Construction on the Knox Mansion, also known as the Grace Millard Knox House, began in 1915 and was completed three years later at a cost of $600,000, which equates to a cost of about $13.4 million in today’s dollars. Charles Pierrepont Gilbert, prominent architect of many houses on New York City’s Fifth Avenue, designed this French Renaissance-style mansion. The original house included 25 rooms, excluding kitchens, pantries, bathrooms, maintenance quarters, and cloakrooms. Seymour H. Knox’s family first occupied the mansion. Mr. Knox was co-founder of Woolworth and Knox department stores, known as Woolworth’s, and later served as Chairman of the Board of Directors for Marine Midland Bank, which was acquired by HSBC in 1980.