Image via Complex Original
You may not know who Albert B Fall is, but as the first former US Cabinet member to have been convicted of fraud and sentenced to prison, you certainly should. The Tea Pot Dome scandal was, until Watergate, considered the most sensational scandal in the history of American politics, and besides Fall, made several others quite rich as well. One was none other than Harry Ford Sinclair, the owner and founder of Sinclair Oil. Through bribes and other nefarious dealing,s Sinclair secured Naval oil reserves with low cost contracts, earning him his vast fortune. Although the construction of the house at 2 E 79th Street was not commissioned by him, it is Sinclair’s name that is associated with what is now the Ukrainian Institute.
Find out how the building went from national scandal to National Landmark.
Railroad Tycoon Dreams
The house in fact was commissioned by Isaac Dudley Fletcher, an equally impressively successful banker/railroad tycoon as Sinclair was an oilman. Though neither was a Vanderbilt or Rockefeller, their wealth and power was quite influential. Fletcher, perhaps not wanting to be seen in Vanderbilt’s shadows, wanted his home to rival William’s, the Commodore’s son, home at 660 Fifth Avenue. Fletcher hired C.P.H Gilbert with the freedom to design as he chose. Gilbert’s results were spectacularly eclectic, far outshining his other Gold Coast mansion at 92nd and Fifth.
A Chaotic Design
The home is considered to be French Gothic, but it truly looks more ecclesiastical than any home of that period. The ornamentation is wild and chaotic and features numerous figures, both large and small scattered around. The entrance is on 79th Street and in fact its frontage on Fifth Avenue is quite small, compared to many of the other buildings, perhaps a testament to the comparatively smaller wealth of its owners.
A Change of Hands
Fletcher died in 1917 and it was then the building ended up with Sinclair, after briefly being held by the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Sinclair’s only modification it is said was the addition of a player organ by 1922, just before the Teapot Dome scandal broke. Sinclair served a brief sentence and when he returned to New York was so disgraced that he reluctantly decided to put his home and refuge up for sale to leave the city permanently. It was purchased by the last remaining heir of the Stuyvesants. When Augustus died in 1953 it eventually ended up with the Ukranian Institute of America.
National Landmark Status
The building is occasionally open to the public, most notably during Open House New York in October, and it is definitely worth the visit. Unlike so many other mansions in the area that have been almost completely gutted inside to make room for the ever expanding needs of the current occupants, the Institute was barely able to earn the minimum $150,000 needed per year to just maintain the building and as a result much of the original remains intact. The building was designated a National Landmark in 1978 and was only modestly restored in 1997.