Stanford White's house for Payne Whitney in New York City - architect

Magazine Antiques, Oct, 2002 by Jenil Sandberg

For their assistance with this article I would like to thank Mosette Broderick, Mary Beth Betts, Janet Parks, and particularly Daniel Kany.

(1.) My discussion of the architecture and history of McKim, Mend and White is based on the works of Richard Guy Wilson, McKim, Mead and White, Architects (Rizzoli, New York, 1983); and Leland M. Roth, McKim, Mead and White, Architects (Harper and Row, New York. 1983).

(2.) See Katherine S. Howe, Alice Cooney Frelinghuysen, and Catherine Hoover Voorsanger, Herter Brothers: Fumiture and Interiors for a Gilded Age (Harry N. Abrams, New York, in association with the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 1994); and Dianne H. Pilgrim, "Decorative Art: The Domestic Environment," The American Renaissance, 1876-1917 (Brooklyn Museum, New York, 1979), pp. 110-151.

(3.) See Edith Wharton and Ogden Codman Jr., The Decoration of Houses (1897; Norton, New York, 1997), p. 2. Codman, who was both architect and decorator, was an ohvious voice for such an opinion.

(4.) White worked frequently with both the Whitney and Payne families, making McKim, Mend and White the clear choice to receive the commission. White directly supervised the extensive renovation of the house of Payne Whitney's father, William Collins Whitney (1841-1904). He also designed houses for Payne Whitney's brother, Harry Payne Whitney (1872-1930), and the Whitney family monument in Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx, New York. White worked for Colonel Oliver Hazard Payne at Greenwood Plantation, his house in Thomasville, Georgia See Samuel G. White. The Houses of McKim Mead and White (Rizzoli, New York, 1998), pp. 224-231.

(5.) One of Payne's few requests was that the facade of the house be granite (O. H. Payne to Stanford White, December 8, 1902 [Payne Whitney House correspondence files, box 507, McKim, Mend and White collection, department of prints, photographs, and architectural collections, New-York Historical Society (hereafter NYHS), New York City]).

(6.) Drawings for the house exist in the McKim, Mend and White collection, NYHS, rolls 229-231.

(7.) White to O. H. Payne, January 19, 1904 (Stanford White papers, department of drawings and archives, Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library, Columbia University, New York City).

(8.) The vaults gained their strength through their curvature and layered tile courses. This layering worked on the same principle as plywood in that tile courses are held with an extremely tenacious mortar and layered in perpendicular directions to spread the load. See Janet Parks, The Old World Builds the New: The Guastavino Company and the Technology of the Catalan Vault, 1885-1962 (Miriam and Ira D. Wallacl Art Gallery, Columbia University, New York, 1996). Columbia University has the Guastavino structural drawings for the Payne Whitney house in the Guastavino Fireproof Construction Company/George Collins collection in the Avery Library. I am grateful to Daniel R. Kany, forme associate curator of drawings and archives, Avery Library for bringing these drawings to my attention.