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1927 960 Fifth Avenue
– Anthony Campagna President; Michael Campagna Vice President; Armino Campagna Secretary (Kelley Paterno page 287)
– Rosario Candela; Warren & Wetmore (Alpern Fab Lux page 122)
Featured in Andrew Alpern’s book The New York Apartment Houses of Rosario Candela and James Carpenter page 62.
Featured with floorplan in Andrew Alpern’s book New York’s Fabulous Luxury Apartments page 122.
Featured in Andrew Alpern’s book Apartments for the Affluent pages 122 & 123.
Featured in the Netto, Goldberger, Pennoyer book Rosario Candela & The New York Apartment 1927-1937; page 114
1927
383
$1,000,000.00
5TH [Fifth] AV, 960 12 & 15-sty bk apt, 102˙190
OWNER / OWNER ADDRESS
(o) 963 5th Av. Corp., Anthony Campagna, pres / (o) 551 5th [Fifth] av COMMENTS
ARCHITECT / ARCHITECT ADDRESS
(a) Rosario Candela / (a) 578 Madison av (source)
Located in Upper East Side Historic District designated 19 May 1981
Associated architects Warren & Wetmore and Rosario Candela; Supervising architects Cross & Cross; Consultant on plans and decorations Mrs. George Draper; Builder 963 Fifth Avenue Corporation Anthony Campagna President; Michael Campagna Vice President; Armino Campagna Secretary (Alpern Acanthus page 62)
– northeast corner of 77th Street
960 Fifth Avenue was built on the former site of the William A. Clark House. When Senator Clark died in 1925, his widow and daughter, Huguette Clark, moved to 907 Fifth Avenue and sold the mansion, which cost $7 million, to Anthony Campagna for $3 million (equivalent to $43,736,000 in 2019) in 1927. Campagna had the mansion torn down just 19 years after it was built in 1911. The new building was designed by Warren & Wetmore, who were responsible for Grand Central Terminal and the supervisory architects was Rosario Candela of Cross & Cross. Candela was “a 1920’s architect known for grand flowing apartment layouts” who had a habit of cloistering bedroom wings away from the grand entertaining rooms. Dorothy Draper, the prominent interior decorator, was used as a consultant on the project. Campagna used Douglas L. Elliman & Co. as his broker for the sale of the coop apartments. The building was started in 1927 and completed in 1928. Apartments average 14 to 17 rooms, with 8 maids’ rooms, and is one of the few in New York with its own in-house restaurant. The original apartments were priced from $130,000 to $325,000 and more than 75 percent of the apartments were sold before the frame of the building was enclosed. The largest initial stockholder in the building was Dr. Preston Pope Satterwhite who reportedly paid $450,000 for his 20-room apartment, which was considered the most expensive cooperative sale ever paid at the time. Wikipedia
One of New York’s most prestigious addresses, 960 Fifth Avenue is noted for its grand apartments, most of which have different layouts, its quite lavish restaurant for the residents, the Georgian Suite, with its own entrance at 1A East 77th Street, and its large cast-iron marquee that hovers over a conventional canvas canopy, and its hooded figures that adorn its facade. The building was designed by Warren & Wetmore, one of the main architectural firms that designed Grand Central Terminal, and Rosario Candela, an architect who specialized in luxury apartment buildings, and Cross & Cross were the supervising architects for the developer, Anthony Campagna. In 1923, the New York Court of Appeals ruled that a prior 75-foot-high restriction along Park Lane (Fifth Avenue along Central Park) could be increased to 150 feet and “Millionaire’s Row” of sumptuous mansions quickly gave way to luxury apartment buildings.The avenue’s last grand apartment house was 960 Fifth Avenue. In fact, in terms of scale of accommodation and ambition of architectural expression 960 was the only genuine rival to the avenue’s first apartment palace, at 998 Fifth Avenue. Replacing Senator William Clark’s house, 960 was designed in two sections by Warren & Wetmore and Rosario Candela in 1927-28. The principal portion, facing Fifth Avenue, contained fourteen lavish cooperative apartments, with fifty-one smaller units relegated to the back rental building facing Seventy-seventh Street. The bland Indiana limestone facades of the building were relieved by the irregular fenestration that hinted at the complex arrangement of apartments within. One apartment, designed for Preston Pope Satterwhite on the tenth and part of the eleventh floor, contained seventeen rooms, including a two-story high, 60-by-25-foot living room that was said to the grandest found in an American apartment. This building also replaced the Charles F. Dieterich house at 963 Fifth Avenue. 960 Fifth Avenue Northeast corner at 77th Street By Carter B. Horsley
The most interesting feature of the MCNY show that breaks new ground in explaining the ingenuity of his architecture is a digital film dissecting the sectional diversity of 960 Fifth Avenue, showing the dovetailed apartments with wildly different ceiling heights which make this, in my opinion, his most interesting building. Meet the Mastermind of the World’s Most Valuable Apartments: A new exhibition explores the genius and impact of legendary architect Rosario Candela, whose 1920s Manhattan co-ops set the global gold standard
