Andrew Carnegie Mansion, New York, United States

The Andrew Carnegie Mansion is a historic house located at 2 East 91st Street at Fifth Avenue in the Upper East Side of Manhattan. Andrew Carnegie moved into his newly completed mansion in late 1902 and lived there until his death in 1919; his wife, Louise, continued to live there until her death in 1946. The building is now the Cooper-Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, part of the Smithsonian Institution. The surrounding area, part of the larger Upper East Side neighborhood, has come to be called Carnegie Hill. The mansion was named a National Historic Landmark in 1966.

The house is a 3+1⁄2-story structure, finished in brick and stone. It is stylistically an eclectic variation of the Georgian Revival, with stone ashlar corner quoining, windows with heavy stone trim, and a dentillated cornice topped by an urned balustrade. A grassy lawn separates the house from 91st Street, and there is a small garden on its west side. Just east of the mansion proper is a townhouse that was purchased by Carnegie soon after its 1905 construction as a residence for his daughter. This building forms part of the current complex, although its interior has been modernized and converted to office and administrative uses by the Smithsonian.

References:

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Museums in United States

User Reviews

Stephen Nelson (2 years ago)
Amazing historic mansion! Incredible hand-carved woodwork. Displays were not what we expected.

Linda Childs (2 years ago)
What a wonderful experience!! I really liked that parts of Andrew Carnegie's home was still preserved. A really good mixture of new design works & select collection of valuable pieces of furniture & incredible household items: vases, dishes etc. Well worth a visit.

Guido Chiaradia (2 years ago)
It’s really sad what happened to the mansion. The designer of the museum, certainly did not respect the historical value of the building. All the precious titanic wall, are painted in white or covered by some “designs”. It’s a shame that the city did not control de historical value of the place.

Tiffany Wright (2 years ago)
Since the home is a museum for the arts, there are not any interpretive signage text blocks for the former home of Andrew Carnegie. When you get off the elevator on the 2nd floor there is a touch screen with vintage photos of the interior for some insite as to what it looked like as a residence.

Greg Harris (3 years ago)
The Carnegie Mansion is a gorgeous Georgian revival style Mansion at Fifth Avenue in the Upper East Side of Manhattan, New York. The Carnegie Mansion was initially built in 1899 and finally completed in 1902 by Andrew Carnegie, a pioneering steel industrialist and world renowned philanthropist. It served as the primary residence for Andrew Carnegie, his wife, Louis Whitfield and their daughter, Margaret Carnegie Miller. Today, the Carnegie Mansion now serves as the location of the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum. In June of 2021, I brought and treated myself and my wife for a visit of the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design. During our self guided tour, my wife and I learned much about Andrew Carnegie and the history of Carnegie Mansion from the museum’s staff. We learned that the Carnegie Mansion was the first private residence to have a Otis passenger elevator and also contain central heating. Both my wife and I highly enjoyed our visit of this breathtaking historic mansion!!!

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