The Felix M. Warburg House is a mansion at 1109 Fifth Avenue on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. The house was built from 1907 to 1908 for the German-American Jewish financier Felix M. Warburg and his family. After Warburg's death in 1937, his widow sold the mansion to a real estate developer. When plans to replace the mansion with luxury apartments fell through, ownership of the house reverted to the Warburgs, who then donated it in 1944 to the Jewish Theological Seminary of America. In 1947, the Seminary opened the Jewish Museum of New York in the mansion. The house was named a New York City designated landmark in 1981 and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1982.
The mansion was designed in the Châteauesque style by C. P. H. Gilbert and retains its original facade, characterized by French Gothic details around the windows and on the roof line. In 1993, Kevin Roche constructed an annex to the house in Gilbert's style built with stone from the same quarry that supplied the original mansion, replacing an extension built in 1963. The interior of the Warburg House, wholly occupied by the Jewish Museum, has a total floor space of . Critical reviews of the original house's architecture have generally been positive, while the extensions, from 1963 and 1993, have had mixed receptions.
Site The Warburg House is located at 1109 Fifth Avenue, on the northeast corner of Fifth Avenue and East 92nd Street, in the Carnegie Hill section of the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. The mansion's lot measures approximately . As originally constructed, the house only used of its Fifth Avenue frontage; the rest was used as a garden. On the block to the south are several mansions, including the Otto H. Kahn House, James A. Burden House, John Henry Hammond House, and John and Caroline Trevor House. The Warburg House was near the north end of Fifth Avenue's Millionaires' Row during the early 20th century, and it is one of numerous buildings on Fifth Avenue's Museum Mile.
History In 1895, German Jewish banker Felix M. Warburg immigrated to the United States to marry Frieda Schiff, a daughter of Jacob Schiff. In turn, Schiff was the head of the New York–based banking house Kuhn, Loeb & Co., which Warburg had joined as a junior partner in 1897. After their honeymoon, the Warburgs moved into a townhouse at 18 East 72nd Street, a wedding gift to Frieda from her father. The Warburgs had four children by 1907 and, needing space, Frieda purchased a lot at the northeast corner of Fifth Avenue and 92nd Street from Perry Belmont. At the time, the surrounding section of Fifth Avenue was known as "Millionaires' Row" because of its wealthy residents.
Private residence To design a new residence on their lot, the Warburgs hired the architect C. P. H. Gilbert, who was at that time building a house for Felix's brother, Paul, and had impressed the family with the mansion he built for Isaac D. Fletcher on Fifth Avenue. In August1907, Gilbert filed plans for the house, which was to cost $260,000 (). By the next month, workers were excavating the site, and Gilbert had hired Barr, Thaw & Fraser Co. to supply limestone for the mansion. A. J. Robinson & Co. had been hired as the building's general contractor, and Gilbert was responsible for interior finishes, including furniture. L. Alavoine & Co. and Messrs. William Baumgarten & Co. were awarded the contract for the house's interior decoration in May 1908.
The house was completed in 1908 and used just of its Fifth Avenue frontage; the rest was used for a lawn. Felix and Frieda moved there with their four children; a fifth child, Edward, was born when the house was completed. According to the 1910 United States census, Frieda and Felix Warburg lived in the house with their five children and 13 servants. The family hosted numerous events at their house. These included the wedding of their daughter Carola in 1916, which was attended by 900 guests; a "dramatic reading" to raise money for World War I relief in 1918; and a fundraiser for Jewish charities in 1928. Frieda took title to the house in January 1924.
On October 20, 1937, Felix Warburg died of a heart attack in the house. Felix had willed all of the possessions and other objects in the Warburg House to Frieda. She remained in the mansion with a son and relatives who had fled Nazi Germany in the 1930s. The house continued to host events such as a meeting of the National Council of Jewish Women in 1938. Rising property tax as a consequence of nearby development greatly strained the Warburgs' finances; by 1941, the city government had appraised the property as being worth $665,000 (), of which the land was worth $625,000 ().
Frieda Warburg rented an apartment at 1070 Fifth Avenue in 1940. In May1941, she sold the mansion to developer Henry Kaufman and architect Emery Roth, who intended to redevelop the site into an eighteen-story apartment building. The New York Herald Tribune reported that the house had been sold for less than $225,000 (). Roth submitted his plans for an apartment house to the New York City Department of Buildings (DOB) in July1941. Work on the site had started by July 27, and Roth and Kaufman had begun purchasing steel and other materials for the new building. However, the developers' plans did not progress further, and Frieda took back control of the house.
