The death of brothers Ogden and Robert Goelet near the end of the nineteenth century left vast multi-million estates for their heirs
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The death of brothers Ogden and Robert Goelet near the end of the nineteenth century left vast multi-million estates for their heirs
Amongst all the bold-faced names associated with Long Islands Gold Coast, “Phipps” stands out. Social, sporty and philanthropic, as an aggregate, few families could approach the scale of the half-dozen or more estates they owned and the legacy they created.
As we walked past the massive brownstone Engineers Club on a visit to Baltimore we were unable to resist peeking inside. Our quick view of some of the stunning interiors whet my appetite to learn more about the building’s history and the people who lived there.
A brisk walk around one of the squares and peeking down some side streets not only rewarded us with remarkably fine examples of mid-nineteenth century domestic architecture, but also the opportunity to take an up-close look at interiors by Charles A Platt, Stanford White, John Russell Pope, and Delano and Aldrich all on the same block!
Brendan and I were looking for someplace to visit on the drive back home from Boston recently. Our host suggested the Eustis Estate Museum, a mansion and eighty-acre grounds located about 10 miles southwest of downtown Boston operated by Historic New England. It was definitely worth the trip.
By 1912, “the times they were a changin” for the East Coast’s urban elite. Improvements in communications and transportation coupled with increased growth and congestion of major urban centers had precipitated a significant shift in their domestic living patterns….
I never thought much about the Harrison Avenue area around Halidon Hill as being a hotspot during Newport’s Gilded Age, aside from a few stellar holdovers like Bonniecrest and Harbor Court. Over time the began area popping up more and more often during research in association with various gilded age luminaries including Whitneys and Vanderbilts who summered there. Delving a little deeper I found while it may not have achieved the same degree of popularity as Bellevue Avenue or Ochre Point, this enclave overlooking the harbor had its own cachet, populated by a mixture of Old New York Society names with enough “Nobs” and “Swells” thrown in to keep it chic.
When imagining the scenes set in Newport from Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence, it is all too easy to picture the characters swanning in and out of Marble House, Rosecliff, The Elms, or other mansions of their ilk. Yet the Newport from the 1870s and 1880s that she wrote of in her book looked quite different in reality. Fortunately, there is a neighborhood in Newport that still retains some of that "Age of Innocence" character.....
