Holland House, New York City

The Holland House was a majestic hotel located at 276 Fifth Avenue, on the southwest corner of 30th Street in Manhattan, adjoining the Marble Collegiate Church. It opened on December 7, 1891 and closed in 1920. It is currently a loft building.

It was owned by Mrs. J. Van Doren, who leased the hotel for 15 years to Herbert M. Kinsley and his son-in-law Gustav Baumann, both Chicago restaurateurs. Kinsley died in 1894 and Baumann continued with the hotel.

Old mansions on the southwest corner of Fifth Avenue and 30th Street were demolished and construction of the Holland House began in 1890. Its doors were opened on December 7, 1891. The Waldorf Hotel was then still under construction a few blocks north.

The building with 11 floors above ground and considered to be fireproof was designed by architects George Edward Harding & Gooch. The façades were built of gray Indiana limestone and the grand portico was decorated with stone carvings. The interior was luxuriously decorated primarily based on the original Holland House Hotel in London. Each of the 350 rooms was furnished and decorated in a distinctive style. The café had electric lights in crystal globes hang from silver chandeliers above every table.

Holland House was sold before November 9, 1919, and its new owner announced the building would be used for other kind of business.

The hotel closed on January 2, 1920. The furnishings began to be sold at auction the next day. It was stripped down of its richly decorated interior. Its doors and bathroom fixtures were shipped to Hartford, Connecticut, and were used in Mark Twain's former residence, which was remodeled into small apartments. The old Holland House building was converted into an office building and the portico was demolished.

The Grand Staircase of the Holland House built of Siena marble and decorated with tapestry, painting and carvings. The ceiling near the staircase was decorated in silver.

Below, a reproduction of the Gilt Room of the Cope Castle (also known as Holland House) in London, in Elizabethan style, with some additions of the Jacobean period. The chandeliers were of Flemish workmanship. Photographs taken between 1892 and 1896 (stereoscopic view, Popular Series, from NYPL).