In January 1925, The Barclay Corporation, a syndicate headed by celebrated architect Eliot Cross and millionaire real estate developer W. Seward Webb leased a parcel of land on Lexington Avenue between 48th and 49th Streets from New York Central Reality and Terminal Corporation, owned by the Vanderbilt family. Cross and Webb planned to build a luxury residential hotel of international acclaim, and set forth in developing what would come to be called Terminal City. Later that year, construction began on The Barclay, designed by Cross and Cross in neo-Federal, American Colonial style. Cross and Cross would later go on to design the Tiffany and Co. building on Fifth Avenue and 57th Street.