The Joseph Raphael De Lamar House (also the De Lamar Mansion) is a mansion at 233 Madison Avenue, at the northeast corner of the intersection with 37th Street, in the Murray Hill neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City, New York. Built from 1902 to 1905, the five-story house was designed by C. P. H. Gilbert in the Beaux-Arts style for Joseph Raphael De Lamar. The house has served as the Consulate General of Poland in New York City since 1973. The mansion is a New York City designated landmark and on the National Register of Historic Places, and it is a contributing property to the Murray Hill Historic District.
The De Lamar Mansion's facade includes rusticated stonework, balconies, and a mansard roof. The western elevation of the facade is on Madison Avenue, while the southern elevation faces 37th Street. Both elevations are divided horizontally into three sections: the ground story, the second and third stories, and the roof. The facade on 37th Street consists of two projecting pavilions on either side of a recessed center pavilion. A life-sized statue of Jan Karski is installed outside the main entrance. The house is constructed with a steel superstructure and was originally equipped with five elevators and lifts. There were originally communal rooms on the first two stories, including a billiards room, dining room, and library on the first story and a ballroom, gallery, and music room on the second story. The upper stories had bedrooms, and there was also a gymnasium on the fifth story.
De Lamar acquired the site in 1901 and hired Gilbert to design a family residence. De Lamar, his daughter Alice, and several servants lived there until De Lamar died in 1918. The American Bible Society attempted to buy the house in 1921, but the deal was canceled due to disputes over zoning. In 1924, the National Democratic Club purchased the house, using it as a headquarters for half a century. The club sold the house to the Republic of Poland to pay off debts. The interior was renovated in the 1990s and 2000s, though the mansion retains its original decorative features.
Site
The Joseph Raphael De Lamar House (also known as the Consulate General of Poland building) is at 233 Madison Avenue in the Murray Hill neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City, New York. It is at the northeast corner with 37th Street. The street corner is named in honor of the Polish officer Jan Karski, who rescued Poles during the Holocaust.;
The building's land lot is rectangular and has a total area of , with a frontage of on Madison Avenue to the west and on 37th Street to the south. The house shares the block with the Middleton S. and Emilie Neilson Burrill House at 36 East 38th Street, as well as the former Morgans Hotel. Other nearby buildings include the Morgan Library & Museum and Union League Club to the south, Tiffany and Company Building one block west, and Scandinavia House – The Nordic Center in America to the east.
Architecture The building was designed in the Beaux-Arts style for the businessman Joseph Raphael De Lamar by C. P. H. Gilbert, who also designed other mansions such as the Isaac D. Fletcher and Felix M. Warburg residences. It is one of several Gilded Age mansions in New York City that were designed in the Beaux-Arts style. Although it no longer serves as a residence, the De Lamar Mansion retains much of its original design because of renovations carried out during the late 20th century.
Facade The western elevation of the facade is on Madison Avenue, while the southern elevation faces 37th Street and is the home's primary elevation. On 37th Street elevation, the vertical divisions of the facade are emphasized, as compared with the horizontal decorative details. The facade on 37th Street is divided vertically into three parts, with protruding pavilions to the left and right of the main entrance. In addition, both elevations are divided horizontally into three sections: the ground (first) story, the second and third stories, and the roof. The lower two sections have a facade made of rusticated stone and are largely symmetrical. The windows are grouped in pairs, except within the recessed northernmost section of the Madison Avenue elevation, and have smooth window frames.
Ground story
The main entrance is through a pair of oak doors in the middle of the facade's 37th Street elevation. The doors are flanked by engaged columns, in addition to sidelights with bronze grilles. The lintel above the doors has a cartouche with foliate decorations, which is topped by depictions of cherubs with urns on either side. Above the lintel, at the top of the main entrance doorway, is a transom window which illuminates the space inside. There are console brackets on the doorway to either side of the window, which supports an arched French window. There is a wide band course running horizontally above the first story.
In November 2007, the Polish Consulate to New York installed a life-sized statue of Jan Karski sitting on a bench, playing chess, outside the entrance. During the Holocaust, at the direction of the Polish government-in-exile, Karski had surreptitiously entered the Warsaw Ghetto and observed Nazi atrocities against the Jews there, and the forced transport of Jews to the Nazi Belzec extermination camp in occupied Poland. Karski then traveled to England and the United States to implore them to take action, warning that the Nazis were exterminating Jews in Poland. The statue also alludes to the fact that he died in 2000 while playing chess.
Upper stories
On the 37th Street elevation's second story, the arched French window in the center pavilion is topped by brackets and a central keystone. The outer pavilions' second-story windows have balustrades, which in turn are carried by console brackets with swag motifs. On the third story of the 37th Street elevation, the window sills of the outer pavilions have cornices underneath, while the center window has a wrought iron balcony. There are curved transom bars in the third-story windows. The cornice above the third story has console brackets on either end and is decorated with dentils and modillions.
