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Ukrainian jewel on `Museum Mile' is preparing for the 21st century.
Nestled in the midst of "Museum Mile," which includes the Guggebheim Museum and the Frick Collection, and diagonally across from the Metropolitan Museum of Art on the southeast corner of 79th Street and Fifth Avenue, is one of the most magnificent and regal turn-of-the-century mansions in New York City today. This French Renaissance-style structure houses the jewel of the Ukrainian community: the Ukrainian Institute of America.
The history of the acquisition of the mansion by William Dzus, the founder of the Ukrainian Institute of America, dates back to 1899 when Isaac Fletcher, a banker and railroad investor, commissioned the famous architect C.P.H. Gilbert to build a house using William K. Vanderbilt's neoLoire Valley chateau s its model, on the property that was originally the Lenox farm.
Mr. Fletcher was so pleased with his new home that he hired Jean Francois Raffaeli to do a painting of it; the painting, the mansion and the Fletcher's extensive art collection were all eventually bequeathed to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1917.
Harry F. Sinclair, the founder of the Sinclair Oil Co., purchased the Fletcher Mansion in 1920 and sold it in 1930 to Augustus Van Horne Stuyvesant Jr., a descendant of Peter Stuyvesant. A bachelor and recluse, Augustus Stuyvesant occupied the mansion with his unmarried sister until her death in 1938, then lived out the remaining years of his life until 1953 with just his butler and footman to server him.
Mr. Dzus, inventor and owner of the Dzus Fastener Co. in West Islip, Long Island, founded the Ukrainian Institute of America Inc. in 1948 for the...