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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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A Week Without Old Houses
I'm catching my breath. Back next week with something special.
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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...
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A Finale, of Sorts
Here's William K. Vanderbilt II (1878-1944), a man as nice as he was rich, in front of his Maurice Fatio designed house on a small island off the southern tip of Miami Beach. In 1925, Vanderbilt...
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Mamie Fish
In this winter of our "global warming," yet another horrible storm managed to torpedo last Monday's field trip to Grey Towers, the Richard Morris Hunt designed home of America's uber-forester, Gifford...
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Liberal Towers
The photo above, taken around 1900 on a Pennsylvania country estate called Grey Towers, shows a youthful Gifford Pinchot (1865-1946) standing behind his father James (1831-1908) and mother Mary Jane...
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Happy New Year from "Big Old Houses"
Old houses are markers of the changing world. I personally like big ones. Here's mine in 1910.And here it is today, scoured of balustrades, pergola, awnings, flower boxes, fretwork, gravel paths,...
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Lucky it was Over Here
I've just finished reading "Former People; The Final Days of the Russian Aristocracy" by Douglas Smith, a sobering tale if ever there was. In our country, Fox News and MSNBC may detest one another but...
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Yonkers, of all places
This splendid old house, until recently an orchid on uncaring waters, sits atop a 300-foot bluff overlooking the Hudson in northern Yonkers. When completed in 1912 the riverfront hereabouts was lined...
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Saved by a Golf Course and a Patrician Old Lady
How amazing is Waltham, a slightly gritty industrial city a mere 10 miles from the Boston Common. Waltham quite unexpectedly possesses not one but three important country estates, on 109, 37 and 50...
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"...a party of great talent and little sense."
Harrison Gray Otis (1765-1848) and Sally Foster (1770-1836) were married in Boston in 1790. He was 25, she was 20, and were I the parent of either, I would have strongly urged delay. Back then,...
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A Solomonic Compromise
Those who like to quote the Bible, not that I'm one, relate the tale of two young mothers with two young babies. One of the latter, in the middle of the night, has suddenly died, and after an...
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Something Completely Different
"And now..." if I may crib a 43-year-old line from Monty Python, "...for something completely different." My old car, purring like a kitten these days, recently took me to Bethlehem, PA. I spent the...
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An Under-appreciated Classic
Today I am in Greenwich, CT, land of the hedge fund king and the $20 million "tear-down," a fate which may well await this fine mid-country Colonial Revival period piece from 1923. Its intentional lack...
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Mamie Fish
In this winter of our "global warming," yet another horrible storm managed to torpedo last Monday's field trip to Grey Towers, the Richard Morris Hunt designed home of America's uber-forester, Gifford...
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The Owners' Suite
The name of this house is Daheim, and I've lived in it for 33 years. Had it been mine, I would have been deprived of it long ago, but that's another story. Until 1889, it was just another boring post...
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A Noble Antique in the Urban Sprawl
I confess I am put off by people who introduce themselves with a first name only. Youthful customer service people on the other side of the globe who insist on calling me "John" are equally annoying....
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