I explored the Upper East Side’s glamorous townhomes and didn’t pay admission—here’s how to do it

Much of the Upper East Side is off limits—its ornate townhomes, gigantic mansions and charming carriage houses are reserved for museums, consulates and those who can afford the hefty price tag to live there. And most of the Gilded Age homes that decorated the area have been lost to time, so the experience of touring such a glamorous space is even more rare these days, unless you get a ticket to The Frick Collection or The Ukrainian Institute of America.

Open House New York, where for about $7 you can tour a normally-off-limits space, is a good way to get into some of these historic buildings, but you actually don’t have to wait for the annual event to explore—and you can even do it for free. 

I took matters into my own hands one day last month and visited two historic Upper East Side townhomes for free—and a carriage house with high tea. Here’s how to take this resplendent journey back in time yourself.

RECOMMENDED: Open House 2025: 300+ seriously cool NYC sites you can explore that are typically closed to the public

The first townhome I visited was Salon 94, a permanent contemporary art gallery at 3 East 89th Street (open Wednesdays through Saturdays, 11am to 6pm). Founded by Jeanne Greenberg Rohatyn in 2002, it is a sight to behold—and not just because of the art. As you enter the gallery, the room opens into a massive, mostly blank foyer (the porte-cochère–like space has been restored in marble granite) that leads into a gigantic gallery. 

Here, through the end of the year you can find “Shucks & Aww,” an exhibition by Swiss-born, Los Angeles–based artist Urs Fischer, whose take on seating, lighting and other more domestic items make for a playful introduction to the space. A toilet full of fruit, a chair and its painted shadow, a tiny seat for a cat and a full wax sculpture of a man in a suit leaning on a chair were just a few of the whimsical designs I walked around and enjoyed, but the coolest part about Salon 94 is being able to take in such unique art inside a historic space.

Inside the first gallery, you can see the building’s original penny-tile flooring and concrete slab, but the most impressive architecture is found moving into the impressive Neo-Renaissance oval stairwell with historic iron railings and a oeil-de-boeuf elliptical window.

The home was built between 1913 and 1915 by architect and interior decorator Ogden Codman Jr. for arts philanthropist Archer Huntington and sculptor Anna Hyatt Huntington, who used the ballrooms to entertain and showcase Mrs. Huntington’s sculpture—so it’s always been centered around art. The couple gifted the building to the National Academy of Design in 1940 and in 2021, Salon 94 officially moved in, hiring architect Rafael Viñoly to restore and renovate the building.

The second floor, where the exhibition continues with an incredible display of suspended, hand-blown glass “rain drops” from Venice, is another gorgeous gem. Here, you can find the original Caen stone plaster finish of the walls, dentil detailing and ornaments, as well as an original, Languedoc marble base, restored Hauteville and Belgian Black stone floors, marble recessed wall bases matching the original marble details, a fully-restored Parquet de Versailles oak flooring and 15-foot arched casement windows that overlook The Guggenheim next door. The addition of the rain drops only enhances the space’s beauty.

Although I wasn’t able to visit the third floor on this visit, where the “Wood Room” is, there are more original details that have been restored, including parquet floors, carved wood crown moldings, oak door frames and an original fireplace. It’s often used to showcase items available for purchase from Salon 94 Design, the gallery’s interior design arm, according to the gallery.

Salon 94 is a fantastic way to take in art and early-20th-century architecture, but it’s not the only one.

My next stop was the Academy Mansion, or the former William Ziegler House, located at 2 East 63rd Street, for a dollhouse pop-up by Capital One. The weekend-long exhibit for New York Fashion Week, called “The Dollhouse” by Anna Weyant, used the venue for a larger-than-life experience that included models as living dolls and giant furniture and paper clothing. Upon entering, I was greeted by staff, who told me that if I have a Capital One card, I’d find a free gift in the wardrobe (it was a beautiful rose pin made from a dusty rose-colored ribbon). The models were dressed in high fashion versions of cutesy dresses and their hair coiffed to the heavens.

I got to wander two floors of the historic space, which was built in 1921 and designed by Frederick Sterner for real estate investor and business executive William Ziegler Jr. It was used as a 300-bed actors’ hospital in 1926 and then it was sold to Norman Bailey Woolworth in 1929, who then donated it to the New York Academy of Sciences in about 1949. That organization sold it in 2005 to billionaire Leonard Blavatnik, but it remained unoccupied until 2008. Now, it is used as an event space.

Aside from the massive doll furniture, the most impressive moment here was coming across the mansion’s central courtyard filled with a fountain, giant daisies and a massive server cart that was as tall as I am. The courtyard was serene and offered a different perspective of the building’s historic architecture I couldn’t get from the street. 

Inside, I walked on glossy herringbone flooring, gazed up at stunning painted ceilings, ascended a sweeping grand staircase and imagined living in one of the massive bedrooms upstairs. Apparently, according to the Daytonian in Manhattan blog, parts of the mansion were imported from vintage European homes, including the library walls, which came from a 16th-century English house, a Renaissance period mantel from Florence and a marble floor from Tuscany.

While you can’t waltz into the Academy Mansion on a typical day, it is often open to events, so keep an eye on the pop-up scene here in NYC (or score an invite to a fancy wedding) for a chance to check it out yourself.

After taking in a lot of art and climbing staircases, I headed to the King’s Carriage House at 251 East 82nd Street, for high tea. Unlike the other two spaces, this building is cozier because it should be—it was an old carriage house once used as a stable.

Built in about 1869 as the Becker family’s stable, it was sold in the 1890s along with the adjacent townhouse to real estate developer Zachariah Zacharias, who changed the building to a store by the turn of the century, according to Daytonian in Manhattan. By then, it also had a living space on the second story. In 1910, Gustav G. Gaertner and his wife, Flora, purchased the house and stable and added new stairs, new walls, a new front and cornices that could be used for office space and shops for light manufacturing. It once operated as a bookstore and gallery and by the 1940s, it housed a printing shop.

Since 1994, it’s been serving one of NYC’s best afternoon and high teas, so you know I had to stop in on my Upper East Side day out. You can admire the building just by stepping inside, but I’d recommend getting a reservation. For $59.95 per person, I enjoyed a small cup of cauliflower bisque with baby truffled grilled cheese sandwiches in addition to scrumptious finger sandwiches, pastries, scones and sweets on a tiered serving platter. The atmosphere was cozy with creaking floorboards, gilded picture frames, crystal chandeliers and antique furnishings.

That ended my day on the Upper East Side, but there are many other stately buildings you can get into there for free and to enjoy art, including including gallery Lévy Gorvy Dayan (the 1931 Wildenstein & Co. building), which currently has an exhibit on for artist Ziva Jelin; Skarstedt Gallery at 20 East 79th Street (the 1913 Dudley Olcott 2nd House) that has an Andy Warhol exhibit this fall; Acquavella Galleries at 18 East 79th Street (the 1909 J. Woodward Haven Mansion), featuring Nicole Wittenberg this fall; and Michael Werner Gallery at 4 East 77th Street #2 (the 1897 Benjamin Knower House) showcasing artwork from Florian Krewer.

So be adventurous, enter these ornate doors and find glamorous Old New York in the little details without having to spend a cent.