Lehman House (New York City, New York)

 office building, townhouse

6-story Beaux-Arts commercial building completed in 1900 as a 5-story mansion. Designed by John H. Duncan for Philip Lehman, a senior partner at Lehman Brothers investment firm. The handsome exterior of the Lehman residence is faced with rusticated limestone that provides a background for a profusion of luxuriant relief carving symmetrically massed and distinguished by an elaborately designed two-story mansard roof. The 2-bay residence is symmetrically massed and distinguished by an elaborately designed 2-story mansard roof. A central front entrance is located at ground floor level, approached by a low stoop. The arched entry frames glass double-doors and is flanked by a pair of windows crisply recessed into the facade and ornamented with decorative iron grilles.

Ornate console brackets with carved garlands and fruit appear above the windows and entrance, supporting a bowed balcony at the 2nd-floor level. The balcony fronts two pairs of French windows that are crowned by richly carved, extremely ornate cartouches. Double-hung windows with eared architraves and fronted by decorative iron balcony grilles light the 3rd floor. This floor is crowned by an impressive cornice designed with heavy console brackets and foliate ornament that marks the beginning of the steep, slate mansard roof. Two dormer windows with egg-and-dart moldings and heavy crowning cartouches pierce the roof at 4th-floor level, while the attic above is lit by three oval lucarnes, also surmounted by copper foliate cartouches. Even the limestone roof coping bears carved foliate detailing, and it terminates in console brackets.

Philip Lehman's father, Emanuel, had co-founded Lehman Brothers in the 1850s, and Philip later served as president of the financial company. Philip's wife Carrie died in the house on November 10, 1937 at the age of 72. After Philip’s death a decade later, his son Robert took up residency. The Lehman residence stayed in the possession of the family until the 1970s. Robert Lehman supervised the redecoration of the interiors in the early 1960s, and expanding the family art collection which was composed of the works of such masters as El Greco, Rembrandt, Durer, Renoir, and Goya. The family art collection, which was housed here, is now displayed at the Lehman Wing of the Met. The house itself was acquired by the 7 West 54th Street Realty Corp. in 1974.

In 2006 a modern glass penthouse was added to the building, which sold in 2013 for $40 million.

www.beyondthegildedage.com/2013/01/the-philip-lehman-re...