Few foreign missions in New York occupy so elegant a building as the Consulate General of India at 3 East 64th Street. It is more a palace than a town house, built in the neo-renaissance style. The 40-room mansion was home to New York socialites Mr. and Mrs. Marshall Orme Wilson, who gave a lavish housewarming party on Jan. 21, 1904; the house, now the seat of the Consulate General of India, still continues its karma of soirees and receptions. (Photo: Courtesy, The New-York Historical Society)

Few foreign missions in New York occupy so elegant a building as the Consulate General of India at 3 East 64th Street. It is more a palace than a town house, built in the neo-renaissance style. As one steps through the huge doors, and stands at the foot of the grand marble stairs, the visitor is bound to wonder about the history of the place. What feet tapped the ballroom floor in bygone times? What music played in its lofty halls? Such questions are answered in an exhibition now on display in the library reading room of the New-York Historical Society (NYHS).

'An Interior for a Gilded Age: The Marshall Orme Wilson Residence, 3 East 64th Street,' brings to life the style in which the rich lived in New York at the turn of the last century. The elegant French renaissance-style house was designed by a leading architectural firm which designed many New York landmarks. The lavish interior was decorated by a French firm; Louis XV and XVI chairs and settles dotted the reception rooms hung with Brussels and French tapestries; the tables glistened with French silver.

This French palace recreated on 64th Street just off Fifth Avenue was the home of Mr. and Mrs. Marshall Orme Wilson, members of the New York elite of the Gilded Age. Mrs. Wilson was the daughter of the Mrs. Astor, Caroline Webster Schermerhorn Astor, unchallenged arbiter of high American society in the last two decades of the 19th and first of the 20th century.

Like her mother, the daughter, nee Caroline Schermerhorn Astor (she had the same name as her mother), gave lavish parties, a karma that New India House seems to have inherited, as it has continued being the scene of sumptuous entertainment despite change of ownership.

Caroline, also known as Carrie, secured her place in New York social history through a coup by her mother, who, after spending years cutting out people she considered nouveau riche, had to admit Alva Vanderbilt, the first wife of railroad tycoon William Kissam Vanderbilt, to her social circle after Alva threatened to block the Astor daughter from a much-awaited costume ball. A photo of Carrie before her marriage, all dressed up for the ball, is on display at NYHS.

The exhibition is a result of a serendipitous find by two researchers, Peter Pennoyer and Anne Walker of the New York firm of Peter Pennoyer Architects, — while working on a book on the architecture of Warren & Wetmore, which designed a number of New York City landmarks, — of an album of quotations for the décor, with beautiful calligraphy and actual swatches of taffeta affixed to the pages. Among the buildings designed by Warren & Wetmore are the Grand Central Terminal (in association with Reed & Stem), the New York Yacht Club, and a number of great mansions, including 3 East 64th Street.

“In researching the building, we contacted descendants of the original owners to see if they might have anything of interest about the house,” Walker told News India-Times. “One of those descendants found the original decorating pamphlets from the French decorating firm, H. Nelson, from 1901, which details everything from elements of the house's interior architecture to decorations, all carried out in beautiful calligraphy.

“As an important record of early 20th-century decorating, Peter Pennoyer and I suggested that the booklets would make a great addition to the New-York Historical Society's Collection. The library director at the Historical Society decided to exhibit them, paired with photographs from their own collections showing the interiors of the house.”

(The book, 'The Architecture of Warren & Wetmore,' by Peter Pennoyer and Anne Walker, with a Foreword by Robert A. M. Stern, is scheduled for publication next year by W.W. Norton & Company.) For over half a century, the mansion has been India's window on the Big Apple. Now called New India House, it was bought by the government of India in 1950 as a fitting showcase of the newly independent nation.

(According to a clip from The New York Times of Dec. 12, 1948 provided News India-Times by NYHS, the sale was in process in 1948, but Mr. A.R. Ghanashyam, India's Minister, Press, in New York, told this newspaper that the date of the consummation of the sale was Jan. 27, 1950).

The first chatelaine of 3 East 64th, Mrs. Wilson, nee Caroline Schermerhorn Astor, was, as has been noted above, the daughter of the original Mrs. Astor who ruled New York Society by deciding who was eligible to be named on her guest list of 400 persons of quality. For 20 years after their 1884 marriage, the Wilsons lived at 414 Fifth Avenue, near 38th Street, a neighborhood that was fast turning commercial.

In 1896, they bought a triple building lot on East 64th Street on which to erect a new residence. The site, just off prestigious Fifth Avenue, bespoke a code of sorts, Joseph Ditta, Librarian at the NYHS and co-curator of 'An Interior for a Gilded Age,' told News India-Times. Ditta, who specializes in architectural and biographical history, said the elite moved away from a Fifth Avenue front in order to distinguish themselves from the newly rich who coveted addresses fronting Fifth Avenue along Central Park. “Established families selected locations on side streets, but with low enough house numbers to indicate their proximity to the fabled avenue,” Ditta said.

