An Upper East Side neo-Georgian townhouse designed by the Astors’ and Roosevelts’ architect 125 years ago is back on the market for $45.5 million, bringing with it a fascinating New York history.

The home was commissioned in 1904 by Dr. Frederick S. Lee, a doctor at Columbia Universty who was president of the New York Botanical Garden from 1923 to 1927, according to a former listing. The architect, Charles A. Platt, was also a landscape designer and painter.

By 1944, Time magazine founder and publisher Henry Luce gifted the 35-foot-wide property at 125 E. 65th St. to the China Institute, and it was known as “China House” for the next 70 years. In 2014, the property hit the market for $32 million, where it lingered for seven years until it sold for $16.8 million in 2021 to the current own

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