35 Fifth Avenue

35 Fifth Avenue, the former Hotel Grosvenor, is now the Samuel Rubin Residence Hall of New York University.  Built in 1925 in the Neo-Federal style it is the second of two such buildings by Schwartz & Gross on the avenue, standing diagonally to its sister design at 30 Fifth.  Novelist Willa Cather lived at the building from 1927 through 1932; it was acquired by the university in 1964 and named to honor the prominent philanthropist Samuel Rubin, a member of NYU’s Medical Center Board.

The building replaced the Grosvenor Apartments of 1872, designed by Detlef Lienau as one of the city’s first luxury apartment houses.  Lienau, along with his better-known contemporary, the architect Richard Morris Hunt, was an early proponent of the French Second Empire style; a founding member of the American Institute of Architects, he is credited with helping to popularize the atelier method of architectural study in the US.  Among his best-known surviving works is the Lockwood-Matthews Mansion in Norfolk, CT, an elaborate design that merges elements of the Second Empire and Chateauesque styles. The house appeared as the sinister men’s club in both film versions of The Stepford Wives and as the home of Barnabas Collins the film The House of Dark Shadows.

The Lockwood-Matthews Mansion is open to the public. http://www.lockwoodmathewsmansion.com.

2 responses to “35 Fifth Avenue”

  1. D. Sterner says:

    Great blog!
    I just want to mention one thing on this post: the Lockwood-Matthews Mansion in in Norwalk, not Norfolk. http://historicbuildingsct.com/?p=20119

  2. Carolyn S says:

    Author Rose Wilder Lane, daughter of author Laura Ingalls Wilder, lived here for a time in 1938 when it was the Grosvenor Hotel. At that time the two were working on By the Shores of Silver Lake.

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