Millan House is a historic co-op in

Lenox Hill Lenox Hill () is a neighborhood on Manhattan's Upper East Side. It forms the lower section of the Upper East Side—east of Park Avenue in the 60s and 70s. A significant portion of the neighborhood lies within the Upper East Side Historic Dist ...

on the

Upper East Side The Upper East Side, sometimes abbreviated UES, is a neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 96th Street to the north, the East River to the east, 59th Street to the south, and Central Park/Fifth Avenue to the wes ...

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

, USA. The co-op is made up of two buildings located at 115 East 67th Street and 116 East 68th Street, with 57 apartments in total. They are connected by "a formal back garden".

History

The land was given to the Baptist Church shortly after the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states th ...

. By 1929,

John D. Rockefeller Jr. John Davison Rockefeller Jr. (January 29, 1874 – May 11, 1960) was an American financier and philanthropist, and the only son of Standard Oil co-founder John D. Rockefeller. He was involved in the development of the vast office complex in M ...

purchased the land from the church for US$1 million. He hired architect

Andrew J. Thomas Andrew Jackson Thomas (1875–1965) was a self-taught American architect who was known for designing low-cost apartment complexes that included green areas in the first half of the twentieth century. Biography Andrew Jackson Thomas was born on L ...

to design the building. Construction began in 1930. It was completed in 1931. Early tenants included

Simon Flexner Simon Flexner, M.D. (March 25, 1863 in Louisville, Kentucky – May 2, 1946) was a physician, scientist, administrator, and professor of experimental pathology at the University of Pennsylvania (1899–1903). He served as the first director of t ...

, Herbert L. Pratt Jr. (the son of

Herbert L. Pratt Herbert Lee Pratt (November 21, 1871 – February 3, 1945) was an American businessman and a leading figure in the United States oil industry. In 1923, he became head of Standard Oil of New York; his father Charles Pratt was a founder of Astr ...

) and Witherbee Black (of the family silversmith firm Black, Starr & Frost-Gorham). By 1947, tenant J. W. Boardman Milligan insisted upon turning the rent-only building into a co-op. Later, Frank K. Houston, the chairman and chief executive officer of the

Chemical Bank Chemical Bank was a bank with headquarters in New York City from 1824 until 1996. At the end of 1995, Chemical was the third-largest bank in the U.S., with about $182.9 billion in assets and more than 39,000 employees around the world. Beginning ...

, lived here until his death in 1973.

Architectural significance

The buildings are contributing properties to the

Upper East Side Historic District The Upper East Side Historic District is a landmarked historic district on the Upper East Side of New York City's borough of Manhattan, first designated by the city in 1981. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984. Its b ...

References

Upper East Side Residential buildings completed in 1931 Condominiums and housing cooperatives in Manhattan 1931 establishments in New York City {{NYC-stub