For the Wilsons, architects Warren & Wetmore designed an unusually wide, five-story limestone townhouse in the Modern Renaissance style, built between 1900 and 1903. The servants were housed on the fifth floor. At one time 14 of them were lodged on the 13th floor.

However strong their passion for galas, soirees, receptions and balls, neither the Wilsons nor their guests had a passion for bathing, it appears.

By modern standards, the Franco-American palace had too few baths. These socialites were literally the filthy rich.

On the ground floor were two reception rooms, an oval salon, and 38 by 27 foot dining room. On the second floor — the library and a 50-foot ballroom. The third and fourth floor each contained six bedrooms, a sitting room and a bath. The fifth floor, for servants, (in 1910, the Wilsons, as noted earlier, had 14 servants) held 13 rooms and two baths. Construction of the 40-room mansion reportedly cost $108,000, or $2,392, 805 in today's dollars, a write-up by NYHS said. Among the exhibits is a diary — that of New York stockbroker and gadabout James Whitehouse. On Jan. 21, 1904, Whitehouse, who attended most society functions in New York of that era, noted: “Orme Wilson Musicale/Sig. Caruso — Mme Louise Homer.” Though terse, this entry provides a date for the opulent housewarming thrown by the Marshall Orme Wilsons, the first official entertainment in their new home at 3 East 64th Street.

After dinner for 300 guests, Metropolitan Opera stars Enrico Caruso and Louise Homer sang popular arias to piano accompaniment. As The New York Times reported at that time: “The house, which is built along dignified and severe lines, is copied from part of an old French palace, and is done in Caen stone. The entrance and large halls of white marble, with their lofty ceilings and huge doors, give a remarkably imposing effect as one enters. Low, flat, settles of old gilt upholstered in dull rose-colored velvet, and boxwood trees and palms relive the coldness of the marble walls. A wide flight of marble stairs winds up from this main hall at the right to the second story, and the walls of this upper hall are covered with tapestries especially rich in coloring. On this floor, at the rear of the house, is the Louis Seize white and gold ballroom, with many mirrors done in the small-panel French style.

“[After dinner] Mrs. Wilson received her guests near the head of the wide marble steps on the second floor, and the musicale program was rendered in ballroom, one of the largest in New York. The floral decorations consisted simply of palms and ferns, and in the niches in the marble walls were vases of Spring flowers.”

[It is in this ballroom, essentially unaltered for a century, that most public functions at the Consulate General currently take place.]

The Times report concludes with the full guest list — the New York elite of the early 20th century. In keeping with the prevailing popular taste for French interiors, the Wilsons chose a Parisian firm, H. Nelson, to decorate their home.

Nelson's presentation album, which lists prices for wood, metal, and plasterwork; window and door hardware; furnishings; and contains samples of textiles used for carpeting, upholstery, and window treatments, is on display, along with photographs of the house and the Wilsons.

Henry Raine, librarian and co-curator of the display, whose special interest is in the history of the decorative arts, pointed to the change in taste reflected in the choice of materials and colors. “The French 18th century Louis XV and Louis XVI dial a reaction to the busy, over-decorated interior of the previous decade. The white plasterwork and the neoclassical lines of the architecture suggest a desire for simplicity, although the interiors seem ostentatious to us. There were some cheerful notes, however, as shown in the album, which includes swatches of red, yellow and green fabrics.”

Raine emphasized the importance of a document such as this album. “We know what these interiors looked like from black and white photos, but having swatches of the actual fabric used in 1901 allows us to have a better sense of how these rooms actually appeared at the time,” said Raine.

	Photos Top, LEFT AND ABOVE, Mr. and Mrs. Marshall Orme Wilson, respectively, owners of 3 East, 64th Street and members of the New York elite of the Gilded Age; Photo Left, Mrs. Wilson's mother Mrs. Astor, Caroline Webster Schermerhorn Astor, unchallenged arbiter of high American society in the last two decades of the 19th and first of the 20th century.

PHOTOS 1-4: Interiors of 3 East 64th Street, New York, the neo-French style home of New York socialites Mr. and Mrs. Marshall Orme Wilson, now called New India House, the seat of the Consulate General of India in New York. These black and white photos are from the New-York Historical Society Collection, part of 'An Interior for a Gilded Age' exhibition on display in the NYHS library reading room. While some renovation was made after the Government of India bought the mansion in 1950, the interiors look basically the same, with most public functions still taking place in the ballroom on the second floor, seen in Photo 4. (Photos: Courtesy the New-York Historical Society)