Steinway Mansion, 1927.
Though named for its most famous resident, the Steinway Mansion was not, in fact, constructed for the piano maker. Constructed in the 1850s (the exact date of completion varies with sources), the 27-room mansion was built as the country home of Benjamin F. Pike, a maker of eyeglasses and scientific instruments. The coast of Long Island City and Astoria was once lined with similarly impressive mansions, used largely as weekend and summer abodes for New York's wealthy merchant class.
The Italianate villa was purchased by William Steinway in 1870. The home was in close proximity to the piano manufacturing facility and workers village that Steinway was building. The large home was rendered using a rough hewn granite stone blocks and features both classical and medieval architectural elements in what the Landmarks Preservation Commission called a "asymmetrical and rambling" layout. The exterior includes a slate covered gable roof, a four-story tower topped by an octagonal cupola, and domed rotunda topped with a stained glass skylight. The interior features five marble fireplaces and doors with cut glass depicting original owner Pike's 19th-century scientific instruments.
The estate was divided and the home and a small surrounding lot sold in the 1920s. The new owner was a Turkish immigrant tailor, who had first seen the home as a teenager and announced his intention to one day own it (his friends laughed, obviously). Over the next nine decades the Halberians, Jack and his son Michael, preserved the mansion as best as their means provided. Given landmark status in the 1966, the owners preserved the interiors and collected artifacts for display, creating a hodgepodge museum of New York history.
Citing the considerable property taxes, a seriously deteriorating structure, and the high cost of maintenance, Michael Halberian announced his intention to sell the home in the early 1990s. He hoped that a non-profit or historical society might purchase it for use as museum. Following Halberian's death in 2010 the home was put on the market and finally sold in 2014 to a mystery buyer (the non-profit group Friends of the Steinway Mansion were unable to secure the funds to purchase the home). In recent years the new owners have erected a series of new, two-story, commercial buildings on the estate grounds (along 42nd Street) much to the dismay and objections of the preservation community.
