The Frick House, Mansion, Museum.

Rembrandts and Renoirs,
And Grand Arching Windows,
Titians and Turners,
And Servants with Pillows.

Vermeers and Fragonards – untied from string;
These were a few of Frick’s favorite things!

Henry Clay Frick likely also loved: “Cream colored ponies and crisp apple strudels…Doorbells and sleigh bells and schnitzel with noodles.”

Julie Andrews (by way of Oscar Hammerstein II).

Frick Blazing Early

H.C. Frick was just 21 years-old when he, two cousins and a close friend decided to start a business. They purchased a beehive oven…well, more of a small building, actually, where they could burn coal to create ‘coke,’ – a type of fuel used to create steel. In that same year, 1871, they formed the Frick Coke Company and Frick told his friends he would be a millionaire by the time he was thirty.

Nine years later, after buying his cousins and friend out (with a friendly loan from Andrew Mellon, a close friend), he renamed his corporation H.C. Frick & Company, employed 1000 people and had taken control of eighty percent of the Pennsylvania coal industry. At that time, coal had value as a fuel source and provided an inexpensive and efficient source of power for steam engines, furnaces and metal forges across the United States.

The Honeymoon

In 1881, Frick married Adelaide Childs and the young couple headed off to New York for their honeymoon. While there, Frick met Andrew Carnegie, a fellow master of the universe and the two became good friends. Carnegie, you see, owned the Carnegie Steel Company… so, more than friendship, the two men created a partnership.

The friendship, and indeed the partnership, was ultimately broken over the next few years as Carnegie continually tried to force Frick out (unsuccessfully). A massive labor strike would nearly shut down H.C. Frick and Co., not to mention a brazen assassination attempt on Frick himself which was thwarted. The strike was eventually put down – and despite having actually been shot, Frick was back at his desk within a week’s time – tough to call in for sick days when your boss sets that kind of benchmark.

Art and The Apple

In 1905, Frick moved his growing family to New York, leaving behind “Clayton,” the 11 room mansion they had lived in since their marriage as well as “Eagle Rock,” their 104 room summer estate in Boston’s North Shore.

By the time Frick moved his family to New York, he had started to accumulate quite an impressive art collection, which he moved to the city with his family. A year after moving his family to the city, Frick bought the Lenox Library property at Fifth Avenue between 70th and 71st Streets, and four months later, he added an additional parcel of land which ran fifty-feet East. The goal was to build the finest home not just in the city, but the entire state… and more than that, Frick needed a place to put his collection.

A Stately Manor Indeed

Designed by Thomas Hastings and built from 1912 to 1914 as the grandest residence north of 59th street, the Frick House was constructed of Indiana Limestone. The entire focus of the property was to be a showcase space for a wonderful art collection. In fact, the building was designed from the very start to eventually become a museum following the deaths of Frick and his wife – that’s one way to send a message to your kids that they can’t live at home forever.

The grand halls and gardens would serve, “as a public gallery to which the entire public shall forever have access,” declared Frick.


A Very Very Very Fine House

Beyond a front garden, and past an open, welcoming carriage court the ground floor was designed specifically for the collection – featuring a splendid Reception Hall with grand, arched windows. Interconnected rooms and open space combine for multiple walk through and viewing opportunities.

On the second floor, Frick and Adelaide’s bedroom occupied a large portion of the structure. Down the hall, was their daughter’s bedroom, and the third floor hosted staff quarters for twenty-plus servants who lived and worked at the house full-time – who needs a view, when you can have dozens of servants instead? The basement held a bowling alley, later re-designed as the Frick Art Reference Library, founded in 1920 by Helen Clay Frick as a memorial to her father.

The Fifth Avenue garden, featured neoclassical urns along the limestone façade, and was set back from the sidewalk, behind a tall fence protected by mythic iron griffins. Still, the garden is raised and it’s meant to resemble the stage of a theater, separating it from an ever bustling Gotham.

