Inside the wild 54-room triplex of Marjorie Merriweather Post
The largest apartment in NYC history.
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Research legendary prewar apartments in New York City, and it won’t take long to stumble upon the 54-room triplex of Marjorie Merriweather Post. Occupying the top three floors of 1107 Fifth Avenue at East 92nd Street, Marjorie’s mansion in the sky—the city’s first penthouse—is the largest apartment ever constructed in New York.
Custom built, lavishly furnished, and ultimately a victim of its own opulence, we’ll pore over the floorplan, the (many) photos, and see how this remarkable home represents a distinct moment in Fifth Avenue’s history when mansions fell to make way for impressive apartments—and how even those, too, weren’t long for this world.
Who was Marjorie Merriweather Post?
Heir to the Post Consumer Brands fortune, Marjorie was a businesswoman, socialite, and philanthropist with a love of beautiful things and impressive homes. She inherited ownership of the company—and her family’s $20M fortune (~$635M today)—at 27 when her father passed away in 1914.
During her four marriages, she racked up an impressive collection of real estate, which included Hillwood in D.C., Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Camp Topridge in the Adirondacks, and the yacht Sea Cloud, once the world’s largest private yacht. It was during her first and second marriages, to Wall Street broker Edward B Close (Glenn Close’s grandfather!) and successful financier Edward F. Hutton, respectively, when the 54-room triplex came about.
The best deal on Fifth Avenue
In September of 1916, Marjorie and her first husband, Edward Close, made headlines in The New York Times after purchasing the I. Townsend Burden mansion on the corner of East 92nd Street and 5th Avenue for $1,000,000—about $30,000,000 today1.
Their purchase was unusual. Expensive and high-maintenance Gilded Age mansions were quickly falling out of favor thanks in large part to the Revenue Act of 1913 which introduced federal income tax and curtailed the spending power of many families. Meanwhile, grand apartment buildings were growing in popularity on Fifth and nearby2.
Just eight years later, in 1924, Marjorie made headlines again—this time with her second husband, E.F. Hutton—to announce the sale of their home.
“Mr and Mrs Edward F. Hutton, who before long will give up their house at 2 East Ninety-Second Street, gave a farewell dance there last night…It is their intention to dispose of it and make their home in one of the modern apartments now being constructed.”
The party was fabulous (with a performance by Fanny Brice!), and Marjorie had another reason to celebrate: She negotiated an incredible deal with one of the city’s leading developers. While many families sold their mansions in the 1920s due to financial distress3, Marjorie and her Raisin Bran fortune were anything but cash strapped. Instead, she seized on a business opportunity.
The George A. Fuller Construction Company, builder of The Flatiron Building, wanted to buy Marjorie’s mansion to erect a 14-story apartment house by architects Rouse & Goldstone. It was good timing, because Marjorie was reportedly growing annoyed by noisy Fifth Avenue. She decided to sell, but only if the developer agreed to recreate her mansion as the penthouse and maintain her East 92nd Street address, even though the building would be at 1107 Fifth Avenue.
They agreed, and the largest apartment in New York was built, complete with 54 rooms, 16 fireplaces4, 23 staff rooms, a flower room, silver room, wine room, gown closet—and a private elevator, attended lobby, and dedicated side entrance, whose address was 2 East 92nd Street.
Let’s Go Inside
Just like any prewar apartment, her triplex can be subdivided into three zones: public, private, and staff rooms.
Here is the full floorplan:
The public rooms
A porte-cochere on East 92nd Street for the exclusive use of Marjorie and her guests led to a private attended lobby and elevator. The elevator opened directly onto the foyer, which also doubled as a ballroom. The foyer was anchored by an oversized arched window facing Central Park and an elaborately carved skylit marble staircase.
Cleverly, the building’s main elevator banks were tucked behind the massive apartment’s staircase. The small mirrored door (pictured above) connected to a vestibule and the elevator hall in the event Marjorie need to access more than her private elevator while she was throwing a party.
