When some people think of an historical society, they imagine a group of volunteers, working in a small heritage building. At least, that’s what I usually imagine.
What doesn’t come to mind is an historical society residing in a mansion on Fifth Avenue in New York City.
That’s exactly where the American Irish Historical Society has been headquartered for more than 80 years, and now they’ve put the mansion up for sale for US$52 million.
The five-story Beaux-Arts Revival-style mansion is located at Fifth Avenue and East 80th Street, directly across from Central Park and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. According to the luxury real estate listings website, Mansion Global, it was built in 1901, when the neighborhood was a nexus of New York wealth and dotted with mansions owned by well-heeled families like the Vanderbilts, Astors and Carnegies.
In a press release, real estate brokerage firm Brown Harris Stevens said, “The AIHS is a cultural and scholarly organization devoted to making better known the history of the Irish in the United States as well as to celebrating the riches of Irish culture globally.
“The decision to place the building on the market has been made in order to best enable the Society to pursue its cultural and scholarly mission in a sustainable manner.”
The building has been the society’s headquarters since 1940 and has had three previous owners.
Previous owners
In 1901, Mrs. Mary Augustus King, a widow whose inheritance was equivalent to $113 million today, was the first owner.
In 1906, banker David Crawford Clark moved in. In 1911, he commissioned Ogden Codman, Jr., a society architect, to redesign the interiors.
The third occupant, William Ellis Corey, was president of the Carnegie Steel Corporation. His second marriage to Maybelle Gilman, a musical comedy star, caused worldwide scandal. The chairman of the steel company said, “Mr. Corey was too valuable a man to the steel business to be dispensed with on account of his private affairs.” His divorce in 1923 left him alone in his large mansion. His son inherited it in 1934.
The American Irish Historical Society acquired the mansion in 1939.
Founded in 1897 in Boston, the society has used the mansion to house a massive library of 10,000 volumes (including the first printing of the Bible into the Irish language in 1685), a huge collection of vinyl records, and letters from the White House from Franklin Delano Roosevelt who was a member of the Society.
The society’s mission is “to place permanently on record the story of the Irish in America from the earliest settlement to the present day, justly, impartially, fully, and sympathetically correcting neglect and misrepresentation by certain historians of the part taken in the founding, upbuilding and safeguarding of the Nation by persons of Irish birth and descent.”
Photos of the mansion can be seen on the realtor’s website. Scroll down to the bottom of the page to figure out your mortgage payments. If you don’t have any money to put down, your monthly payment will be US$250,000.
