Joseph Duveen Residence 15 East 91st Street New York, N.Y. 10128 Charles M. MacNeill (c.1871–1923) was born in Oak Park, Ill. After graduating from high school he went into the mining business, beginning as a cashier with a Colorado smelting firm. At the age of 33 he was made President of the Utah Mining Company. Over the next two decades he became President of the Chino Copper Company, Vice President of the Replogle Steel Company, and a Director of a number of other corporations. A Trustee of Colorado College, he was also active for many years in the National Guard of Colorado. His club memberships included the Union League, Piping Rock and Turf and Field of New York, the Denver and Denver Country Clubs; the Cheyenne Mountain Country Club; the Pacific Union of San Francisco; and the Travelers of Paris. In 1910 MacNeill married Miss Marion Parsons Irwin of New York while in Paris. The couple had no children. In 1916 MacNeill purchased a plot measuring 111.9 by 100.8 feet at the northwest corner of East 91st Street and Madison Avenue. The entire south side of that block – from Fifth to Madison Avenues – was owned by Andrew Carnegie, who wanted to ensure that only homes of quality would be erected across from his own mansion on the opposite side of the street. MacNeill commissioned Frederick J. Sterner to design a Renaissance-style mansion with several unusual features. Constructed with a limestone exterior above a stone street wall, the 91st Street side featured a large Palladian window that provided natural light for the 35 by 35 foot salon on the main floor. The entrance was through the protected interior garden, and there was a large central hallway that was open to full height of the house. Two elevators provided access between the five floors. Mr. MacNeill died of pneumonia at his home on March 17, 1923, after an illness lasting less than two days. Following MacNeill's death, the mansion was sold to Joseph Duveen (1869–1939), who commissioned John Russell Pope to design alterations to the house, including a two-story art gallery with tall windows along the street side. Joseph Duveen is considered by many to be one of the most influential art dealers of all time. The eldest of thirteen children of Sir Joseph Joel Duveen, a Jewish-Dutch immigrant who created a prosperous import business in Hull, Joseph took over the family business upon his father's death in 1909. The Duveen business had offices in London, Paris and New York. Duveen is famously attributed with stating, "Europe has a great deal of art, and America has a great deal of money." Duveen bought art from declining European aristocrats and sold them to millionaires in the United States, including notable clients as J. P. Morgan, Henry Clay Frick, Andrew Mellon, John D. Rockefeller, and many others. He is credited with bringing great works of art from Europe to American, ultimately helping to form many notable collections now in museums. However, the Duveen brothers had a less-than-stellar reputation in their art dealings, at times being accused of colluding with so-called experts to bolster the value of paintings. Duveen donated many paintings and gave considerable sums to British galleries and museums. The Duveen Gallery of the British Museum was built to house the Elgin Marbles, and he funded a major extention to the Tate Gallery. For his philanthropy he was knighted in 1919, created a Baronet in the City of Westminster in 1927, and raised to the peerage as Baron Duveen, of Millbank in the City of Westminster in 1933. Joseph Duveen married Elsie Soloman, on July 31, 1899. They had one daughter, Dorothy (1903-1985). In 1938, Lord Duveen purchased a large estate in the outskirts of London with plans to make his residence there. In late April 1938, the New York mansion was placed on the market for $1,000,000, but there were no attractive offers. Lord Duveen died on May 25, 1939 at the age of 69, and in the fall of 1939, Mutual Life Insurance foreclosed on the mortgage. The mansion was torn down in 1940 and replaced by an apartment building. |
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