History
The Sullivan House is a much-admired architectural gem. It was built in 1904 for Col. LU Maltby, the owner of the Continental Hotel in Philadelphia. In 1929, he sold the house to Cornelius Sullivan.
Sullivan was a Wall Street lawyer and his wife, Mary Quinn Sullivan, was an artist and art teacher in the New York City public schools. They were both children of Irish immigrants. With their passion for modern art, the Sullivans amassed a collection that included paintings, sculpture and manuscripts by now-famous artists such as Van Gogh, Toulouse-Lautrec, Picasso, Cezanne and Yeats. Mrs. Sullivan was one of the three founders of the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
