Clik here to view.
Preserved in Amber
Here I am in du Pont country, a swankily rural district barely 6 miles from downtown Wilmington, Delaware. I'm about to enter a sort of Disneyland for the serious-minded called "Hagley." Its 200 acres...
View ArticleClik here to view.
What's in a Name?
People give their houses an infinity of odd names. A cursory internet search produces examples like Apple Drop, Beatle Fields, Clover Stump, Dingle Dell, Creeping Snails, Old Wob, Pratty Flowers and...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Another Visit to the Ames Family
He is confident without arrogance, elegant without pretension, at ease as a matter of course. He gazes at us levelly from across the years, his intellect tempered by tact, and curiosity leavened with...
View ArticleClik here to view.
"Suppose you were an idiot..."
"Suppose you were an idiot," Mark Twain once said, "and suppose you were a member of Congress; but I repeat myself." The subject of next week's "Big Old Houses" is Mr. Clemens' house. Unfortunately, I...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Victoria, Off the Charts
Many want to be amused, but few are very amusing. An exception was Samuel Langhorne Clemens (1835-1910), whom the world knew as Mark Twain. He was a funny guy whose big life ended in hard times. What...
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.
Mrs. Riddle's House
Here's Theodate Riddle (1867-1966) on the right, with her prize Guernsey Anesthesia Faithlow. I know; they sound like characters from the "Hunger Games." When born, Theo, as friends and family called...
View ArticleClik here to view.
"Grave, but interesting"
This house is in the Boston suburb of Waltham. It's called Stonehurst. My house is half way up the Hudson Valley, remote from any suburb. It's called Daheim.Stonehurst was finished in 1886. Daheim was...
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 Article