Rhinelander Mansion

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The Rhinelander Mansion sometimes called The Gertrude Rhinelander Waldo Mansion was named a National Historic Landmark in 1980. It is a massive French Renaissance Revival mansion and one of the few remaining turn-of-the century great homes in Manhattan. It was originally designed in the 1890s by Kimball & Thompson and built in 1898. It is located at 867 Madison Avenue on the south east corner of 72nd Street.

The Rhinelander Mansion
as the Polo Ralph Lauren flagship.

Gertrude Rhinelander Waldo who commissoned the mansion never actually moved in. It has been suggested that she ran out of money before it was complete.

Henry Hope Reed has this to say in "Beaux-Arts Architecture in New York" (Dover Publications Inc., 1988) "The fortress heritage of the rural, royal residences of the Loire was not lost in the transfer to New York. The roofline is very fine....The Gothic is found in the high-pitched roof of slate, the high, ornate dormers and the tall chimneys. The enrichment is early Renaissance, especially at the center dormers on both facades of the building, which boast colonnettes, broken entablatures, finials on high bases, finials in relief and volutes. In fact, although the dormers are ebullient, ornamentation is everywhere, even in the diamond-shaped pattern in relief on the chimneys (traceable to Chambord)."

The building remained vacant until 1921 at which time the first floor was converted into stores and two apartments were carved out of the magnificient upper four floors. At one time the Italian company of Olivetti Brothers occupied the building and had their name on the north side of the building facing 72nd Street.

Edgar de Evia first saw the grand fourth floor when visiting Dr. Stanton, a homeopathic physician who had his residence there. When the apartment became available in the late 1940s, he seized the opportunity to rent it with his partner at the time Robert Denning. Furnished over time with increasingly fine furniture, the fourth and fifth floors served not only as a home for themselves and de Evia's mother, pianist Miirrha Alhambra, but became the backdrop for fashion photography and commercial photography that ranged from rugs to linens.

Lisa Fonssagrives in a photograph taken by
Edgar de Evia in the Living Room of his home in the Rhinelander Mansion.

By the mid 1950s Edgar de Evia and Robert Denning had formed Denvia Realty which held the net lease on (28,000 square feet) the entire building. They utilized the top three floors as residence and studios, while renting offices on the second floor to Tate and Hall, the decorators and others with several shops on the street level which included the pharmacy on the corner and Rhinelander Florists on the Madison Avenue side of the building.

The building remained in their possession until it was purchased by the church to the south in the late 1960s. Ralph Lauren obtained the net lease in 1983 and started a massive overhaul of the building to create his Polo Ralph Lauren flagship store. Ownership of the building has changed several times during his lease with the most recent sale in 2005 being reported at a record US$80 million.

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