Clik here to view.
Not Very Big, and Not Very Old
Last June, I wrote about an 86-foot long yacht built in 1935 called "Enticer." A year later I find myself writing about an 86-foot long house built in 1930 in Connecticut. Both yacht and house are 18...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Luxury Finds a Life Raft
The graveyards of the world, we are told, are filled with indispensable men. You've never heard of Morris K. Jesup (1830-1908), I'll bet, but he led a large life that brimmed with good deeds. In fact,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
A "DC Sleeper"
Last week, while attending a Philadelphia wedding reception, my daughter and her husband shared a table with the groom's 85-year-old Great-Aunt Conky, nee Caroline. Aunt C, interestingly, had been...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Living Large
This is Alfred Irenee duPont (1864-1935), photographed in North Dakota in 1906. "Oftentimes he would be seen thus," said his 3rd wife, Jessie, "contemplating whether or not to move a tree or shrub, or...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Wave Hill is Ready for its Closeup
In the summer of 2006, a few of us in Millbrook got together to give an '80s bash we called "The Big Hair Affair." The walls at Daheim were decorated with giant blowups of friends and neighbors onto...
View ArticleClik here to view.
(Very) Far from the Coal Mine
Here I am - actually I'm in the middle of the road holding my camera - in front of the gates to Blithewold, the former Bristol, R.I. estate of Mr. & Mrs. William McKee. The blaze of nearby Newport...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Living Up to One's In-laws
In December of 1906, Barr Ferree of "American Homes and Gardens" described Mrs. Elliott Fitch Shepard's country place at Scarborough, NY, as follows: "Immensity is one of the chief characteristics of...
View ArticleClik here to view.
My Father's Club
One afternoon in the year 1923, a couple of rich brothers got into a fistfight. The depressing, unnecessary and all too predictable cause? Money. Robert Sterling Clark (1877-1956), the elder, wanted...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Irish Channel
Since my first posting of "The Irish Channel" in August of 2012, the owners of "Inisfada" have sold it to a developer. Absent some increasingly unlikely reprieve, it will soon be demolished. For 75 tax...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Popularity Was Not Her Strong Suit
If you've got $26 million dollars in your pocket, you can be the next owner of this undeniably impressive marble mansion on Washington's Dupont Circle. Happily, TTR Sotheby's, the local shop...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Very U
A cultured lady I know, of the Republican persuasion, lectured me recently for using the word, "foyer." "Very non-U," she said, adding, "The word is 'anteroom.' I don't really know why, it just is."...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Table Setting 101
Who was Anna Gambrill? And how could you not know how to set a table if you lived in a house like this?First things first: Anna Gambrill bought a swanky Newport lot at 492 Bellevue Avenue in 1898. By...
View ArticleClik here to view.
A Country Squire Abandons the Bronx
In 1889, a gentleman straight from the pages of Edith Wharton, received a nasty notification from the City of New York. David Lydig's (1840-1917) family estate at West Farms in the Bronx, a much...
View ArticleClik here to view.
A Postscript on Shutters
My last post, "A Gentleman Abandons the Bronx," illustrated indictable shutter abuse. Ignorance of aesthetic law is no excuse.A very good looking house is nearing completion a short distance from me in...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Locust Valley Lockjaw
The photograph above is of Long Island debutante Barbara Bailey, daughter of Frank and Marie Louise Bailey of Locust Valley. I'd guess it was taken sometime between Miss Bailey's 1925 debut at Sherry's...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Ars longa, vita brevis
You've probably wondered for years how the Main Line suburb of Bala Cynwyd (pronounced 'BAL-uh-KIN-wid') got its name. Well, maybe you haven't, but I have. Bala and Cynwyd started out as separate...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Third Time's the Charm
"Stillbrook" is what the local kids call "Millbrook," my Dutchess County home for 32 years. If I were a kid, I'd use "induced coma" to describe the nearby village of Sharon, CT. People in Sharon, I...
View ArticleClik here to view.
A Week Without Old Houses
I'm catching my breath. Back next week with something special.
View ArticleClik here to view.
Time Travel in Onteora Park
This redoubtable female, who looks ready to take an ax to her local tavern, is Candace Wheeler (1827-1923). Mrs. Wheeler's battleground was neither moral nor political, but aesthetic. Dubbed "Mother...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Refugee from the Gilded Age
Would you just look at this house. I know, I know; Europe and England are full of places like it (and even bigger), but for this side of the pond, it's a worthy specimen. Stone House Hill House, which...
View Article