


When Fletcher died in 1917, he left the house and his art collection to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.. In 1918 the house was bought by made oil millionaire Harry F. Sinclair who lived in the house until 1930. After 1930 the descendents of Peter Stuyvesant had been living there. In 1955 house was purchased by the Ukrainian Institute of America.
Ukrainian Institute of America was founded in 1948 by William Dzus (Volodymyr Dzus or Dzhus ) American engineer of Ukrainian descent.

I visited Ukrainian Institute on a warm night in June. It was a Museum Day in New York and 5th Ave was close to traffic and overcrowded. There was a long line to the Neue Galerie - "Degenerate Art: The Attack on Modern Art in Nazi Germany, 1937," was on show. I opened the door of the beautiful mansion and was surprised how quite it was inside. I was the only one visitor at that time...

There were a bunch of the pictures done in Socialist realism style, the official style of Soviet art from the mid-1930s until the dissolution of the Soviet Union. One of the most impressive was monumental 1961 work "Motherland Greets A Hero" (15 feet x 7 feet), by Mykhailo Khmelko which depicts Nikita Khrushchev and a crowd of well-wishers greeting cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin after his first flight into space.
The last floor of the house is occupied now by the works of Alexander Archipenko.

Once in Lake Tahoe, we often choose to stay at the smallest and friendliest casino hotel, Lakeside Lodge (which isn't really on the lake! ), since it was close to the town, had reasonable accommodation prices, great food options, and a little casino, ATX surf boat Tahoe.
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