THE MANHenry T. Sloane was born in 1846 two years after his father William Sloane founded W & J Sloane an innovational firm that built a national reputation providing luxury furnishings for the home. It quickly became the choice of the elite functioning as an arbiter of taste for the next sixty years and was the source for the interiors of The Breakers the White House Czar Nicholas II glamorous Hollywood film sets ocean-going yachts and even custom automobiles. Mr. Sloane graduated from Yale in 1866 and 46 years later gifted the Sloane Physics Lab completed in 1912 and still in use today. His uncle was married to Emily Vanderbilt the sister of Cornelius Vanderbilt. One daughter married a French Baron the other lived at 5 East 70th Street. William Sloane Coffin Sr. was a nephew: he lived to 91 with homes in Dark Harbor Maine Southampton L.I. and New York.Mr. Sloane's first mansion was built in 1887 at 9 East 72nd Street where he entertained lavishly with his wife Jessie a noted beauty. They divorced after a 17-year marriage in 1899 and Jessie caused a scandal by marrying Perry Belmont son of August Belmont five hours after the decree was issued. Mr. Sloane never married again and he prevented his two daughters from seeing their mother until they were 21 unless she could prove she was 'leading a moral life'. He then devoted his attention to his thriving business and to planning and building a masterpiece for himself this time selecting CPH Gilbert to realize his vision.THE ARCHITECTThe Great House era in New York lasted 50 years from the opening of the Vanderbilt house in 1882 to the Great Depression. A great proponent of the Beaux-Arts style was CPH Gilbert a graduate of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts who designed such mansions as the E. C. Converse house at 3 East 78th Street in 1895 the Isaac D. Fletcher House at 2 East 79th Street three F. W. Woolworth mansions at 2 4 and 6 East 80 Street and the Felix Warburg Mansion at 1109 Fifth Avenue in 1908; the mature years of this construction approximately 1901 - 1918 saw buildings created in America inspired by European styles which surpassed those being built in Europe and the crowning achievement was this mansion.THE MANSIONDesigned at the peak of this prolific explosion this masterpiece is a synthesis of grand scale and exquisite proportion with the great authority of experience infused with the styles of Europe but expressed in an entirely new American luxury architecture. Built on a plot 36 feet wide by 100 feet deep comprising approximately 19 300 square feet with stunning terraces and ceilings on several floors ranging from 13 to 15 feet this home features 15 bedrooms 17 baths and 11 fireplaces; it was reported in the New York Times on October 3 1941 that this mansion is notable for 'the spaciousness of its rooms its marble staircase and its costly wood paneling' and was ideal for the next owner's 'extensive art and antique collection.' The reporter continued that it 'serves as an example of the type of home which leaders in business and the social world of a generation ago put up in an era of gracious living'.Generations have passed and the page of history turns again. A new era beckons to the next owner who will now have the extraordinary opportunity to acquire The Henry T. Sloane