The top two stories are asymmetrical. The western (left) pavilion on 37th Street has a rusticated fourth-story facade with a tripartite window; the mansard roof of the western pavilion begins at the fifth story. Within the center and eastern (right) pavilions on 37th Street, the lower half of the fourth story has a smooth facade, while the mansard roof begins at the upper half of the fourth story. The fourth story of the center pavilion has a partial dormer window, whose round pediment protrudes slightly from the roof; there are two smaller windows on either side. Within the eastern pavilion's fourth story, there is a dormer with a segmentally arched pediment above a pair of windows. On the fifth story, there are rounded dormer windows in the center and eastern pavilions and a square dormer in the western pavilion. The copper cresting above the roof has shell decorations.
Features
Structural features The house is constructed with a steel superstructure. Each floor slab is made of metal arches covered with concrete, which at the time of the house's completion was known as the Roebling method of fireproofing. To prevent fires from spreading inside the house, the various rooms are divided by terracotta partitions. The basement also included white-tiled kitchens in addition to boilers. There were also call buttons on each floor. Though the entire house was equipped with a heating system when it was built, De Lamar's daughter Alice recalled that she seldom felt any heat.
When the house was constructed, it included five lifts. There was one elevator each for residents and servants; a dumbwaiter; an elevator to bring ashes from the basement to the street; and a vehicle elevator. The residents' elevator traveled only to the fifth floor, while the servants' elevator served every story and measured . The vehicle elevator, marked only by a metal plate on sidewalk level, descended to De Lamar's garage in the basement.
Interior
The house has 22 rooms, including seven with ceiling murals painted by Italian artisans. The murals depict angels, women, people dressed in 18th-century attire, and putti. A spiral staircase rises through the building; it is flanked by fluted columns at the ground floor and topped by a skylight.
At the ground (first) story, the entrance hall has a bronze grille designed in the Beaux-Arts style. On either side of a main hallway are double doors leading to the house's ground-story rooms; the doors are surrounded by moldings and topped by lintels. A billiards room and a library occupy the Madison Avenue (west) side of the house, while a dining room occupies the east side. After the mansion became a clubhouse in the 1920, the entrance hall's conservatory became a coatroom. Alice De Lamar recalled that there was originally "a fountain with plants and marble figures" at the bottom of the staircase landing.
The second floor includes an art gallery or Pompeian room to the east, a ballroom to the west, and a music room in the center. The ballroom and music room have a gilded ceiling cornice surrounding a ceiling, which is decorated with a mural by Louis Schaettle, Passing of the Season. The ballroom's walls have gilded pilasters interspersed with lighting sconces and fabric panels. Within the music room, the walls are topped by a gilded entablature, and there is a musicians' gallery suspended above part of the room, connecting the ballroom and Pompeian room. Alice recalled that there was a gilt grand piano in the music room. Within the Pompeian room, the walls are wainscoted with wooden panels, interspersed with Doric columns, and there is a marble fireplace mantel on one wall. Above the Pompeian room's columns are a painted frieze and stained glass panels, the latter of which are backlit. The ceiling is coffered, and there is a panel in the middle. Originally, the Pompeian room had red walls and a Persian carpet, and several murals by Schaettle were placed on the walls.
The upper stories were used as bedrooms. On the third story is the former breakfast room, as well as three bedrooms, all with baths. One of the third-story bedrooms was used by J. R. De Lamar, while the other two were guest rooms. The easternmost third-story room has paneling and a frieze on the walls. Its ceiling is painted and has a crystal chandelier and dentils. On the fourth floor is the former sewing room and two additional bedrooms with baths, one of which was for Alice De Lamar. The fifth floor contains the former housekeeper's bedroom and various servants' bedrooms. There is also an attic within the mansard roof, which has a laundry room and a gymnasium. The original bedrooms were redecorated with blue velour after the original art in these rooms was stolen in the late 1910s and early 1920s.
History Joseph Raphael De Lamar was a Dutch-born merchant seaman who was born around 1843. After becoming the captain of his own ship in the 1860s, he made a fortune in mining and metallurgy in Colorado and Idaho through the late 19th century. De Lamar also served in the Idaho Senate before ultimately deciding to move to New York City, where he lived at 109 Madison Avenue. He married Nellie Sands in 1893, and Sands gave birth to their only child, Alice, two years later. The De Lamar family was living in Paris at the time. De Lamar divorced Sands soon after their daughter was born. He moved back to New York City with his daughter and decided to construct a grand house in New York City.
Residential use