the new york times once said in architectural design richness of decoration and completeness of
details this structure is calculated to surpass in luxury and magnificence any city home in america
if not the entire world hi everyone ken here welcome to this house a couple weeks ago i
asked all of you which home you would like to see featured and this one was the most popular by far
today we are exploring the charles schwab house make sure to hit that subscribe button so you
never miss an exciting episode of this house charles schwab was born into poverty he started
off as a grocery store clerk before becoming a laborer at a carnegie steel mill he quickly
rose through the ranks with a natural-born talent for leadership and innovation by adulthood he had
become president of u.s steel and had amassed a fortune to rival the wealthiest barons of industry
he set out to build a modern home equipped with groundbreaking technology on a skilled
dwarf the mansions along fifth avenue he found a lot on riverside drive between
73rd street and 74th street where he would build his modern friend chateau
schwab's wife urena was not keen to the idea of moving so far away from her friends
she was a socialite who regularly attended balls around central park and became worried
that she would never see her friends again charles reassured her that their house would be so grand
that her friends would not be able to deny an invitation to visit schwab hired maurice
herbert an architect who had not yet gained a reputation to design his palatial estate
it would be built in the Beaux Arts style in clad and pink granite over the next
four years the mansion would be completed with the house costing around three million dollars
and the furnishing costing the same at a total of six million dollars or the modern-day equivalent
of over 200 million dollars the 75-room mansion was so impressive that schwab's former boss andrew
carnegie would say about it have you seen that place of charlie's it makes mine look like a shack
maurice under the direction of charles schwab would not allow any pre-made materials into
the house everything being brought in had to be commissioned and made specially for the house
regardless of how fine some of the things were over 100 artists designers and engineers were
brought in to create the finishing details even great works of art would be replicated by this
crew famously charles schwab lent his collection of tapestries to be displayed at the 1904 world's
fair in st louis missouri before they would be placed in his house the pillars in the house were
carved from marble and mahogany would be brought in from south america to create the wood paneling
he would have a custom chapel built in his house which was large enough to have an entire orchestra
performed for a live audience he also had a bowling alley installed along with a glazed brick
pool in the basement with one of the largest if not the largest in-home gyms to be built to date
one quarter of the house's overall budget was spent on artwork alone which would fill the
art gallery with the modern day equivalent of 50 million dollars worth of art other marvels of the
home included a power plant air conditioning and six elevators none of these features were common
and even the most prominent of homes from the era making it an ultra modern house for its time just
as charles had promised his wife uranus friends came to visit often but she was not in a good
place mentally she became increasingly reclusive turning down invitations to balls at her friend's
homes and even at the white house she had gained a lot of weight and was said to be too embarrassed
to be seen in public so she sequestered herself behind the walls of her estate until 1917
when world war one was in full swing she opened the house to be used by the red cross to create
clothing for soldiers things would begin to return to normal for the schwabs until the stock
market crashed during the great depression charles fortune was wiped out overnight
he desperately tried to sell the house for 4 million but was unable to find a buyer
unable to afford his servants the house became impossible to live in in 1939 he packed up his
bags and moved into a tiny apartment along park avenue the following year he passed away with
nothing more than a few pennies to his name the abandoned mansion sat empty for many years
there were ideas being floated around about repurposing it for local government use
but the mayor decided that it was too grand to represent the people from with no one willing to
purchase the mansion it was demolished to make way for a very utilitarian apartment complex quite the
opposite of what had been there previously the apartments would be given the name the schwab
house which continues despite the reputation of charles schwab with irony to this day thank you
all for watching i really hope that you enjoyed this video please make sure to hit that subscribe
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