The Jewish Museum
On January 14, 1944, Frieda Warburg donated the mansion to the Jewish Theological Seminary of America (JTS), a Conservative Jewish education organization, to commemorate what would have been Felix Warburg's 73rd birthday. She made the donation in memory of her husband, her father, and her brother Mortimer L. Schiff. Percival Goodman was hired to redesign the mansion, and the JTS filed plans with the DOB to convert the building into a museum in September 1944. The renovations were delayed by World War II and, in December1945, the seminary's president Louis Finkelstein announced that work would start immediately. The first and second stories would each contain two exhibition rooms, while the third story would contain six exhibition rooms. The first story would contain the museum's lobby, and the music room on the second story would be turned into an auditorium. In January 1946, the Sheppard Pollack Company was hired to renovate the house for $100,000 ().
The JTS opened the Jewish Museum in the mansion in 1947. The museum held a preview of its first exhibit on May 6, 1947, displaying one thousand items on the Warburg House's first two stories. Two days later, the museum formally opened to the general public. Frieda Warburg said that, when she re-entered the house for the first time after its renovation, "I discovered to my joy that instead of depressing me, it gave me a wonderful feeling of happiness." The museum opened a third exhibition in another story of the house in November 1947. In the two years after it relocated to the Warburg House, the museum had 175,000 visitors; by 1952, it had recorded almost half a million cumulative visitors. Adam List designed a sculpture garden next to the museum, which was dedicated in 1959.
The Warburg House's former lawn was replaced with an annex in 1962. Officials laid the cornerstone for the annex on May 20, 1962. The glass annex was designed by Samuel Glaser Associates and was named for philanthropist Albert A. List, who donated $500,000 toward the project (). The Jewish Museum was temporarily closed for renovations at the end of that month. The project included installing elevators in the Warburg House and a connection to the new annex. The Albert A. List Building opened in February1963. The wing had of space for exhibitions, workshops, and a store. Upon the completion of this wing, the museum's main entrance was relocated to the List Building, and the ground-story windows of the Warburg House were blacked out. During the 1960s, following the completion of the List Building, the museum evolved into an exhibition space for modern art.
Preservation In 1970, the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) considered designating the Warburg House a city landmark, which the Jewish Museum successfully opposed. The JTS continued to own the building in the 1970s, even as the seminary discontinued its funding of the museum. By April1981, however, the LPC was again debating whether to preserve the Warburg House as a city landmark. At the time, the museum wished to replace the List Building with a 25-story tower containing both museum space and apartments, which would require modifications to the Warburg House. The JTS again opposed designation, arguing that it would prevent the museum from modifying the mansion without the LPC's permission and significantly increase the cost of maintenance. According to the Seminary, the museum had an annual deficit of $200,000 (), and it needed another $500,000 () to perform structural repairs to the Warburg House.
More than 1,000 people signed a petition requesting the LPC grant landmark status to the Warburg House. Manhattan Community Board 8, representing the surrounding neighborhood, voted in November 1981 to recommend that the LPC not designate the building as a landmark. Many local residents did not agree with this decision, and the LPC received over 100 letters supporting landmark protection. On November 24, 1981, the LPC designated the mansion as a city landmark; the designation excluded the List Building. Subsequently, seven local groups and 70 preservationists formed the Alliance to Preserve the Warburg Mansion, which circulated a petition opposing the tower. The New York City Board of Estimate unanimously ratified the designation in April1982, after the Jewish Museum submitted a modified plan for the tower, but the museum subsequently abandoned its plans for the tower project. The Warburg House was then added to the National Register of Historic Places on October 29, 1982.
Expansion Jewish Museum director Joan Rosenbaum and philanthropist Dorothy Rodgers announced in June1985 that they planned to expand the museum. At the time, the museum had a collection of 14,000 objects, but the Warburg House and the List Building could only accommodate a few hundred objects simultaneously. The museum briefly considered opening a satellite location. These plans were abandoned by May 1988, when Rosenbaum announced that the museum had hired architect Kevin Roche of Roche, Dinkeloo & Associates to design a seven-story annex north of the original building at a projected cost of $17 million. The LPC endorsed plans for the annex, which was to be designed in an identical style to the original mansion.
Construction began in November1990 and lasted two and a half years. The Jewish Museum agreed to relocate to the New-York Historical Society building for the duration of the project, which ultimately cost $36 million. The work included completely reconstructing the List Building and transforming its interior into a 232-seat auditorium, enlarging the museum's gross floor area from , and moving its main entrance to 92nd Street. The annex was clad with limestone from the quarry that had supplied the original construction. The museum reopened on June 13, 1993.
The museum completed a renovation of its third-floor galleries in January2018. The renovation, designed by Tsao & McKown Architects, involved removing a staircase and unsealing some windows that faced west toward Central Park. In the mid-2020s, the galleries on the third and fourth floors were renovated as part of a project that was scheduled to be completed in 2025. In addition, a restaurant named Lox opened in the Warburg House in 2024. The Jewish Museum completed a $14.5 million expansion of the Warburg House's third and fourth floors in October 2025, opening the fourth floor to the public for the first time.
Architecture