The Gertrude Rhinelander Waldo House (also 867 Madison Avenue and the Rhinelander Mansion) is a French Renaissance Revival mansion at the southeastern corner of Madison Avenue and 72nd Street on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City, New York, U.S. Built between 1894 and 1898, it was designed by Alexander Mackintosh of the architectural firm of Kimball & Thompson. Though the house was constructed for the heiress Gertrude Rhinelander Waldo, she never moved in. The mansion was converted to a commercial building in the 20th century, becoming the New York City flagship store of the Ralph Lauren accessory and clothing company in the 1980s. The mansion is a New York City designated landmark and on the National Register of Historic Places.
The Gertrude Rhinelander Waldo House is four and a half stories tall and has a limestone facade modeled on a French château. Although storefront windows have been installed on the ground story over the years, the upper stories retain decorative details such as ornamental carvings and round-arched windows. The red roof contains various stone and copper dormers as well. The original interiors of the building are very poorly documented, as it was abandoned upon completion; the second story had various communal rooms, while the third and fourth stories originally had bedrooms. The interior layout has been significantly altered over the years, and few of the original interior plans and decorations survive.
Waldo bought the site in 1882 but did not develop it for more than a decade. Waldo refused to move into the house for unknown reasons, and she also refused to maintain, rent out, or sell the building. The Dime Savings Bank of New York took ownership in 1912, and two developers attempted to build apartments on the site in the 1910s. The building was partially converted to commercial use in 1920, when the antique dealer Olivotti & Company moved into the lower stories. Through the early 1980s, the building was sold several more times and hosted various commercial and residential tenants. In 1984, the designer Ralph Lauren leased the building and had it renovated to serve as the flagship store of his company, which opened in 1986. Ralph Lauren has been the mansion's sole tenant since then, though the house was sold several more times after Ralph Lauren moved in. The building became a Ralph Lauren menswear store in 2010.
Site The Gertrude Rhinelander Waldo House is at 867 Madison Avenue, along the southeast corner of 72nd Street, on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City, New York, U.S. The house has a frontage of on Madison Avenue to the west and on 72nd Street to the north. The land lot is slightly L-shaped, with an area of .
The apparel and accessories chain Polo Ralph Lauren, which has had its flagship store at the Rhinelander Mansion since 1986, also operates additional structures across Madison Avenue. These include 888 Madison Avenue, a store completed in 2010 as Ralph Lauren's secondary flagship; it is designed in a Beaux-Arts style with a limestone facade and marble interiors. The Rhinelander Mansion shares the block with St. James' Episcopal Church immediately to the south, 36 East 72nd Street to the east, and 740 Park Avenue to the southeast. Other nearby buildings include 720 Park Avenue and 730 Park Avenue on the block to the south; 907 Fifth Avenue and 9 East 71st Street to the west; and 7 East 72nd Street and 9 East 72nd Street to the northwest.
Architecture The Gertrude Rhinelander Waldo House is four and a half stories tall.; Kimball & Thompson were credited with the design of the house. According to a photo caption published when the house was nearly complete, a local designer with the firm, Alexander Mackintosh, was responsible for most of the work. The mansion was designed in a Francois I style and was modeled on the châteaux of the Loire Valley in France. It is alternatively known as the Rhinelander Mansion.
Exterior The mansion has a limestone facade. Among the decorative details are ornamental carvings and round-arched windows in the French Renaissance style, which are concentrated on the upper stories. The roof is red and contains a copper cresting, as well as various dormers and finials.
Madison Avenue
The primary elevation of the facade faces Madison Avenue and is divided vertically into three parts: a central section flanked by projecting pavilions at either end.; In the center of the ground (first) floor was the original main entrance. The ground story originally had decorations and an iron fence, but these were removed in the 20th century, when the house became a commercial building. The round-arched doorways at ground level were originally windows, while the other ground-floor openings were enlarged into storefront windows. The ground floor contains storefront windows, round archways, and smooth walls. There is an entrance at the corner of Madison Avenue and 72nd Street, which was added in a 1980s renovation.
