James B. Duke House

The James B. Duke House stands as a limestone monument to the Gilded Age, anchoring the corner of East 78th Street and Fifth Avenue. Completed in 1912, it was commissioned by tobacco magnate James Buchanan Duke as a grand residence for his second wife, Nanaline. The mansion was designed in the French Classical style, deliberately modeled after the eighteenth century Château Labottière in Bordeaux, France. Its presence at this location marks the transition of the area into a neighborhood once famously known as Millionaire Row.