James B. Duke House
970 5th Avenue | also 1 East 78th Street | Upper East Side | built 1912
Open on the map11 entries
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.
- 1909
Duke tears down Henry Cook's mansion and sells off its fittings to make room for his own house
In 1909 James B. Duke bought Henry H. Cook's Victorian mansion on the corner. He first hired C. P. H. Gilbert to remodel it, then decided to demolish it and start over. Cook's antique details were ripped out and resold: oak paneling that had cost Cook $55 a section went for $3 each, and an Italian mantel he had paid $15,000 for sold for $300. According to historian John Tauranac, the demolition contractor called it the sturdiest house ever torn down in the city.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1912
Horace Trumbauer builds a French-style mansion for tobacco magnate James Duke
James Buchanan Duke, who founded the American Tobacco Company with his brother Benjamin, buys the Henry H. Cook mansion at Fifth Avenue and 78th Street in 1909 for $1.25 million and has it demolished. He hires the Philadelphia architect Horace Trumbauer, who estimates the new house at $1 million and nearly reproduces a Bordeaux townhouse in limestone. Historians think Trumbauer's African American chief designer, Julian Abele, was possibly highly influential in the design. The freestanding mansion is completed in 1912.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1912
Doris Duke is born the year her family moves into the mansion
James and Nanaline Duke move into the new house in 1912 with their servants while Nanaline is pregnant. Their only child, Doris, is born that November. Doris later receives $50 million from her father's $150 million estate.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1925
Tobacco magnate James B. Duke dies at home after weeks of pneumonia
James B. Duke died in the 78th Street house on October 10, 1925, after several weeks of pneumonia. His will gave his daughter Doris $50 million of a $150 million estate and left the house to his widow, Nanaline. An unusual clause ordered the properties sold at once, with Doris given the funds to buy them back, and Nanaline wanted to sell while Doris objected.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1927
Fourteen-year-old Doris Duke wins a friendly lawsuit for control of the mansion
James Duke dies in the house on October 10, 1925, and his will calls for his real estate to be sold, with Doris allowed to buy it back. In early 1927 the 14-year-old Doris sues her mother Nanaline in what newspapers call a friendly suit, to avoid a public auction. She receives the house, valued at $1.6 million, and its furnishings, valued at $600,000.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1933
Reporters crowd East 78th Street when Doris Duke turns 21, and she slips away to New Jersey
Doris Duke's 21st birthday in 1933 raised her fortune by about $30 million and drew a crowd of journalists to East 78th Street. She left the city for Duke Farms, her family's New Jersey estate, and admitted a handful of reporters there. Asked how much she was now worth, she answered that she did not really know herself.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1935
Doris Duke marries James H. R. Cromwell at the house
Doris Duke received a large part of her father's bequest when she turned 21 in 1933. A little over a year later, in February 1935, she wed James H. R. Cromwell in the house on East 78th Street. She kept ownership of it even after marrying Porfirio Rubirosa in 1947, though by the 1950s her mother Nanaline was its main occupant.
“…in February 1935, Doris married James H. R. Cromwell at the 78th Street house.”
Source: Wikipedia
- 1938
Berenice Abbott photographs an apartment-house awning and doorman beside the Duke mansion
In 1938 the photographer Berenice Abbott set the awning and doorman of an apartment building against the private mansion of Doris Duke. The picture was made for her Changing New York project and is held in the New York Public Library's collection.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1958
The Duke family gives the mansion to NYU's Institute of Fine Arts
In January 1958 Nanaline and Doris Duke donate the mansion to New York University for its Institute of Fine Arts. The move into the 40,000-square-foot house more than doubles the institute's space, and it dedicates its new quarters in February 1959. The city designates the house a landmark in 1970, and the Institute still occupies it.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1959
NYU dedicates the Institute of Fine Arts in the house, in Robert Venturi's first project
The firm of Robert Venturi, Cope & Lippincott converted the mansion for academic use, saving most of its interior spaces; it was Venturi's first project. NYU dedicated the institute's new quarters in February 1959, and the party was reportedly the house's first in two decades.
“The dedication party was reportedly the first time the house had hosted a party in twenty years.”
Source: Wikipedia
- 1970
The Landmarks Commission designates the mansion after a hearing with no opposition
At a hearing on March 31, 1970, three speakers testified in favor; one was Craig Hugh Smyth, who directed the Institute of Fine Arts and spoke for the university. None spoke against it. On September 15 the commission designated the building, formerly the James B. Duke Mansion, praising it as a Fifth Avenue ornament and a remnant of the Age of Elegance.
“There were no speakers in opposition to designation.”
Further reading
- James B. Duke HouseWikipedia
- The 1912 James B. Duke Mansion -- No. 1 E. 78th St.Daytonian in Manhattan
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