The James Monroe House

Maria Hester Monroe, the youngest daughter of President James Monroe, was married at the White House in 1820—the first wedding ever held there. She and her husband, Samuel L. Gouverneur, later settled in Manhattan, where Gouverneur built an elegant Federal-style home at 63 Prince Street. After Monroe’s presidency ended amid financial strain, he moved into this house and died there on July 4, 1831—remarkably, the same date as the deaths of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson five years earlier.

The Prince Street residence became the site of New York’s largest funeral to that date and briefly served as a social hub for the city’s elite. As the neighborhood commercialized later in the 19th century, the house was converted to shops and factories. Though preservationists eventually recognized it as the “Monroe House” and installed a commemorative plaque in 1905, repeated fires, neglect, and failed rescue efforts took their toll. Despite multiple campaigns to save it, the historic home was ultimately demolished in the 1920s, marking one of the earliest—and most poignant—losses in America’s preservation movement.