George F. Baker Jr. Houses

The George F. Baker Jr. Houses are a complex of brick buildings at 67, 69, and 75 East 93rd Street in the Carnegie Hill neighborhood of Manhattan's Upper East Side. All of the buildings in the complex, on the northwest of the intersection with Park Avenue, were designed by Delano & Aldrich. The three-story house at the intersection (#75) was built for Francis F. Palmer in 1918, and bought by George F. Baker Jr. in 1927, a year after Palmer's death. Baker built the rest of the complex, edging a courtyard. #75 has been owned by the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia since 1958. The Classical American Homes Preservation Trust (CAHPT) bought #69 in 1997 and used the building as its headquarters until 2020. The Baker family sold #67 in 1988 and it was used as a private residence or an art gallery until it was acquired by the CAHPT in 2018. The complex was listed in the National Register in 1982 and as part of the Park Avenue Historic District. The buildings are New York City landmarks as well as part of the Carnegie Hill local historic district.

One of the improvements George Fisher Baker Jr. (1878-1937) made to the house built for Francis F. Palmer in 1918 at 75 E. 93rd Street was the addition of a ballroom wing in 1928, which has been adapted to be the church cathedral. Baker Jr. married Edith Brevoort Kane in 1911 and the couple had four children. Baker Jr. was vacationing on a yacht in 1937 when he was stricken with appendicitis. An emergency appendectomy was performed at sea by his personal physician and one hailed from a passing ship, but Baker Jr. died in Honolulu soon afterwards. It was said to be the first vacation the banker had taken in 30 years! His widow lived until 1977 but sold the house at #75 in 1958.

Baker Jr.'s father, George F. Baker Sr. (1840-1931), was one of the wealthiest men in America and a close friend of another powerful financier, J. P. Morgan. For many years, Baker Sr. was the Chairman of The First National Bank of New York (later First National City Bank and even later Citibank). Baker Sr. was a noted philanthropist and donated funds to build the Harvard's Business school campus in Boston in the 1920s. The townhouse at 67 E. 93rd Street was built as a residence for Baker Sr. by his son, Baker Jr., but the elder Baker died in 1931 while still living on Madison Avenue. The Baker family installed a railroad spur line in the basement, with private cars linked to the tracks beneath Park Avenue! The townhouse was occupied or owned by succeeding generations of Bakers until 1988, when George F. Baker IV sold it to Richard H. Jenrette. Jenrette used the townhouse at #67 as one of his residences and the building at #69 as his office.

Richard Hampton Jenrette (1929-2018) earned an MBA at Harvard and founded the Wall Street firm of Donaldson Lufkin Jenrette in 1960 with two of his former classmates. The company went public in 1970 and was the first investment firm in the country to do so. After the company was sold to Equitable Life Assurance Society in 1985, Jenrette served as The Equitable's Chairman and CEO from 1987 to his retirement in 1996. Jenrette was called by some "the last gentleman on Wall Street." One of Jenrette's hobbies was restoring old homes; he wrote a book on the topic in 1995 - Adventures with Old Houses - and jokingly called himself a "house-aholic." He passed away in 2018 at one of his beloved old homes, the Roper House in Charleston, South Carolina. Jenrette gifted his residence, 67 E. 93rd Street, and several other historic homes to the CAHPT - an organization he had founded - upon his death. The mission of the CAHPT is to "preserve protect and open to the public examples of classic American architecture, surrounding landscapes, and scenic trails..." His primary residence in his later years was Edgewater, an 1824 mansion on the Hudson River in Duchess County, N.Y. that Jenrette bought in 1969 from the author Gore Vidal.

The building at 69 E. 93rd Street was built as a carriage house/garage with an apartment above by George F. Baker Jr. A distinctive feature of the building is a colonnade on its east facade, facing the "French courtyard." Four pairs of fluted ionic columns frame a second-floor loggia. CAHPT put #67 and #69 up for sale in 2021. Tours have been suspended due to the covid pandemic.

A Touch of Business. The Biography Summary of Richard H. Jenrette, A Touch of Business. July 5th 2018. Accessed August 20th 2021. https://atouchofbusiness.com/business-biographies/richard-jenrette/.

Blake, Lindsay. The Francis F. Palmer House from 'Gossip Girl', IAMNOTASTALKER. Blog.. September 1st 2017. Accessed August 20th 2021. https://www.iamnotastalker.com/2017/09/01/the-francis-f-palmer-house-from-gossip-girl/.

Classical American Homes Preservation Trust. History, George F. Baker Houses. January 1st 2021. Accessed August 18th 2021. https://classicalamericanhomes.org/george-f-baker-houses-history/.

Covell, Anne B. Goeschel, Nancy. NRHP Nomination of George F. Baker Jr. and Sr. Houses, New York, N.Y.. National Register. Washington, DC. National Park Service, 1981.

Hershey, Robert D., Jr. "Richard Jenrette, 89, Wall St. Broker and Preserver of Homes, Dies." The New York Times (New York, NY) April 23rd 2018. Obituaries sec.

Phillips, Karen. George Fisher Baker Jr. (1878-1937) Memorial #158857002, Find a Grave. March 3rd 2016. Accessed August 20th 2021. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/158857002/george-fisher-baker.