The James A. Burden House is a mansion at 7 East 91st Street in the Carnegie Hill section of the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City, New York, US. The five-story mansion was designed by architects Warren and Wetmore in the Beaux-Arts style. It was completed in 1905 as the residence of iron entrepreneur James A. Burden Jr. and his wife Florence Sloane Burden. The Convent of the Sacred Heart, a private school, owns the Burden House along with the adjacent Otto H. Kahn House, which is internally connected. The mansion is a New York City designated landmark and, along with the Kahn House, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The mansion's limestone facade is rusticated on its lowest two stories, with segmental archways and multiple entrances to the south and east. There is French-inspired detailing on the facade, especially around the double-height windows and balcony on the third story. The house has French-style interiors and is divided into front and rear sections, with an oval entrance hall connecting the floors. The first floor originally contained reception spaces while the second floor was devoted to living quarters. On the third story were spaces such as Burdens' ballroom, dining room, and reception hall; there were two additional stories above it.
Andrew Carnegie purchased the site in 1898 to protect the value of his nearby mansion. William D. Sloane, of the W. & J. Sloane furniture family, acquired the site from Carnegie in 1901 and commissioned the Burden House and the adjacent John Henry Hammond House for his daughters. The house served as the Burden family's home from 1905 to 1933. The contents of the house were auctioned by Parke-Bernet, and the Convent of the Sacred Heart purchased the mansion in 1940. The Convent used the house as a boarding school until 1966, then converted it into classrooms. The house was renovated in the late 20th century, though many of the interior spaces have been preserved.
Site The James A. Burden House is at 7 East 91st Street in the Carnegie Hill section of the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City, New York, US. It stands on the north side of 91st Street, just east of Fifth Avenue. The site has a frontage of wide on 91st Street and extends northward. On the same city block to the west is the Otto H. Kahn House (which is internally connected with the Burden House), while to the east are the John Henry Hammond House and the John and Caroline Trevor House. The Felix M. Warburg House, containing the Jewish Museum, is on the block to the north. Just south of the James A. Burden House is the Andrew Carnegie Mansion at 2 East 90th Street, housing the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum. The townhouses on 11, 15, and 17 East 90th Street and the Spence School are located on the same block as the Carnegie Mansion, southeast of the Burden House.
Facing the Hammond House to the east is a courtyard, which was originally enclosed behind heavy doors. The courtyard occupies the gap between the Hammond and Burden houses. Ever since the government of the Soviet Union took over the Hammond House in the 1970s, the courtyard has served as a parking lot, which is closed off by a rolldown gate.
Architecture The mansion was designed by Warren and Wetmore in the Beaux-Arts style. The facade may have been designed with assistance from Lewis Henry Morgan (died 1901). The house is embellished by French-inspired detailing around the windows and balcony. Jayne Merkel wrote for Oculus in 1996 that the house resembled a "French Renaissance hotel". The house is rectangular in shape and is oriented north–south relative to the Manhattan street grid.
Facade The Burden House is five stories high, with its fifth story set back from the facade. It is roughly divided into a more formal front section and a less formal service wing in the rear. The house is set back from both the Kahn House to the west and the Hammond House to the east, and, as such, has decorations on its western, eastern, and southern elevations of its facade. On the western elevation is an ornamental exterior stair. For the most part, there are few windows along the western elevation, while the northern elevation's windows are concentrated on its upper stories. There are various windows facing north, east, and west along the rear wing. The ornamentation is concentrated on the southern and eastern elevations.
The facade of the first and second stories is made of rusticated blocks of granite. The segmentally-arched carriage entrance faces south toward 91st Street and is closed off by heavy wooden doors. Next to the 91st Street entrance are two segmentally arched windows; both the windows and the carriage entrance are topped by a limestone string course. The main entrance, on the eastern elevation, was made of glass and iron and was accessed by a covered driveway, which functioned as a porte-cochère. There was a small concierge's booth next to the driveway. A short stoop (now blocked off) ascends from the driveway to the doorways. There is a small pedestrian entrance to the left of the main entrance, as well as three segmentally arched windows on the eastern elevation.
The second story is treated like a mezzanine, with small rectangular windows. On the southern elevation, the second story has three square windows, which are flanked by console brackets that hold up the third-floor balcony. The brackets extend the whole height of the second floor, an intentional design choice that was meant to make the second floor appear as small as possible. At the second story, the western elevation has one square window, while the eastern elevation has two square windows in the front and four larger windows in the rear.
