Nathaniel L. McCready House, Historic residence on East 75th Street, Upper East Side, New York, US.
The Nathaniel L. McCready House is a mansion in the Upper East Side featuring French Renaissance architecture with detailed stone work. Its limestone exterior and ornamental iron railings on the second floor reflect the style typical of grand residences from that era.
The McCreadies bought two 75th Street plots in 1894 and had Trowbridge, Colt & Livingston design the house, finished in January 1896. In 1917 V. Everit and Edith Carpenter Macy turned it into a rest house for American combatants of World War I. Thomas J. Watson of IBM bought it in 1940 and hosted heads of state from the United Kingdom, Greece, Brazil and Uruguay; Rebekah Harkness based the Harkness Ballet there from 1964 until 1975.
During the 1960s, dancer and philanthropist Rebekah Harkness used the house as a center for her ballet company, with rehearsals and performances happening within its walls. This connection to the dance world gave the property a role in shaping New York's performing arts scene.
The mansion stands at 4 East 75th Street, between Fifth and Madison Avenues, a block lined with other limestone facades of the same period. Only the exterior can be seen from the street; the interior was gutted in a four-year renovation after 2011. The site is a short walk from Central Park and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Rebekah Harkness bought the house in 1964 and ran the Harkness Ballet from it until she disbanded the company in 1975; her uncle-in-law Edward S. Harkness had built a mansion across the street about fifty years earlier. In 2011 Larry Gagosian paid $36 million for it and had architect Annabelle Selldorf gut the interior, leaving only the limestone facade.
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