13 & 15 West 54th Street (New York City, New York)

 townhouses, commercial building

4-story Neo-Renaissance commercial building originally completed in 1897 as a pair of joined, nearly- identical mansions. Designed by Henry Hardenbergh for William Murray, they were built as a real estate investment. John D. Rockefeller Jr. moved here in 1901, across the street from his father. The son, a New York governor (remembered for the Rockefeller drug laws) and the U.S. vice president under Gerald Ford, later owned the house; he died here of a heart attack on January 26, 1979, accompanied by 26-year-old aide Megan Marshack.

No. 13 is slightly taller than No. 15 and was designed with four full stories, an attic level, and a below ground basement. With the exception of a differing roof line, Hardenbergh designed the limestone facade of No. 13 as a mirror image of No. 15. The three upper stories rise above a rusticated parlor floor where the main entrance is paired with that at No. 15. The house shares a prominent double stoop with No. 15 where curving staircases running east and west ascend to a central, double landing. Oval vents ornament the stoop wall at sidewalk level. Three windows, fronted by elaborate iron grillework, light the basement of the house, and a basement door with similar grillework is located under the stoop.

The handsome arched entrances are composed of double-door, fanlights, and decorative grillework. A curved balcony fronted by a stone balustrade appears directly above each entrance and serves the central, 2nd-floor windows which are framed by eared architraves with crowning cartouches. The 1st and 2nd floors are further distinguished by a 2-story, 3-bay curved oriel on each side that flanks on one side the entrance, balcony, and windows. The oriels rest on a large console bracket carved with a grotesque human head. The oriels, rusticated at parlor level, display a richer treatment at the 2nd floor. Here, the stone piers that flank the oriel windows are marked by vermiculated blocks, a more elaborate form of rustication.

Rich ornament also articulates the 3rd floor of the building. The windows are centered on the facade, their heavy enframements embellished with vermiculated blocks that echo those at 2nd floor. Elaborate foliate lintels capped with scroll keystones crown the windows. A molded string course runs across the facades directly over the windows, separating the 3rd floor from the floor above. The 4th floor is lit by three flat-arched windows, flanked by incised terminal pedestals capped by volutes. A large carved plaque marks the division between Nos. 13 and 15, and an elaborate overhanging cornice, shared with No. 15, crowns the structure. Three flat-arched dormers pierce a copper-clad mansard roof at No. 13.

James B. Dickson, president of the insurance firm Johnson & Higgins, and his wife, Harriet, purchased No. 13 in 1906. Mrs. Higgins would live on here for nearly half a century until her death on March 3, 1953. The Rockefellers moved across the street to No. 10 West 54th Street as World War I was drawing to an end in 1918 and the house at No. 13 was rented to businessman Howard Maxwell. Nelson Rockefeller later used No. 13 for offices and for high-level business luncheons, and then bought No. 15 and renovated it as the Museum of Primitive Art, which opened in 1957. A passageway was carved into the rear of No. 13, connecting it to No. 22 West 55th Street where Nelson, now Governor of New York, maintained offices. It was in No. 13, in 1979, that Nelson Rockefeller died of a heart attack. Shortly after Rockefeller’s death, both houses were sold to Bernard H. Mendik. Rockefeller’s Museum of Primitive art was closed in 1976 and its collection transferred to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. No. 13 was, until 2005, home to the Scandinavian restaurant Aquavit. Today No. 13 houses Il Gattopardop restaurant while offices occupy No. 15.