At Fifth Avenue and 67th Street once stood a long-lost Gilded Age palace, built for the son of one of America’s most notorious financial tycoons and now largely forgotten by history.

The George J. Gould House once stood at 857 Fifth Avenue, on the northeast corner of 67th Street.

Built in 1906 for George Gould, the son of notorious railroad titan Jay Gould, Their five-story limestone mansion with two basements floors cost them $1.25 million and was designed by one of the masters of Beaux-Arts architecture, Horace Trumbauer.

*The George Gould House - NYPL Digital Archives*

*Jay Gould's Victorian style mansion stood there before George built his palace. - NYPL Digital Archives*

It replaced Jay Gould (his father’s) outdated 50-room, turreted Victorian mansion built just 15-years earlier.

Jay Gould (George's father) didn’t just build railroads. He manipulated markets, crushed rivals, and rewrote the rules of Wall Street. Jay Gould helped trigger the Gold Panic of 1869. That’s the kind of legacy we’re talking about.

*Interior, The George Gould House. - Photo: MCNY*

*George and Edith Gould and kids, 1913. - Photo: MCNY*

Fifth Avenue was still lined with private mansions then, and this one was meant to signal power, wealth, and permanence.

*George Gould's young mistress Guinevere - Photo: NYPL Digital Archives*

By 1921, George had fathered two children with his longtime mistress, Guinevere, a chorus girl twenty years his junior. Whoops.

*Edith's Fifth Avenue dance - Photo: MCNY*

Determined to return to society, Edith embraced a strict routine of golf, steam baths, massages, and a tight rubber undergarment. Ten months after hosting a 600-guest Fifth Avenue dance, she collapsed dead on the 5th tee while playing golf with George.

Following a visit to King Tutankhamun’s newly discovered tomb, he fell ill and died in France less than a year later.

*Whitney with his horse, Regret 1915 - Photo: MCNY*

*Alice and Gertrude - Photo: NYPL Digital Archives*

After George died in 1923, it was bought by Harry Payne Whitney becoming the residence of his mother-in-law, Mrs Alice Vanderbilt. Hi wife Gertrude Vanderbilt founded the Whitney Museum.

*The new building is horrible! - Photo: Chris Baker*

But like so many of Fifth Avenue’s great palaces, it didn’t survive. By the early 1960s it was demolished, replaced by a 21 story unimpressive residential building, another reminder that even the grandest homes in New York are temporary.

George’s heirs, including his mistress, ended up battling over his estate… and if you’re curious who walked away with the money, message me, I’ll tell you.

The George Gould House

The Meatpacking District