The mansion’s two roofs, one above the entryway and another on the very top of the building, have been recently painted white in order to reflect sunlight and conserve energy. White roof paint reflects solar energy at a rate of 90% (as opposed to the standard black roof reflective rate of 20%). The white roof coating acts as a reflective surface that creates a more energy efficient environment for 60 East 93rd Street, as well as decreasing the amount of heat returned to the atmosphere.

Carlton Hobbs has painted the roof white in order to support the mission of the White Roof Project, whose initiative it is to get every rooftop in New York City made white in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and improve energy efficiency. This initiative is further supported by the New York Times article exploring white roofs’ cost efficiency. In the article, a couple from California recounts how, after painting their roof white, the interior temperature on a 100 degree hot summer’s day dropped from 115 degrees to 80 degrees¹. After painting our roof, benefits from the new roof could be felt immediately within the building.

1.Barringer, Felicity. “By Degrees: White Roofs Catch On as Energy Cost Cutters.” The New York Times, July 29, 2009.

Mrs. Burke was actually named Virginia after her glamorous grandmother. She kindly explained the riddle of Virginia Vanderbilt’s peculiar nickname, which we had wondered about for some time: she had a delicate, petite figure, so the fitting nickname “Birdie” her father gave her stuck through life. (We permitted ourselves the observation that Mrs. Virginia Burke inherited this slight and most elegant stature from her grandmother, together with her first name.)

Mrs. Burke has served as a Chair for the Society of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, and  is currently a resident of Palm Beach, FL, where she serves on the Board of Directors for the Peggy Adams Animal Rescue League, a non-profit, no-kill shelter celebrating its 86th year of operation. We were, of course, delighted to meet a fellow animal rescue advocate, but it was a particular pleasure to meet Mrs. Burke as a direct descendant of the first owner of our building, whose brilliant design decisions in collaboration with John Russel Pope suffuse all of the spaces and are a joy to us every day.

Thelma Chrysler Foy, image courtesy of David Patrick Columbia's New York Social Diary.

After Birdie’s death in 1935, the mansion was bought by Chrysler daughter Thelma Foy, older daughter of Chrysler founder and automobile giant Walter Chrysler. She had married Byron C. Foy, a partner in a Chrysler dealership and later vice president of the Chrysler Corporation, in 1924. Thelma Foy was a fashion devotee and arts patroness who was reportedly voted among the ten best-dressed women, according to her obituary in Time Magazine. She is also mentioned in the press release for the de Young museum’s exhibition “Balenciaga and Spain” among “…some of the twentieth-century’s most notable tastemaking women…”

Thelma Chrysler Foy was a renowned socialite who enjoyed fête-ing fellow members of the privileged set. She famously hosted many parties in her new mansion at 60 East 93rd Street, a mansion that she had furnished with all 18th century French Furniture and Impressionist paintings via Robert Samuels of French and Company. The always well-heeled Thelma reportedly indulged in long-stemmed roses for her dining room during all occasions. The Foys stayed at their 60 E 93rd Street mansion until eventually moving in to the famously luxurious residence at 740 Park Avenue in 1954.

Mrs. Foy made her name as an arts patron by donating several prized items to public institutions, most notably Pablo Picasso’s “The Artist” to the Metropolitan Museum of Art given in 1952. Also presented to the Metropolitan Museum were pieces from her early 18th century French furniture collection, as well as several articles of clothing from various fashion houses of note, including the House of Dior and House of Balenciaga collections. In her later life she collected Chinese art, and from this collection she gave three rare and extremely valuable Chinese porcelain vases to the Flint Institute of the Arts in Flint, Michigan, where she had spent time as a child.

"The Actor" by Pablo Picasso. Image Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

No expense was spared in the materials used in the house. The grand staircase and all of the woodwork were made from mahogany; the locks and hinges were hand-chiseled, engraved and gilded by Bricard in Paris; the limestone used on the façade and the interior entranceway was brought in from France; and on the first and second levels the flooring was custom-made to match the antique parquet used on the third floor. A balcony on the second level had a trellis crowned with a lead-coated ziggurat-patterned copper cornice. Four entire 18th-century antique paneled rooms were imported, two from England in the Kentian style and one from France.

John Russell Pope

For her building at 60 East 93^rd Street, Virginia Graham Fair Vanderbilt employed John Russell Pope (1874-1937), one of the grandest architects of the time, to design the mansion on 93rd Street. After earning his architectural degree from Columbia University in 1894, Pope won a fellowship at the American Academy in Rome, and spent the next few years in Europe, winning the Prix Jean Leclaire during his studies at the Ecole des Beaux Arts, and the Premiere Seconde Medaille for the restoration of the wells in the hospital of St. Jean d’Angers. Pope returned to New York in 1900 and worked for a few years under Bruce Price before opening his own practice to become one of the leading architects of his era.

Today, Pope is best known for two of his Neoclassical designs: the Jefferson Memorial and the West Building of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, which were both modeled after the Roman Pantheon. In many of his works, Pope employed elements from a variety of styles that he encountered during his sojourn in Europe, masterfully transforming them to suit his modern buildings. Pope’s other projects include the Theodore Roosevelt Memorial at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City; the Baltimore Museum of Art; Constitution Hall and the National Archives Building in Washington; the War Memorial at Montfaucon, France; and additions to the Tate Garry and British Museum in London.

The Jefferson Memorial

National Gallery of Art-West Building Washington, D.C.

William Kissam Vanderbilt, II

Born in San Francisco, Virginia Graham Fair (1875-1935) was known throughout her life as “Birdie.” She was the younger daughter of James Graham Fair (1831-1894), an Irish immigrant who had made a fortune mining the Comstock Lode in Nevada in the 1870s. In 1899, Birdie married the young millionaire William Kissam Vanderbilt II (1878-1944), president of the New York Central Railroad Company, with whom she had three children: Muriel (1902-1982); Consuelo (1903-1994); and William Kissam III (1907-1933). After ten years of marriage, the Vanderbilts separated. Birdie, who continued to use the Vanderbilt name after the divorce was finalized in 1927, began dividing her time between homes in Manhattan, Jericho, Long Island, and her native California. She also established her own horse racing stable, named Fair Stable, which achieved great success: one of her horses, the legendary Sarazen, was awarded the title of U.S. Horse of the Year in 1924 and 1925, and was inducted into the United States’ National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame.

Thoroughbred Champion horse Sarazen

As a millionaire heiress, Birdie had the means to commission grand buildings. She and her sister Tessie worked together on a few projects, including Rosecliff mansion in Newport, Rhode Island, which was designed by Stanford White after the Grand Trianon in Versailles, and completed in 1902. That same year, the sisters began constructing the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco as a monument to their father. They sold their shares just days before the 1906 San Francisco earthquake struck, but in 1908 Tessie repurchased the property and hotel was eventually completed.

Entryway

Virginia Graham Fair Vanderbilt

It was by chance that she discovered the ideal location. An interior designer friend of hers mentioned that the Lycée Français was selling one of its buildings, the former Vanderbilt Mansion at 60 East 93rd Street. A visit to New York confirmed that there could be no better place for the new home of Carlton Hobbs than the former home of Virginia Graham Fair Vanderbilt and the rest, as the say, is history.

Read More: Carlton Hobbs Mansion: New York Observer