At the second and third stories, the center bays protrude from the facade. The center bays include such decorations as volutes, finials, colonnettes, and broken entablatures. On both stories, there are five recessed arched windows in the center bays, which are placed behind ornate openwork balustrades (similar to those at the Château of Blois). Each of the windows is topped by scrolled keystones, while the corners above the arches contain spandrels with round medallions. There are niches with small statues between each of the central second-story windows, while ornamented cartouches are placed between the third story windows. Many of the niches are empty, but some of the niches contain depictions of French Renaissance royalty. Within the projecting end pavilions, these stories contain rectangular windows divided by vertical transoms and horizontal mullions made of stone. There are pilasters on either side of each of the outer bays' windows; the pilasters are topped by capitals.;
The fourth-story windows are rectangular, with colonnettes on either side of each window, and are placed behind openwork balustrades. The central bay is a double-height stone dormer. At the fourth story, the central dormer's window is flanked by columns and topped by a stone lunette. At the fifth story, there is a smaller window within the central dormer; there are finials above and beside it. On the extreme north and south ends of the Madison Avenue elevation, there is a smaller stone dormer in front of a section of hip roof. There are two pairs of copper dormer windows on the fifth story between the stone dormers. Each pair of copper dormers is separated by a stone chimney with carvings of rhombuses on its side, which are designed to resemble those on the Château de Chambord.
72nd Street On the 72nd Street elevation, the first floor has storefronts (similar to those on Madison Avenue), and the entire width of the facade is curved at the second and third floors. On both stories, the second and third stories are composed of rectangular windows, which are divided by vertical transoms and horizontal mullions made of stone. The center window on each story is a triple window, which in turn is flanked by one double window on either side. There are friezes with cartouches below the second-story windows, as well as putti and foliate panels below the third-story windows. The fourth and fifth stories have a double-height dormer, similar to the one at the center of the Madison Avenue elevation.
Interior The original interiors of the building are very poorly documented, as it was abandoned upon completion in 1898, and some rooms may not even have been completed. The interior was reportedly lavishly decorated with carvings and rare tapestries. A New York Times reporter wrote in 1984 that 32 commercial tenants had occupied the house over the years, so many of the original decorations had been removed. According to another report, the mansion was significantly modified 15 times between 1921 and 1979. The architect Witold Rybczynski wrote in his book Home: A Short History of an Idea that, when the house was renovated in the 1980s, the designer Ralph Lauren aimed to redesign the interior in a way reminiscent of the past, rather than replicating the original architecture verbatim.
Basement and first story There was a large bowling alley in the basement. The first floor was a large center hall extending one-third the width of the Madison Avenue frontage, with mahogany paneling on the walls and ceiling. There was a library to the right of the stairs, as well as a red-mahogany billiards room to the left. The original drawing room was decorated with a wooden floor, while the conservatory had mosaic flooring; both spaces had ornate ceilings.
On the eastern wall of the main hall, there was originally a grand staircase with a mosaic wall. Little is known about that staircase, but it was entirely demolished in a later renovation. A new staircase and elevator were built in the 1960s, and a grand mahogany staircase was added to the house in the 1980s, when the house was renovated for the Ralph Lauren Corporation. The design of the modern grand stairway is based on a stair at the Connaught Hotel in London; documents indicate that a historian known as Mosette recommended that the renovation architects build a replica of the hotel's stairway. Oil portraits were placed along the walls of the grand mahogany stairway.
Upper floors The second story is the only part of the house for which detailed floor plans have been found. The second floor contained the main dining room, breakfast room, reception room, drawing room, two salon rooms, three kitchens, and six bathrooms. The parlor along 72nd Street had parquet floors, rosettes, and plaster moldings along the walls and ceilings. There were moldings along the arches, walls, and ceilings of the other rooms as well. In addition, there was a second-floor ballroom, which was lit by 1,000 light bulbs. There were bedrooms on the third floor and servants' quarters on the fourth floor. Much of the fourth floor was occupied by a large ballroom. The New York Times wrote in 1909 that, although a house of the Waldo Mansion's size should have had space for 10 to 12 servants, the house contained only two servants' bedrooms and no space at all for domestic workers.
By the early 1980s, the interior of the second story remained largely intact, but the third and fourth stories had been significantly modified with dropped ceilings and fluorescent lights. After the 1980s renovation, it had green walls with portraits, in addition to elaborate plasterwork, wood paneling, and vaulted ceilings. The rooms were variously designed in the style of a rural cottage or an English clubhouse. Display cases were carefully installed to blend in with the interiors, and items such as luggage, flowers, and birdcages were arranged to complement the house's design. The house also contained other features such as working mahogany fireplaces. The design was based on various settings such as a hotel, a workshop, and a clubhouse. Objects such as sepia prints, side tables, and Chippendale chairs were used to give the interiors the appearance of an English clubhouse. Other motifs, such as a fireplace with English-style paneling, were also used throughout the house.
History