Morton F. Plant House


Morton F. Plant House may refer to either of two mansions on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, New York City built for Morton F. Plant. The first, at 52nd Street, was completed in 1905 and is now also known as the Cartier Building. The second, at 86th Street, was built in 1916 and is now demolished. The 52nd Street building was designated a New York City Landmark on.

1905 building

The 1905 Neo-Renaissance mansion of Morton Freeman Plant was designed by architect Robert W. Gibson. By 1916, Plant felt that the area was becoming too commercial and decided to move farther uptown. Cartier SA acquired the mansion from Plant in 1917, in exchange for $100 in cash and a Cartier double-stranded necklace of 128 flawlessly matched natural pearls valued at the time at $1 million. Soon after, Kokichi Mikimoto's cultured pearls came on the market, increasing the availability and thereby reducing pearl values. The Cartier necklace of pearls fetched just $150,000 after Mrs. Plant died in 1956.
The building was renovated during a two and half year renovation, completed in 2016 by Beyer Blinder Belle and French architect Thierry W. Despont, also the architect of Edmond J. Safra Synagogue on New York's Upper East Side. During the renovation, the Cartier store was temporarily located General Motors Building, which was also home to F.A.O. Schwarz and Apple.

1916 building

The second Plant mansion was designed by Guy Lowell and built in 1916 on the northeast corner of 86th Street. It was Lowell's interpretation of an Italian Renaissance palazzo. Plant died of pneumonia in 1918 and his widow Mae married Col. William Hayward. She died in 1956 and the house was torn down soon after.