Charles M. Schwab's 'Riverside' mansion on Riverside Drive, one of the most extravagant private houses in New York. — Image source: Wikimedia Commons Charles M. Schwab began his career driving stakes for a dollar a day and rose to become president of U.S. Steel and the founder of Bethlehem Steel. When a man makes that […]
The William A. Clark House, whose basement hid a private rail line built solely to bring in coal. — Image source: Wikimedia Commons We tend to picture private railroads as something you would find on a sprawling country estate, a rich man's toy winding through the grounds. But Senator William A. Clark built one beneath […]
The Cornelius Vanderbilt II House, opened to the public for fifty cents a head shortly before its demolition. — Image source: Wikimedia Commons By 1926, Alice Vanderbilt knew her home was doomed. The Cornelius Vanderbilt II House, the largest private residence ever built in New York, had been sold, and the developers who paid seven […]
The Petit Chateau at 660 Fifth Avenue, one of three great mansions demolished in 1927. — Image source: Wikimedia Commons If you wanted to pick the single worst year for Gilded Age architecture, you could make a strong case for 1927. In the space of about twelve months, the wrecking crews took down three of […]
Charles M. Schwab's Riverside mansion, demolished in 1948 and replaced by an apartment block. — Image source: Wikimedia Commons For every Gilded Age mansion that survived to become a museum, several were wiped off the map. The story of these great houses is, overwhelmingly, a story of demolition, and the easiest way to feel the […]
Caroline Schermerhorn Astor, whose Fifth Avenue mansion housed the ballroom that defined New York society. — Image source: Wikimedia Commons The woman who decided who counted in New York society lived, fittingly, in one of its largest private houses. Caroline Astor's double mansion at 840 and 841 Fifth Avenue, on the corner of 65th Street, […]
The Cornelius Vanderbilt II House, whose finest interior fragments were donated to the Metropolitan Museum of Art before demolition. — Image source: Wikimedia Commons When the great mansions of Gilded Age New York were demolished, their interiors did not always go straight to the rubble heap. The most precious fragments, the fireplaces, the paneled rooms, […]
Senator William A. Clark's mansion cost about $7 million and was demolished barely 16 years after completion. — Image source: Wikimedia Commons Senator William A. Clark's Fifth Avenue mansion cost about seven million dollars, the equivalent of well over two hundred million today, and took fourteen years to build, plagued by lawsuits and the Senator's […]
The Cornelius Vanderbilt II House, once described as the grandest house in America, demolished after just 43 years. — Image source: Wikimedia Commons There is a phrase that followed the Cornelius Vanderbilt II House for decades: once this was the grandest house in America. And it was not mere hype. At its peak, the mansion […]
Clark's Folly and its peers were demolished not out of carelessness, but because of an impossible economic equation. — Image source: Wikimedia Commons It is the question every Gilded Age mansion lover eventually asks: how could they just tear these down? These families had almost unlimited money. Why did they not save the most beautiful […]