By David Netto May 14, 2018
STREETSCAPES | FIFTH AVENUE AND 77TH STREET Huguette Clark’s ‘Worthless’ Girlhood Home By Christopher Gray June 2, 2011
960 Fifth Avenue by The Gilded Era February 25, 2013
COOPERATIVE BUYERS.; Anthony Campagna Sells Two Suites in 960 Fifth Avenue. New York Times Dec. 20, 1928
FIFTH AVENUE between East 77th Street and East 78th Street
Probably one of the most famous houses on Fifth Avenue stood on the northeast corner of East 77th Street, the William A. Clark mansion. This singular Beaux-Arts building was one of the most exuberant to be built on the avenue. Designed by Lord, Hewlett & Hull and begun in 1899, it is said to have contained 130 rooms. With its three-story mansard roof encrusted with baroque ornament and an extraordinary tower soaring over the entrance on East 77th Street, the house was dubbed “Clark’s Folly.” Clark, who had once served as United States Senator from Montana, made his millions from mining activity in that state and spent lavishly on his residence and art collection. Soon after his death in 1925, the mansion was demolished and much of his art collection was acquired by the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. The neo-Italian Renaissance apartment house now on the corner, No. 960, was built in 1927-28 by Anthony Campagna and designed by Rosario Candela in two sections: the eastern portion of the building with the cornice along East 77th Street was for rental and the western portion with its park frontage was cooperative. No. 965 was designed by Irving Margon and built in 1937, eight years after he worked on the El Dorado Apartments, a handsome Art Deco apartment house on Central Park West between West 90th and West 91st Streets. No. 965 was built on the site of the former Jacob Schiff mansion which was an elegant Beaux-Arts design by the architectural firm of Freeman & Thain. Jacob Schiff and his wife, the former Theresa Loeb, moved to this house after it was completed in 1901. Their former residence, No. 932 between East 74th and East 75th Streets, was given to their son, Mortimer, as a wedding gift. Two row houses (1887-90), designed by R. Napier Anderson for William A. Mathesius, were also on the apartment house site. J.L. Raimist’s 1925 apartment house, No. 969, stands on the site of the former William Lawrence house. Completed in 1890, it was a fine example of Francois I style by Richard Morris Hunt, with a picturesque circular tower on Fifth Avenue. (source)
HIGH APARTMENT PRICES; One Owner in 960 Fifth Avenue Has Suite of Twenty Rooms.
New York Times May 6, 1928
“[William A. Clark] died on March 2, 1925. Twenty-three months after his death it was announced that the mansion had been sold and would be torn down. It would be replaced by a luxury apartment complex. A New York newspaper reporter wrote: “After nearly two years as a ‘white elephant,’ on the real estate market, the huge Fifth Avenue mansion … was sold today.” The buyer was real estate developer Anthony Campagna, who, during his career, became famous for reducing to rubble several historic New York buildings.”
Copper King’s New York mansion dubbed ‘Clark’s Folly’
The Devoted Classicist, John J Tackett TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 2012 Sister Parish at 960 Fifth Avenue
The Lost 1908 William A. Clark Mansion
Facebook Group Conversation: “Unnamed for privacy: In Senator Clark’s will, he ordered that it be demolished after 2 years. He did not leave it to his family. The 2 years were for his 2nd wife Anna and youngest daughter Huguette to find another residence, which was done in two weeks. Senator Clark ordered that it be demolished instead of leaving anyone in his family to be burdened with the massive cost of maintaining the home. [Senator Clark died in 1925]
Carla: How do you know this information?
Unnamed for privacy: I’ve read his will. My great-aunt was also a dear friend of Senator Clark’s youngest daughter.”
William A. Clark Mansion by the Museum of the City of New York
The mansion went on the market not long after Clark’s death, as well, but few bidders stepped forward. The substance of the mansion – a hulking mass of marble and steel – was actually considered an encumbrance to potential buyers. In a time when more and more Gilded Ages mansions along upper Fifth Avenue, or “Millionaires’ Row,” were sold and demolished to make way for apartments, Clark’s mansion was deemed especially burdensome to dismantle and cart away. Finally, in February 1927, the property sold for under $3 million which was less than half that the cost of construction early in the 20th century. The majority of the selling price was attributed to the land itself. As noted earlier, this property was to become 960 Fifth Avenue, the 12 story luxury cooperative apartment house designed by Rosario Candela, which at the time was already advertising suites for sale up to $350,000 (over $5 million in 2018). Thus, the single mansion was demolished, and the many – or shall we say “mini” – mansions were built in its place. William A. Clark Mansion, Museum of the City of New York