On the market for only the third time ever, New York City’s historic “Dommerich Mansion” has been listed with a dizzying price tag of $72 million, according to Mansion Global.
In 1917, businessman Otto Dommerich commissioned architect Henry C. Pelton, who designed Riverside Church and The Cloisters, to build the residence for his family, the listing states.
The opulent townhouse at 69th Street is located in the neighborhood once known as “Bankers’ Colony”––an area from East 68th and 71st streets and extending to Madison and Park avenues––where many wealthy families in finance lived in the late 19th to 20th century. The neighborhood was equivalent to what is now referred to as “Billionaire’s Row” on 57th Street.
Stretching 44 feet wide, the extravagant Dommerich Mansion is one of only 11 others, from East 60th to East 96th streets, and from Fifth to Park avenues, that measure 44 feet or wider.
Pelton demolished two earlier homes to build the lavish mansion, designed in the neo-French classical style with a limestone façade. The listing notes that the mansion mimics elegant, classic designs of previous eras for a refined, luxuriant feel.
A curved staircase, approximately 22 feet in diameter, ascends to a stained glass dome that is illuminated from above. Light shines throughout the front and rear of the seven-floor (plus basement) townhome with 15-foot ceilings and 14 uniquely-designed marble fireplaces.
There is 3,350 square feet of outdoor space, with a terrace on the second floor, a terrace off the solarium, and the possibility of an additional roof terrace overlooking Fifth Avenue and Central Park. Two original elevators stop at all levels. Details of the original construction have survived in 36 original drawings.
Dommerich sold the residence to the Henry George School of Social Science in 1943. Later, in 1980, it was again sold to James W. Smith Jr., who was a plastic surgeon and professor at Weill Cornell Medical College. When Smith died in 2006, the mansion was utilized as a Center for Specialty Care until last May.
The listing at 50 E. 69th St. is held by Paula Del Nunzio of Brown Harris Stevens.
Images courtesy of Brown Harris Stevens
