A Gilded Age Mansion Overlooking Central Park Listed For $50 Million

A landmarked Fifth Avenue mansion that overlooks Central Park is back on the market for $50 million after an electrical fire damaged the first floor. 

The Gilded Age mansion, currently owned by the five successor states to the former Yugoslavia, had originally been listed in 2017 at the same price for the first time in more than 70 years. It was damaged by a fire caused by faulty electrical wiring in December 2018. 

The fire caused damage to two front rooms that were being used as offices, and they have been been renovated, said listing agent Tristan Harper of Douglas Elliman Real Estate. 

There is exterior limestone detailing that still needs to be completed, but the turn-of-the-last-century building is otherwise in good shape, Harper said, with two 115-year-old electric elevators still in operation. 

The mansion was built in 1905 for stockbroker and 52nd Rhode Island Governor Robert Livingston Beeckman, and was designed by Warren & Wetmore, the same architects behind New York’s Grand Central Station. He sold it in 1912 for $725,000, which was a record at the time.

Emily Thorn Vanderbilt, the granddaughter of Cornelius Vanderbilt, and her husband Henry White, purchased the home in 1925, according to Harper. In 1946, after Vanderbilt died, the property was purchased by the former Republic of Yugoslavia in 1946. 

The 20,000-square-foot home is filled with preserved Gilded Age details, including a grand marble staircase inspired by one in the Palace of Versailles, was landmarked by New York City in the 1960s. Ten rooms directly overlook Central Park.

The house also has Cold War remnants, including bulletproof front windows and a metal-padded room-within-a-room known as a Faraday Cage that allowed Yugoslavian government officials to make calls or have conversations without being wiretapped or overheard. Harper said the prestigious address had a lot of interest when it was first listed. 

“It’s the only preserved Gilded Age mansion facing Central Park,” Harper said. “There is no other townhouse on Fifth Avenue that faces Central Park directly.”

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