Lewis G. Morris House

The dark red brick house on the southeast corner of E. 85th Street and Park Avenue is the Lewis G. Morris House. The 3-1/2 story house was built in 1913 to 1914 for wealthy financier Lewis Gouverneur Morris. Although the current entrance to the house is at the northeast corner of the house near the E. 85th Street sidewalk, the building has been given a Park Avenue address (#1015). The house was listed on the National Register in 1977 and is significant for its Neo-Federal architectural style and as the work of architect Ernest Flagg. Also known as the New World Foundation Building (the new owner in 1968), the building is now owned by a private foundation, the Avi Chai Foundation.

Ernest Flagg (1857-1947), the architect of the Lewis G. Morris House, was a relative of Cornelius Vanderbilt who built a successful practice in New York City after studying at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris. Flagg opened an office in New York in 1891 and designed notable buildings including the 41-story Singer Building on lower Broadway and the Corcoran Art Gallery in Washington. Flagg also designed the first cooperative apartment house in Manhattan at 28th Street and Madison Avenue. Flagg filed papers in early 1913 for building a $50,000 house on the Morris lot in Manhattan.

Park Avenue was transitioning from a middle-class to upper-class neighborhood in the early twentieth century, especially after the train tracks were removed from the street and buried. A wealthy attorney named Amos Pinchot bought up land along Park Avenue and built a stately mansion. Pinchot agreed to sell lots to those who promised to build impressive mansions. One lot-buyer was Lewis G. Morris II.

Lewis Governeur Morris II (1882-1967) was a descendant of governors and judges from New York and New Jersey. Morris was born in Newport, Rhode Island, and graduated from Harvard U. in 1906. Lewis married Alletta Nathalie Lorillard Bailey in 1908, a distant cousin and a champion in women's tennis in the 1910s. Morris was a member of the New York Stock Exchange and a partner in Morris & Pope, a brokerage firm, founded in 1915. The firm was heavily in debt and failed in 1917. Since the house in Manhattan and their Newport mansion were under his wife's name, the family retained ownership. He and his wife were able to successfully argue that Mrs. Morris held all of the couple's assets and Mr. Morris was penniless. Mr. Morris paid a $10,000 fine and spent time in debtor's prison in 1920. He did not go back to advising others how to invest their money, understandably.

Mrs. Morris fell ill in late 1934 and died in the Manhattan house in January 1934. Mr. Morris left the house and leased it in the 1930s and 1940s. Mr. Morris remarried in 1946 to Princess de Braganca, formerly Anita Stewart. The couple later moved into the Manhattan house where they lived until Mr. Morris died at age 85 in 1967. The mansion was purchased by the New World Foundation in 1968 for $400,000. The foundation provides charitable grants for education, health, and research. After decades of ownership, the building changed hands and is now owned by the Avi Chai Foundation, a private foundation founded in 1984 and dedicated to the perpetuation of the Jewish people and Judaism.

The 22-room mansion is built of brick and decorated with stone. The west facade of the building, facing Park Avenue, is only 25 feet wide with two bays; there are two windows on each level, with the second-floor openings leading to a cast iron balcony and the upper level having quarter round fan windows. The main block of the house extends 40 feet along E. 85th Street from its Park Avenue corner and is topped by five dormer windows. The main block turns at a right angle from the sidewalk three times to form a courtyard along E. 85th. The main entrance faces the courtyard at the first right angle turn, reached by marble steps. Tall, narrow stairstep windows face the street from the courtyard, lighting the three levels of staircases inside the connecting wing. Beyond the courtyard is a narrower wing facing E. 85th Street, with a double-doored garage entrance on the first floor. Above the garage entrance are connected oriel windows on the first and second stories with a third-floor balcony atop the second-floor window and quarter round fan windows below the gable roof. The profile of this gable end, as well as the one facing Park Avenue, has a stepped gable top, reminding some of Dutch architecture from colonial New York. Flagg included interior architectural details suitable for his wealthy client, including fluted pilasters, paneled walls, and fancy door and window moldings.

Miller, Thomas. The 1914 Lewis Governeur Morris House - No. 1015 Park Avenue, Daytonian in Manhattan. Blog.. May 17th 2012. Accessed August 19th 2021. http://daytoninmanhattan.blogspot.com/2012/05/1914-lewis-gouveneur-morris-house-no.html.

Ross, Grace. Ralph, E. K. NRHP Nomination of Lewis G. Morris House, New York, N.Y.. National Register. Washington, DC. National Park Service, 1976.