William Clark Mansion

William A Clark was an American senator, business man and involved in real estate, mining, banking and railroads.  When he arrived in  New York, he decided he wanted to show off his wealth and wanted  to build the largest, most expensive home in America. He commissioned the architectural firm of Lord, Hewlett & Hull to design the mansion at 5th Avenue and 77th Street.   The mammoth building began to be built after some arguing and redesigning from Clark.

When the size of the art gallery was “entirely insufficient,” he purchased an adjoining lot to increase the size of the mansion. With his succession of changes and additions the estimated cost of the structure rose from $417,000 to $2.5 million.

When the Maine and New Hampshire Granite Company increased their bid for the stone work, Clark purchased an adjoining quarry, then established his own stone cutting plant. Similarly, when he felt the bids for the bronze work were outrageous, he purchased the Henry Bannard Bronze Company and supplied copper from his own mines.

The construction of Clark’s gargantuan mansion lasted until 1908 – a full 13 years. By the time it was finished it was no longer in style and New Yorkers called the long-term project “an old man’s fad.” The Times remarked on the finished structure. “Viewed from the street the building strikes the observer as too big, too heavy, too massive, for its ground space and its residential surroundings.”

With a final cost approaching $10 million, the house rose nine stories with Turkish baths below ground level, laundry rooms on the top floor, scores of Greek marble columns, and mantelpieces costing up to $2000 each – the Numidian marble fireplace in the banquet room measured 15 feet across with life-size figures of Diana and Neptune. There were 120 rooms filled with medieval tapestries and artwork. The wood for the carved ceiling of the banquet room came from Sherwood Forest; of the 170 carved panels in the breakfast room no two were identical,

On the second floor was a rotunda, 36 feet high, of Maryland marble with eight Bresche violet columns, used as the statuary room. It opened onto a conservatory of solid brass and glass, 30 feet high and 22 feet wide. On the opposite side of the rotunda was the marble-paneled main picture gallery, 95 feet long and two stories high. An organ loft housed the largest chamber organ in America with 62 “speaking stops.”

There were 25 guests rooms, with baths, 35 servants’ rooms with men’s quarters to the east and female rooms in the western wing. Clark’s Gothic library was 90 feet long with a beamed ceiling and immense carved fireplace.

The Senator's art collection included works by Delacroix, Millet, Corot, Constable, Boucher and Daubigny. He spent $200,000 for the Gobelin tapestries owned by Prince Murat and $350,000 for those of the Earl of Coventry.


At the age of 86 William A. Clark died in his bedroom on March 25, 1925, one of the 50 richest men in America. Two years later the mansion was opened to the public from February 20 through March 1 with admission fees going to charity. Shortly thereafter the house was demolished, just 19 years after being built.


His daughter  Huguette Clark is still alive and is cut off from the public in her old age of 104. What stories she must still have!

High tech, 1910 style
Inside the childhood home of Huguette Clark. The Fifth Avenue mansion was a high-tech marvel for 1910, with electricity and central air conditioning. Powering it required seven tons of coal per day, brought in by the Clarks’ private subway line. (The New York Times)

Much of the information was provided by Tom Miller and his blog Daytonian in Manhattan


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