The mansion was converted to a commercial building in the 20th century, becoming the New York City flagship store of the Ralph Lauren accessory and clothing company in the 1980s.

The Gertrude Rhinelander Waldo House is at 867 Madison Avenue, along the southeast corner of 72nd Street, on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City.

[6] The apparel and accessories chain Polo Ralph Lauren, which has had its flagship store at the Rhinelander Mansion since 1986,[8] also operates additional structures across Madison Avenue.

[9] These include 888 Madison Avenue, a 22,000-square-foot (2,000 m2) store completed in 2010 as Ralph Lauren's secondary flagship;[10] it is designed in a Beaux-Arts style with a limestone façade and marble interiors.

[13][14][18] The primary elevation of the façade faces Madison Avenue and is divided vertically into three parts: a central section flanked by projecting pavilions at either end.

[17] Each pair of copper dormers is separated by a stone chimney with carvings of rhombuses on its side, which are designed to resemble those on the Château de Chambord.

[25] The architect Witold Rybczynski wrote in his book Home: A Short History of an Idea that, when the house was renovated in the 1980s, the designer Ralph Lauren aimed to redesign the interior in a way reminiscent of the past, rather than replicating the original architecture verbatim.

[7] The first floor was a large center hall extending one-third the width of the Madison Avenue frontage, with mahogany paneling on the walls and ceiling.

[36] Display cases were carefully installed to blend in with the interiors, and items such as luggage, flowers, and birdcages were arranged to complement the house's design.

[15][34] In 1882, Waldo bought a site at the southeast corner of 72nd Street and Madison Avenue, announcing plans to construct a home that the Real Estate Record called "quite unique in design".

[44] Waldo hired Francis Kimball and George Thompson to design a chateauesque house in New York City after being inspired by a chateau in France.

[62][63] It is unknown why Waldo refused to make payments toward the mortgage,[63] but whenever a bank came close to foreclosing on the house, she paid off the outstanding debt before she could lose control.

[59] The lower stories were converted to commercial space and leased to the antique dealer Olivotti & Company,[81][82] which was being forced to relocate from Madison Avenue and 45th Street.

[95] The photographer Hal Phyfe, and a doctor known as Dr. Stanton, were also cited as having lived in the house in the mid-20th century, and the mansion was additionally occupied by two florists during that period.

[96] The Olivotti store went out of business in 1946,[25] and the Dry Dock Savings Bank sold the house that September to A. J. Paretta, who planned to renovate the building into a commercial structure.

[104] Its tenants included de Evia (who lived on three stories),[100] as well as the Tate & Hall and Elizabeth Draper decorating firms,[25][104] who paid a combined $47,000 a year.

[123][c] Lauren had considered leasing the Charles Scribner's Sons Building and a Trump Tower storefront on Fifth Avenue before deciding upon the Rhinelander Mansion.

[124][37] One company executive said they wanted to "restore the charm and dignity the building had to create an interior that's elegant and clubby",[122] and Lauren himself told Architectural Digest that "I've always thought that showing clothes in a townhouse would be the ultimate for me".

[24] As part of the project, workers installed furniture and decorations that were reminiscent of the house's original design, including oak floors and mahogany balustrades.

The New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation (OPRHP), which had to endorse the tax credit, spent over a year reviewing Lauren's request, as many of the original decorative details had been covered up or even destroyed.

[152] In the early 2000s, a Women's Wear Daily reporter wrote that the Rhinelander Mansion maintained its manor-like character, while the store inside had 50 salespeople "who behave more like servants at an English estate than typical retail clerks".

[38] Polo Ralph Lauren kept the mansion's drapes closed to entice visitors, while the decorations and artwork inside were swapped out every few weeks to attract repeat customers.

[38] Polo Ralph Lauren acquired yet another building across the street, at 872 Madison Avenue, in 2004;[153] that structure housed the store's baby-clothing department, which had opened the previous year.

[155] A writer for The New York Times said in 2006 that the block of Madison Avenue adjoining the Rhinelander Mansion had become a "Disney-like mall of Ralph Lauren stores".

[177] The architecture critic Henry Hope Reed Jr. said: "The fortress heritage of the rural, royal residences of the Loire was not lost in the transfer to New York.

"[18] After the Ralph Lauren store opened in 1986, a Chicago Tribune writer likened the building to an English gentlemen's club,[31] while Newsday said the decor evoked the original grandeur of the mansion.

[37] Los Angeles Times writers described the house as a "merchant's mansion straight from Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous"[36] and compared it to a country estate.

[141] In a 2001 guidebook, Francis Morrone wrote that the building's "varied, irregular silhouette" had a romantic air and that it was one of the main surviving Chateauesque mansions in the city.

[15] A writer for the Daily Beast wrote that the Madison Avenue mansion and the adjacent house on 72nd Street was "her crowning achievement, and her most lasting legacy".

[190] The arrangement of other Polo Ralph Lauren locations in London, Paris, Moscow, Tokyo, and Milan were based on the layout of the Rhinelander Mansion store as well.