Preservationists Want Frick Museum To Buy Epstein House: Report

UPPER EAST SIDE, NY — A preservation group fighting the Frick Collection's plans to expand its Upper East Side museum claim to have found a great alternate location for the project — the former mansion of convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

The leader of a group called Save The Frick told the Daily News that the Upper East Side art museum should buy Epstein's former East 71st Street mansion and turn it into a sort of satellite location for the institution. Located between Fifth and Park avenues, the mansion is just across the street from the Frick's Fifth Avenue campus.

Architect Theodore Grunewald, the leader of Save The Frick, told the newspaper that the property's ties to Epstein make it undesirable for a private residence, and also said that if the museum bought and renovated the home it would "essentially be cleansing the house."

Groups such as Save The Frick and Stop Irresponsible Frick Development opposed the museum's plans for its historic Fifth Avenue building, even though the city Landmarks Preservation Commission approved a renovation in 2018. The groups claims that the Frick's expansion is an attempt to commercialize what was once a house museum meant to display a small private collection.

Preservationist's main qualms with the expansion plan are that it will alter the Russell Page Garden and that it will replace the historic Music Room with "generic" gallery space. The groups are currently challenging the city's approval of the renovation in the Board of Standards and Appeals. Museum officials have maintained that neither the garden nor the music room are part of the original Frick mansion's architecture and that the museum is an internationally-renowned instittion rather than a simple "house museum."

As for buying the Epstein house, the Frick isn't interested, the Daily News reported. A spokesperson for the museum told the Daily News that buying a building across the street from its campus doesn't align with the institution's goals for expansion: to preserve the "intimate experince" of visiting the Frick and to ensure the long-term future of the museum.

The Frick's expansion project, led by Selldorf Architects, is expected to take two years to complete, museum officials said. The expansion will be the Frick Collection's first major renovation since 1935, when the historic building was converted from a private residence into a public museum and library. The mansion was originally constructed as a home for industrialist, financier and art collector Henry Clay Frick.

Read the full Daily News article here.