During World War I, the academy made plans to sell its building at 10 West 44th Street in order to build an addition to its building on 15 West 43rd Street. A man named Louis Sherry (of Sherry's hotel and restaurant) made an offer on the property, which the academy reluctantly accepted around 1918. Sherry's offer included renting the building for $5,000 per year for ten years with the option to purchase the property outright for $100,000 within five years. While the academy originally paid $120,000 for the property, their special advisory Finance Committee urged them to take the deal. A peripheral fallout of this agreement was that the academy's live-in janitor, Felix Wesstrom, lost his living quarters. To compensate him for the loss, the academy increased his monthly salary by $30.