22 EAST 64TH STREET
NEW YORK, NEW YORK
In an extraordinary moment of continuity, they retained Kahn & Jacobs to direct the structural modernization. Leading the firm was Robert Allan Jacobs—the son of Harry Allan Jacobs, returning forty years later to engineer the exact limestone volume his father had authored in 1920.
To articulate the interior fabric, the Rojtmans commissioned French interior architect Lucien David, who modeled the grand entertaining suites directly on the neoclassical salons of The Ritz Paris on Place Vendôme. David’s surviving full-scale drafts record the exact profile depths for the Louis XV boiserie, the formulas for hand-burnished water and oil gilding, and the layouts for hand-fitted parquet de Versailles—crafting an authentic continental embassy for one of New York’s great private art holdings.
1962: SUCCESSION
In January 1962, the house passed into the hands of one of the mid-century’s most formidable cultural and industrial partnerships.
Marc Rojtman—the Ukrainian-born industrialist, co-founder of the American Tractor Corporation, and former president of the J.I. Case Company—commanded American manufacturing at scale. Alongside him, Lillian Rojtman stood as an intellectual and operational force: a pioneering collector who would later, as Lillian Berkman, break into the senior echelons of American corporate governance as one of the first women to sit on major public boards, including Allied Stores and Chris-Craft Industries.
Together, the Rojtmans built an internationally recognized art collection, assembling museum-caliber Old Master canvases by Rembrandt, Peter Paul Rubens, Frans Hals, and Anthony van Dyck. They did not view No. 22 as a domestic residence, but as an institutional setting capable of housing monumental works of European history.
1962: SUCCESSION
In January 1962, the house passed into the hands of one of the mid-century’s most formidable cultural and industrial partnerships.
Marc Rojtman—the Ukrainian-born industrialist, co-founder of the American Tractor Corporation, and former president of the J.I. Case Company—commanded American manufacturing at scale. Alongside him, Lillian Rojtman stood as an intellectual and operational force: a pioneering collector who would later, as Lillian Berkman, break into the senior echelons of American corporate governance as one of the first women to sit on major public boards, including Allied Stores and Chris-Craft Industries.
Together, the Rojtmans built an internationally recognized art collection, assembling museum-caliber Old Master canvases by Rembrandt, Peter Paul Rubens, Frans Hals, and Anthony van Dyck. They did not view No. 22 as a domestic residence, but as an institutional setting capable of housing monumental works of European history.
In an extraordinary moment of continuity, they retained Kahn & Jacobs to direct the structural modernization. Leading the firm was Robert Allan Jacobs—the son of Harry Allan Jacobs, returning forty years later to engineer the exact limestone volume his father had authored in 1920.
To articulate the interior fabric, the Rojtmans commissioned French interior architect Lucien David, who modeled the grand entertaining suites directly on the neoclassical salons of The Ritz Paris on Place Vendôme. David’s surviving full-scale drafts record the exact profile depths for the Louis XV boiserie, the formulas for hand-burnished water and oil gilding, and the layouts for hand-fitted parquet de Versailles—crafting an authentic continental embassy for one of New York’s great private art holdings.
