An Old Westbury estate that served as home to art patron and sculptor Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney has been listed for sale for $4.75 million.
Dubbed the Studio, the 109-year-old structure sits on 6.95 acres of land, and was constructed for Whitney in 1912 following a design by the noted beaux arts architectural firm of William Adams Delano and Chester Holmes Aldrich, who also designed the U.S. Post Office in Glen Cove and Oheka Castle in Huntington.
Whitney, a great-granddaughter of railroad magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt and the mother of government official and philanthropist Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney, used the Studio for work and play while married to Henry Payne Whitney. She also constructed some of her best-known works, including a memorial statue to those who lost their lives in the sinking of the Titanic, during this time.
During her ownership of the property, Whitney offered a sizable donation of works she had collected to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and funds to build a wing to house the collection, but the museum declined on the basis that it would not accept American art. She then opened the Whitney Museum of American Art in Manhattan in 1931, focusing on American art with a modern lens. Following numerous changes of place, the museum currently stands at the intersection of Gansevoort Street and Washington Street in the West Village and Meatpacking District in lower Manhattan.
In the 40 years after Whitney’s death in 1942, parts of the thousand-acre Whitney property were divided and sold off. Current owners of property sections include the Long Island campus of the New York Institute of Technology and the Old Westbury Golf and Country Club.
In 1982, one of her grandchildren converted the Studio into a single-family home, and it houses five bedrooms, five bathrooms and two half-bathrooms, and boasts patio space and a pool. It still houses many artworks first collected by Whitney.
The property is co-owned by two of Whitney’s great-grandchildren, former Congressman and political columnist John LeBoutillier and horse trainer and equestrian event judge Susan S. Humes, both the grandchildren of Whitney’s eldest daughter, Flora.
The property is represented by Douglas Elliman, and its agent is Paul Mateyunas of the Locust Valley office.
