The Jewish Museum

The building you are approaching began its life as a private residence rather than a cultural institution. It was completed in nineteen hundred and eight for the financier Felix Warburg and his wife Frieda. The mansion was designed in the French Gothic style, featuring a slate mansard roof and ornate limestone carvings meant to mirror the grandeur of a European castle. At the time of its construction, the family lived here with thirteen servants, and the children famously turned the grand halls into a playground, even setting up a model train system that wound through multiple rooms.