Step inside a real-life Gilded Age mansion in Manhattan (2024)

From HBO’s The Gilded Age, now in its second season, to The Buccaneers, which recently premiered on Apple TV+, viewers can’t get enough of Gilded Age grandeur, following the lavish lives and dramas of prominent American families at the dawn of the 20th century.

At the height of the Second Industrial Revolution, titans of American banking, railroads and mining built palatial residences in the ornate style that would come to characterize the era: Beaux Arts. They filled these new houses, which merged classical architecture and Baroque motifs, with magnificent collections of art and antiquities, and they hosted legendary parties that brought together some of the most important figures in American society.

Now one of the real-life Manhattan mansions that defined the era is on the market. The James F. D. Lanier Residence, available through Christie’s International Real Estate, sits on the National Register of Historic Places and is a designated New York City landmark. The stately brick and limestone house is one of the finest — and largest — extant examples of a Beaux Arts single-family residence. Exploring its façade and interiors offers a glimpse into the lives of the Gilded Age glitterati and the ground-breaking aesthetic that reached its height at the turn of the century.

The monumental residence, located at 123 East 35th Street between Park and Lexington Avenues in Manhattan’s historic Murray Hill, was built for James and Harriet Lanier from 1901 to 1903. At the time, the neighbourhood was home to socially prominent and wealthy New Yorkers including A.T. Stewart and J.P. Morgan. James Franklin Doughty Lanier was a prosperous banker with Winslow, Lanier & Co., one of the oldest private banking houses in the United States, founded by his grandfather.

Lanier purchased two brownstones on 35th Street in 1901 and commissioned the architectural firm Hoppin & Koen to design an elegant, up-to-date mansion for the site. The resulting edifice was a striking presence on the street, spanning double the width of the surrounding brownstones. Five stories high, the Lanier residence offers 11,638 square feet of grand living space across eight levels.

Hoppin & Koen’s aesthetic reflected the European influence of the École des Beaux-Arts, the en vogue style preferred by New York City’s Gilded Age elite. The firm was a perfect fit for the Laniers, a prominent couple who were comfortably amongst ‘The Four Hundred’, an index of New York's best families, led by Caroline Schermerhorn Astor. The Four Hundred referred to the capacity Mrs. Astor's ballroom.

Paris-trained architect Francis L.V. Hoppin met Terence A. Koen at the prestigious firm McKim, Mead & White, where they cut their teeth making drawings for eminent structures such as the Brooklyn Museum before starting their own firm. In addition to notable residences Hoppin & Koen produced designs for the main pavilion building at the fashionable Bailey's Beach in Newport, Rhode Island, as well as monumental civic institutions including the Landmark New York City Police Headquarters (1905-09) on Centre Street. The Lanier house at 123 East 35th Street is recognised as one of Hoppin & Koen’s finest residential works in New York City.

Beaux Arts architecture may have come out of the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, but it was in the United State that the style reached its zenith in the commissions of a rising American elite. The Lanier residence embodies the very best of Beaux Arts: classical forms, monumental proportions, and lavish details with an emphasis on symmetry — all of which are on full display inside and out.

On the eye-catching exterior of the mansion, fluted Ionic pilasters, dentil and modillion cornices and carved stonework overlook a stately stone porch, while latticed wrought-iron balustrades and the copper mansard roof with three dormers evoke the grandeur of the French Baroque.

The novels of Edith Wharton were a key reference point for Julian Fellowes, who created the television series The Gilded Age. Wharton, who in addition to her Pulitzer Prize–winning fiction wrote the seminal interior design book The Decoration of Houses in 1897, was keenly aware of the ways in which architecture and decorative arts reflected the social lives and tastes of a great house’s inhabitants.

In the Lanier residence, double doors of solid tiger oak open to an arched entrance hall with a rose medallion ceiling. Carved niches, classical statuary and monumental carved-stone basins line the exquisite gallery, which leads into an elegant reception room where one can imagine the Laniers enjoying co*cktails with their guests before dinner. The formal dining room seats 16 under a massive rock-crystal chandelier.

Ascend to the second floor — either by the mahogany staircase or private elevator — to arrive at the grand living room. South-facing windows flood the green-walled room with sunlight, allowing for full appreciation of the gold leaf wainscoting and original parquet floors, two of many original finishes and materials have been scrupulously preserved for the past 40 years by the current owner.

Off the living room, enter the oak-panelled library, in which richly adorned bookcases flank an antique fireplace, providing the ultimate surrounds for cultural enjoyment and study. Harriet Lanier was herself a patron of the arts who achieved renown as president of the Society of Friends of Music, which she founded in 1913.

The nine-bedroom James F. D. Lanier house offers ample accommodations for guests. At the garden level, a 400-square-foot chef's kitchen and pantry is outfitted with a dumbwaiter for discreet service befitting a Gilded Age soirée.

Mr. Lanier, an avid sportsman and pioneer automobile enthusiast, would likely have appreciated the modern amenities introduced by the current owner — including a fitness centre, sauna and spa, as well as a 1,000-bottle temperature-controlled wine cellar.

The grandeur and elegance of the Gilded Age is alive at the exquisitely preserved James F. D. Lanier Residence, which has had only three owners since it was built in 1901. Synthesising classical forms and lavish detailing, the iconic mansion represents a rare opportunity to own a piece of New York City history from the era that is more of-the-moment than ever.