The Nathaniel L. McCready House, also known as the Harkness Mansion, is a mansion at 4 East 75th Street 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 ...

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 ...

. Completed in 1896 for Nathaniel L’Hommediue McCready Jr., during the twentieth century it was occupied by

Thomas J. Watson Thomas John Watson Sr. (February 17, 1874 – June 19, 1956) was an American businessman who served as the chairman and CEO of IBM. He oversaw the company's growth into an international force from 1914 to 1956. Watson developed IBM's managemen ...

Rebekah Harkness Rebekah West Harkness (née Semple West; April 17, 1915June 17, 1982) also known as Betty Harkness, was an American composer, socialite, sculptor, dance patron, and philanthropist who founded the Harkness Ballet. In 1947, she married William Hale ...

, whose name became associated with the building when she used it as the offices of the Harkness Ballet. In 2011, the home was purchased by Larry Gagosian, who demolished the mansion's interior.

Construction

The mansion was built for Nathaniel L’Hommediue McCready Jr., a stockbroker, and his wife, Jeanne Borrowe McCready. The McCreadies purchased two plots on 75th Street in 1894, and commissioned

Trowbridge, Colt & Livingston Trowbridge & Livingston was an architectural practice based in New York City in the early 20th-century. The firm's partners were Samuel Beck Parkman Trowbridge and Goodhue Livingston. Often commissioned by well-heeled clients, much of the fir ...

to design a -wide French Renaissance-inspired mansion. The building was completed in January 1896 with interior floor space of . The building's limestone facade a second-story iron balcony are characteristic of many houses constructed on the same block in following decades.

Ownership

The house was sold to V. Everit Macy and Edith Carpenter Macy in 1917, who converted it to a rest house for American combatants in

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

. After the war, the house passed to Stanley Mortimer and Elizabeth Livingston Hall. They redecorated the home with Stanley Mortimer's art collection. In 1940, the house was sold to

, founder of IBM. During his residence there, Watson used the house to entertain heads of state from the United Kingdom, Greece, Brazil, and Uruguay. Watson died in 1956 and the home was sold to Eva Fox, widow of Hollywood producer William Fox. The property became known as the Harkness Mansion when it was sold to

in 1964. Harkness' uncle-in-law,

Edward S. Harkness Edward Stephen Harkness (January 22, 1874 – January 29, 1940) was an American philanthropist. Given privately and through his family's Commonwealth Fund, Harkness' gifts to private hospitals, art museums, and educational institutions in the Nort ...

, had established a mansion across the street about 50 years before. She used the home to host the Harkness Ballet and other cultural pursuits, but disbanded the ballet in 1975. In 1987, the home was sold to Jean Doumanian, a film producer, who began renovating it in 2001. In 2006, the home was sold for $53 million to J. Christopher Flowers, a private equity broker, who began an interior renovation of the home. After the housing market crash, Flowers sold the property in 2011 for $36 million to Larry Gagosian. Gagosian, an art dealer, began a four-year gut renovation led by architect Annabelle Selldorf, demolishing the entire structure except for the limestone facade.

References

{{Coord, 40.773980, -73.965024, display=title Upper East Side Houses in Manhattan Houses completed in 1896 French Renaissance Revival architecture