The Tishman family via Tishman Realty and Construction built the tower in 1957 for $40 million. Previously, the address had been home to a Stanford White-designed mansion built in 1908 for the family of William Kissam Vanderbilt II. The part of the site at 660 Fifth Avenue had also previously held the William K. Vanderbilt House, an 1882 châteauesque mansion designed by Richard Morris Hunt for William Kissam Vanderbilt. However, the mansion had been demolished in 1926 and replaced with a 12-story office building by developer Benjamin Winter.