Stewart & Company Building

History and architecture

The Stewart & Company Building, designed by Warren and Wetmore, is one of the firm’s most unusual designs. The 1914 building reflects the unusual combination of diverse influences such as the 18th century British neo-Classical movement and the late 19th century Chicago School of Architecture style. The blue and white ornament of the terra cotta cladding is reminiscent of the 18th century neo-Classical movement in England, and specifically two of the most important proponents of the movement, Josiah Wedgwood and Robert Adam. Characteristic of the Chicago style are steel frame construction, masonry cladding that was usually terra cotta, large areas of glazing, usually featuring tripartite windows known as Chicago windows, and a tripartite vertical design.

As the commercial center of Manhattan moved uptown so did the location of department stores. In the early 20th century, Fifth Avenue above 34th Street was being transformed from a residential to a commercial neighborhood. The construction of new store buildings, such as Tiffany and Company, Gorham, and the Stewart & Company Building, changed the residential appearance of this section of Fifth Avenue.

The building owner, Robert Walton Goelet, was a member of one of New York’s oldest and wealthiest families, with real estate holdings said to have been second only to the Astor family. The firm of Warren & Wetmore, of which Goelet’s uncle, Whitney Warren, was a principal, designed this and several other buildings for him in Manhattan. Warren & Wetmore was a highly successful and prolific architectural firm, best known for its designs for hotels and buildings commissioned by railroad companies.

The Stewart & Company Building reflects the work of two important New York City building related businesses. The builder, George A. Fuller Company, by 1900, had become a major force in the promotion and construction of tall office buildings in New York City. In the more than one hundred years since its founding, the Fuller Company has constructed thousands of buildings, in New York, throughout the country, and abroad.

The building’s decorative terra cotta was manufactured by the New York Terra Cotta Company, New York City’s only major terra cotta manufacturer. It supplied terra cotta for a host of prominent architects and numerous buildings. The Stewart & Company building is an exceptional example of decorative polychrome terra cotta and the work of the New York Terra Cotta Company.