9 East 68th Street

Sited on a lot 45 feet wide by 100 feet deep, and built 39 feet wide by 93 feet deep, this is a rare opportunity for the first time in 43 years to restore this grand property back to one of New York’s great houses, which as noted in “Great Houses of New York, 1880-1940”, Volume II, this most extraordinary mega mansion had an original drawing room, library, and dining room spanning the full 39’ width of the house. The property may also be developed into condominiums, a co-op, or retained as an investment rental property. This immense, Gilded Age Beaux Arts double width mansion with an interior of 23,450 sq. ft., is open on four sides, and soars past seven levels with ceiling heights of 16’ to a roof height of 79’ above the sidewalk, ending in a seamed copper roof with three copper sheathed dormers.

Erected in 1906 by the architectural firm of Heins & La Farge for the widow of the banker, George T. Bliss, the exterior is reminiscent of a theatrical stage set, with limestone base, buff brick above, and four mighty Ionic columns set on oversized plinths, similar to the architectural style of the English architect, Sir John Soane, particularly for his design for Pitzhanger Manor at Ealing, in West London. A 10’ areaway on the west border of the house allows natural light to fill the center of the house. The interior was a visual splendor filled with artistic riches filling the salon, library and dining room, each room 39’ wide with 16’ ceilings, with an exceptional book and art collection, which Jeanette Bliss shared with her daughter, Susan Dwight Bliss.

Rooms were brought from the great houses of Europe, one of which from the Hotel Crillon in Paris, is on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in the Jayne Wrightsman collection, while others were given to Princeton University and Bowdoin College by Susan Bliss, who died in 1966. John La Farge’s great stained glass window of Susan Bliss, once hanging at the top of the grand staircase of the mansion, is displayed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The mansion is now divided into rental apartments and waiting for its return to one of New York’s most regal mansions, a splendid new project, or retained as is.

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