1027 Fifth Avenue

In 1901, Benjamin Williams purchased two empty lots at Nos. 1026 and 1027 Fifth Avenue from one John W. Simpson. He employed the architectural firm of Van Vleck & Goldsmith (who'd learnt their trade working for the famed McKim, Mead & White) to design two suitably lavish beaux-arts mansions, which were completed in 1903.

No. 1027 measured a width of 40-feet and was faced in marble. The second floor (that held the principal reception rooms) also boasted a large a stone-balustraded balcony. In 1906, the Real Estate Record & Builders' Guide enthusiastically declared it to be, "the finest dwelling house ever erected in this city... The interior is finished in a magnificent scale".

In 1906, George Crawford Clark (1845-1919) acquired the mansion for $540,000 - some $15 million in today's terms. They enjoyed happy occasions at the house such as the wedding of one of their daughters, but in 1913 they received distressing news while out of town:

Augusta Kechman (1853-1913) had been the cook to the Clark family at their Fifth Avenue mansion for several years. She had been "despondent" for several days before going missing on October 12. The staff searched the house, but could not find her until one of the maids, maid, Matilda Cleary, found poor Augusta hanging from a pipe in the Trunk Room.

George Clark died while wintering in South Carolina in 1919. On returning to New York that spring, his widow promptly sold the mansion to Herbert Lee Pratt (1871-1945), the President of Standard Oil who a few years earlier had completed The Braes, his 40,000 square foot summer residence on Long Island. Pratt set about a major internal refurbishment.

In 1928, the newly established Marymount School of New York purchased the house next door at No. 1028  from the widowed Florence Vanderbilt Twombly (1881–1969). When Mrs Pratt died in 1935, Herbert sold No. 1027 to the school. In 1950, the school No. 1026 on the other side of No. 1027, completing it as it is seen today.