Consulate General of India New York, USA Serving the States of: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Vermont

History of the Building

MARSHALL ORME WILSON HOUSE
3 EAST 64TH STREET
WARREN & WETMORE, 1903

CAROLINE SCHERMERHORN ASTOR, queen of the "400", was initially very much against her youngest daughter's choice of a husband. This otherwise blameless child, who was also named Caroline, had fallen in love with Marshall Orme Wilson, the son of banker Richard T. Wilson. The elder Wilson was a Southern gentleman from Georgia who, during the Civil War, had been sent to Europe with Confederate gold to buy supplies for the army. When the war was over, he did not return to the ravaged South but moved his family to New York, along with what appeared to be an enormous profiteering fortune. Mrs. Astor, who didn't care for the Wilsons, father or son, was said to have acquiesced only after seeing the young couple leaving church one Sunday hand in hand and obviously very much in love. She told a friend, "I felt that I could not stand in the way of their happiness a day longer." The marriage took place in 1884. This was the beginning of an illustrious family matchmaking career that to this day has been unsurpassed by that of any other American family. They were dubbed the "Marrying Wilsons" by capital "S" society. A contemporary joke of the time was, "Why did the Diamond Match Company fail?" The reply: "Because the Wilsons beat them at making matches." Orme's oldest sister, May, married Ogden Goelet, scion of a New York real estate fortune second in size only to the Astors', while another sister, Belle, married into the old and aristocratic Herbert family of England. But the most sensational of the Wilson alliances was the 1896 marriage of the youngest sibling, Grace, to Cornelius Vanderbilt III. In the next generation, May Wilson Goelet's daughter was married to the Duke of Roxburghe. No New York family had ever before been this well connected.

The Orme Wilsons assumed a prominent position in New York society. Caroline Wilson became a particularly adept hostess, and as her mother's health deteriorated, she began to take on more and more of Mrs. Astor's duties. This new responsibility created a need for a larger house. The Wilsons purchased a triple lot on East 64th Street in 1896 and hired the architectural firm of Warren & Wetmore. They designed an extremely wide Modern Renaissance town house finished with a finely detailed limestone facade. This building represents a turning away from the more vigorous elements found in houses of a decade earlier, with the effect of creating a simpler and more restrained composition. Decidedly French in inspiration, the five-story building has been shortened visibly by creating a main body of three stories, while the two top stories are set into the mansard roof behind a balustrade.

The width of the house allows for an unusually bright interior that is rarely encountered in a mid-block house. The ground floor has a stone sheathed main hall with a monumental staircase, and two reception rooms, each with a coat closet and lavatory. In the rear is a 27-by-38-foot Louis XVI-style paneled dining room. The second floor contains two salons, a walnut-paneled Regence library, and a 50-foot-long ballroom. The next two floors hold 12 bedrooms, a boudoir, and a sitting room. These bedroom floors are brightened by the large, light court created by the dome over and grand staircase. On the fifth floor are 13 staff rooms and 2 baths.

With a 40-room house designed for grand entertaining, the Wilsons began doing just that. A lavish party given in honor of May Goelet and her fiancé, the Scottish duke, officially opened the house. Opera singers Lillian Nordica and Enrico Caruso performed at musical soirées. The ballroom and dining room saw weekly, if not almost daily, service during the height of the New York season. In later years, the widowed Caroline Wilson opened her house for musicales and recitals for charitable purposes. Her personal philanthropies included the New York Women's League for Animals and the Beekman Street Hospital. Her younger son, Orme Jr., joined the diplomatic corps and was at one time the United States ambassador to Haiti.

In 1948, Caroline Wilson died at the Sutton Place home of her son, R. Thornton Wilson, after battling a three-year illness. She was 86 years old. Shortly after her death, 3 East 64th Street was sold to the Indian Government and became the headquarters for its diplomatic representatives in the city, and remains so today.