The third story of the facade is designed like a piano nobile, the main floor of a palazzo. On the southern elevation are three double-height, recessed openings with arched windows, as well as a balcony with iron and stone railing in front of the windows. The front portions of both the western and eastern elevations have double-height blind arches, flanked by rectangular blind openings, on the third floor. At the rear of the eastern elevation are additional double-height arched windows with their own balconies. All of these windows are multi-paned casement sash windows. On the fourth story is a fluted frieze interspersed with rectangular pairs of windows. There is a cornice with modillions above the fourth-story windows, as well as a balustrade above the cornice. On the roof are decorative chimneys placed behind a parapet. The fifth story is placed within a mansard roof and is set back from 91st Street, with dormer windows on the eastern elevation. The north end of the roof is a gable that stretches the house's entire width.
Features The house has French-style interiors and is divided into front and rear sections. The front of the house was used as the Burden family's living space. At the rear of the house, used by the servants, were a service elevator and a staircase. A small elevator connected each story at the front of the house. The house is cited as having 35, 38, or 50 rooms. In addition to the five above-ground stories, there are two basement levels.
First story and entrance hall There is a ground-story entrance hall with a grand spiraling staircase, around which most of the interior rooms are arranged. The entrance hall is oval in shape and was originally accessed by a narrow passageway from the courtyard. The entrance hall contains walls of Caen stone, while the grand staircase has marble treads and a wrought-iron balustrade. There were "balcony halls" extending off the entrance hall on the second and third stories, with recessed niches flanked by marble columns. On either wall of each niche are doors, covered entirely with mirrors. On the ceiling of the oval stairway hall is a red, orange, and yellow mural of the arts, which was painted by the muralist Hector d'Espouy. The mural was still intact in the late 20th century, as were the marble floors, which were inlaid with red specks. The entrance hall formed part of a "promenade" that led from the original main entrance to the third-floor spaces.
When the Burdens lived in the house, the rest of the first floor contained the office of its owner James A. Burden Jr. (also known as the den) and some reception spaces. On the right side of the entrance hall, a small reception room with pastel-colored walls led to an Asian room on the first floor. The Asian room had ebony drawers set into the walls, as well as various East Asian bric-à-brac. On the left side of the entrance hall was James's office, which was clad with old English oak. The Convent of the Sacred Heart school, which took over the house in 1940, converted these spaces into ancillary spaces and classrooms while preserving many of the architectural details.
Upper stories At the Burdens' request, Warren and Wetmore placed the living quarters on the second story. This story contained an entresol with the Burdens' dining, living, and reception rooms were situated; it was used for entertaining family members and friends. One room was used as the boudoir, or sitting room, of James's wife Florence Sloane Burden, with grayish-white walls, white silk hangings, and medallion paintings. Adjacent to the boudoir was Florence's bedroom, which originally had gray-blue walls, satin tapestries, and wall-mounted steel engravings. Florence also had a square dressing room with a marble-clad bathroom. On the same floor were James's bedroom, which had green hangings; a tile-and-marble bathroom; and a walk-in closet that doubled as his dressing room. A stair led down from the bedroom to James's office. At the center of the house was a library room with French walnut furnishings, which could be accessed from the balcony hall. A small dining room on the same floor was painted in red and gold, with tapestries of the same color and inlaid marble sideboards. These rooms have since been converted into classrooms.
On the third story were spaces such as Burdens' ballroom, dining room, and reception hall, which were used for hosting large events. The ballroom was ornately decorated with tapestries. It is designed in the Louis XIV style, with paneled violet-gray marble walls and a decorative plaster ceiling. The ballroom still exists and is connected via a foyer to the reception hall, which can collectively seat 210 persons. Behind it was the reception hall, which had gilded decorations. The dining room had Campan vert marble walls with gilded trim, as well as a marble fireplace mantel with various carved motifs such as grapes and goats' heads. Adjacent to the dining room was the kitchen, which still exists. On the same story is the music room, which had gold-colored columns and a plaster coved ceiling. The music room, which one newspaper described as costing $60,000, had other decorative features such as tapestries, crystal chandeliers, paneled walls, and wooden floors in a herringbone pattern. The third floor also contained a salon and a tray hall, accessed by a niche. The third floor retains most of its original functions and decorations, and the spaces can be rented for events and film shoots.The fourth story included five bedrooms and a children's playroom, while the attic had an infirmary. There were also various closets and bathrooms on the fourth story. The first through third stories are connected to the Kahn House's rear rooms via a glass passageway that is set back from the street. Since the floor levels are uneven, the connection is slightly sloped. The top stories, originally used as bedrooms and living spaces, are used as the Convent of the Sacred Heart's offices and classrooms.
History