Henry lived in the residence until he passed away in 1919. When Adelaide passed away in 1931, the mansion was expanded. Under the direction of then Director Frederick Mortimer Clapp, renovation of the collection began. Architect John Russell Pope, a native New Yorker, was selected to make additions and alterations to the existing property. Notably, the garden court at the heart of the museum, approximately 88 feet long and 50 feet wide, was designed by Pope to replace the open carriage court of the original Frick residence.

Pope had previously been involved in designing Yale University’s expansion plan, New York’s Natural History Museum, The Jefferson Memorial and the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. – lots of coffee for Mr. Pope.

More is More

In 1977, a new structure was added to the property. Designed by John Barrington Bayley, with Harry Van Dyke and G. Frederick Poehler, it includes a Reception Hall, Coat Room, and Shop; its lower floor hosts more exhibition galleries like the Oval Room, and the East Gallery. In addition, a combination lecture hall and music room was added as well as an enclosed Garden Court. Simultaneously, a new garden, designed by Architect Russell Page, was added on Seventieth Street to the East of the Collection.

Designed to be viewed from the street, through the arched Reception Hall windows, or from a Pavilion (which was added at the same time), the new addition was created to accommodate increasing attendance at the museum.

Soft and intimate, the garden was intended to resemble an impressionist painting and the plants selected were chosen because they flower year-round. The highlight of Page’s design in the garden is a rectangular pool in the center lawn accented in summer with blue and white tropical lilies and lotus flowers. Vines of clematis and elevating hydrangea cover the trellis, and wisteria vines soften the limestone walls. Page's garden is designed to slow, or stop, a busy New Yorker, to make one pause for a moment — as a respite from the city. Perhaps it will draw your eye, allowing you a brief moment of peace amidst your busy day…perhaps you will pass by while staring at your smart phone, missing it, and wondering when and where you’ll find a garden that looks like a painting – keep your head up, and it will happen friends!

Most recently and in December of 2011 the portico was enclosed to form the new Portico Gallery, which houses sculpture and decorative arts.

A Very Very Very Fine Museum

Considered today to be one of the finest collections of European art in the U.S., the Frick Museum (formerly The Frick House), is home to priceless works by major artists -Rembrandt, Renoir, J.M.W. Turner, Meyndert Hobbema, and Malvina Hoffman, to name a few… dating as far back as pre-Renaissance and as far forward as the post-impressionist era. It is not just home to paintings however; Frick’s collection included carpets from the Orient, sculpture, Limoges enamel (a type of porcelain) and even furnishings – most of which are housed within 16 galleries inside of what was formerly a residential mansion – if any children or kin are in fact still living there, they are doing so very quietly.

Today, you can walk from the airy, Fragonard Room to the Living Hall, which is filled with masterpieces by Holbein, Titian, El Greco, and Bellini. Passing through The Library, which features rich Italian bronze and Chinese porcelain vases, you come to Mr. Frick's West Gallery, a long hall adorned with celebrated canvases including landscapes by Constable, Ruisdael, and Corot and featuring portraits by Rembrandt and Velázquez.

The last painting Mr. Frick bought, Vermeer's Mistress and Maid, is one of three pictures by that artist (whereas there are only approximately 35 Vermeer paintings in the world known to ever exist – so sure, why not nab a few…) in Frick’s collection. Piero della Francesca's image of St. John the Evangelist, commands steep attention as well, in the Enamels Room, and is one of the few paintings by Piero in the United States.

The East Gallery, often featuring works by renowned artists like Goya, Van Dyck, Chardin, Greuze, and others, typically concludes a visit to the galleries. From there you’ll be led into the Garden Court, where you can take a few moments…pause beneath a lovely skylight and the soothing sounds of the fountain.

Next time your friends ask you if you know of any secret bowling alley’s – take them to the Frick Museum instead…you can claimthat you thought the bowling alley in the basement was still functioning. The breathtaking style of life north of 59th street – crafted by a great northeast entrepreneur – not to mention the artwork, should be enough of a reason to have mis-lead them.

The Frick Collection is open Tuesday through Saturday 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. and Sunday from 11:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.

Confetti

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