The foyer was bookended by the library and drawing rooms. The library featured wood paneling from the old mansion, which was safely stored during demolition and installed in the penthouse.
The dining room was to the back of the foyer and had a marble mantlepiece that was also salvaged from the old mansion. Directly outside the dining room was the breakfast room with bronze metalwork.
Private Rooms
The second and third floors were home to sitting rooms, bedrooms, and sleeping porches. I am especially fond of the “gown closet” off of Marjorie’s bedroom. The third floor had the wraparound terrace, partly used for laundry, partly used as a children’s playground.
Staff Quarters
You know my favorite parts are the staff quarters, which make up over half of the apartment. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find pictures of even the kitchen —wouldn’t you have loved to see the kitchen / larder / butler’s pantry? There are 23 staff bedrooms alone, and that does not count the kitchens (plural), laundry rooms, work rooms, sitting rooms, dining rooms, and offices.
What I find most interesting are the different categories of staff in the household: Parlor maid, laundress, valet, butler, personal maid, and secretary. There are also “extra” maids rooms which implies that maids could be hired as needed for larger events.
The triplex falls on hard times
Despite being custom built to Marjorie’s specifications, the triplex was a rental. Marjorie signed a 15-year lease at $75,000/year ($1.35M/year in today’s money) and stayed through 1942. It may seem surprising that one of New York’s wealthiest socialites was renting, but many early apartment buildings in New York debuted as rental and then converted to co-op in the 1950s.
By the time she moved out, tastes had changed dramatically in the wake of WWII, and the market for a 54-room apartment had dried up. The New York Times reported on the vacant apartment in 1944:
“Higher taxes, restricted incomes and the servant problem are among the reasons why there is little prospect of finding a new occupant. In some quarters it was figured that the apartment might be “worth” $30,000 a year, but there are no offers.”
In 1951, it was announced that the large suites of 1107 Fifth Avenue, most of which were custom fitted for original tenants, would be cut up and redeveloped for the more modern New Yorker. The 54-room triplex, vacant for almost a decade, would become nine apartments.
Remnants of the past
While I have not been able to track down what happened to the paneling in the main entertaining rooms, it doesn’t seem like all of the apartment has been lost.
The breakfast room survives at Hillwood in Washington, D.C., where it has been since the 1950s. Even though the ceiling was lost, it’s nice to see that the original furniture intact.
In 2014, the entire third floor of the triplex—now the penthouse of 1107 Fifth, sold for $30,900,000, and there are a few rooms that sport French paneling and mantlepieces that are consistent with the look of the Post apartment, leading me to believe that those rooms survived the 1950s redevelopment.
In 2019, part of the second floor, including Marjorie’s bedroom, sold for $21,000,000. It was one of the filming locations in the HBO Series The Undoing.
Ralph Lauren reportedly owns the lion’s share of the former penthouse, which he has renovated to look more like an airy downtown loft. I won’t fault him, since I’m sure by the time he got to the apartments—it seems he’s bought up a few in the building—the fabulous woodwork was long gone, and he was more responding to the proportions of the space than anything else.
This apartment is one of those emblems of Manhattan history that keep the fantasy old New York alive. Whenever I run or bike past 1107 Fifth, I always look up, especially at sunset when the light catches that gigantic oversized window, and I wonder about what it’s like to look out over Central Park and reflect on how that window was once the first thing people saw when they entered what was once the crown jewel of the city, the 54-room triplex of Marjorie Merriweather Post.
"Realty Event in Sale of I. Townsend Burden Mansion on Upper Fifth Avenue." The New York Times, 3 Sept. 1916, p. 81.
Ibid.
The New York Times. "Vanderbilt and Astor Holdings Are to Be Sold." January 10, 1920, p. 1.
I think… I tried to count, so please allow for human error!
54 rooms! What a time to be alive. Loved reading this!
This was such a fascinating read - I just finished a book on her. I’d love more deep dives on nyc homes of iconic historical figures!!