De Lamar Mansion interior photographs

Dutch-born financier Joseph Raphael De Lamar (1843–1918) made his primary fortune from mines he owned in Canada and the American west. He amassed an estate valued at $32 million (upwards of $700 million today). In 1902 he purchased for $250,000 a plot on the northeast corner of Madison Avenue and East 37th Street, in the Murray Hill section of Manhattan, and commissioned "mansion architect" C. P. H. Gilbert (1861–1952) to design there a house costing $500,000. The house, with an address of 233 Madsion Avenue, was completed in 1905. As befitted De Lamar's wealth, it contained lavishly decorated interiors spread out over six floors, as well as a rooftop dog run and a basement garage accessed by an elevator that raised and lowered vehicles from the street. De Lamar occupied his mansion for little more than a decade: he died in 1918. He bequeathed one third of his estate to his sole child, Alice (1895–1983). Her share did not include 233 Madison Avenue, which she vacated soon after her father's death. The remainder of De Lamar's estate went to the medical schools of Harvard, Columbia, and Johns Hopkins. In 1923 the schools sold the house to the National Democratic Club. In 1973 it was purchased by the Polish government, and since then has housed the Consulate General of the Republic of Poland in New York. The house was designated a landmark by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission in 1975.

[For more, see "Joseph Raphael De Lamar House, 233 Madison Avenue, C. P. H. Gilbert, 1905" in Michael C. Kathrens, Great Houses of New York, 1880–1930 (New York: Acanthus Press, 2005), 155–160.]