By Carter B. Horsley

This elegant limestone-clad building was originally the Harold I. Pratt residence. Mr. Pratt was one of six sons of Charles Pratt, an executive of Standard Oil and the founder of the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn.

It was designed by Delano & Aldrich in a neo-classical style that is similar but much more understated that that firm's design for the Union Club one block north and across the avenue (see The City Review article). Delano & Aldrich designed many of the handsomest clubs and residences on the Upper East Side including the Georgian-style buildings of the Colony Club (see The City Review article), the Knickerbocker Club (see The City Review article) and the Willard Straight house (see The City Review article).

This building, which has very attractive octagonal windows on the fourth floor below a cornice and the balustraded roofline and large arched windows on the first floor, was completed in 1921. It is across 68th Street Pyne House at 680 Park Avenue that is now the Americas Society and was designed by McKim, Mead & White and which was the site Prime Minister Nikita Khrushev's balcony press conferences in 1960 when the property was the U. S. S. R. Delegation to the United Nations. The Pyne house is the southern anchor of a row of four elegant, red-brick Georgian-style townhouses that were threatened with demolition until the Marquess de Cuevas, a member of the Rockefeller family, saved them.

The Council on Foreign Relations publishes the influential journal Foreign Affairs. It has pleasant interiors and its facilities are often available for renting for special functions.