front axle. He ran off, and the two women were arrested on charges of intoxication.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1934
John Jacob Astor VI keeps the Burden house through two engagements and moves in with his bride
Astor leased the Burden house in December 1933 after getting engaged to Eileen Gillespie. That engagement ended, and he kept the house when he became engaged to Ellen Tuck French in 1934. They married that year and moved in during November 1934. Their first big society event, a supper dance in December 1935, drew a Daily News description of the ballroom as one of the few private ballrooms still in existence.
“Astor and French moved into the house in November 1934, and they hosted their first major society event there, a supper dance, in December 1935.”
Source: Wikipedia
- 1938
The Burden house's furnishings go to auction at Parke-Bernet
On April 21, 1938, Florence Burden, by then Mrs. Richard M. Tobin, had the contents of the house sold at Parke-Bernet Galleries. The sale included 18th-century Brussels tapestries, Adam-period furniture and artwork. It brought in $31,591.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1940
The Convent of the Sacred Heart buys the mansion and turns it into a boarding school
The Convent of the Sacred Heart bought the house in June 1940, among the priciest residential sales on the Upper East Side that year. A passage was built to the Otto Kahn house next door, and the Burden house first served as the Duchesne Residential School, a boarding school. By the late 1960s the nuns lived on its fifth floor, and school plans to expand onto the block set off the landmark fight.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1974
The Landmarks Commission designates the Burden House over the Convent's objection
Hearings were held on April 28 and May 26, 1970. Seven witnesses spoke for designation and three representatives of the Convent of the Sacred Heart spoke against it. The designation report, dated February 19, 1974, calls the house a Belle Epoque palace for lavish entertaining and notes it was then owned by the school along with the Otto Kahn house at 1 East 91st Street.
“Three representatives from the Convent of The Sacred Heart spoke in opposition to designation.”
Further reading
- James A. Burden HouseWikipedia
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