Devonshire House, in Piccadilly, unlike other palaces that front the Green Park, retires from the bustling world of business and of pleasure, and stands aloof behind its high brick walls, but condescends to be visible through the ironwork of its lofty gate. – The Review of Reviews, 1903

Arial view of Georgian Court

Georgian Court, located in Lakewood, New Jersey, was the home of George Jay Gould I and his family–which included wife Edith Kingdon, a former actress and owner of a set of famous pearls, and his seven children, Kingdon, Jay II, Marjorie, Helen Vivien, George Jay II, Edith, and Gloria. Gould purchased 156 acres of land in 1896, and commissioned the noted architect Bruce Price to design and build a magnificent home in “the famous ‘pine belt’ of New Jersey.” Lakewood was a fashionable winter resort before the Gould’s took up residence, but the presence of this extremely rich and extremely well-known family in town lifted the area to rival Tuxedo Park and the Berkshires as an “in” spot for the sociable American upper classes.

Gould Family

Georgian Court was the Gould family’s kingdom, being fitted up with every equipment of country sport, including three polo fields, an immense riding ring, golf links, playing courts for squash, tennis, and racquet ball, a gymnasium, and a 56 x 26 foot swimming pool, next to which was access to a Turkish and Russian baths, steam room, bowling alley, automobile room, club parlor, a breakfast room, kitchen, and some thirty bedrooms. Equally impressive were the extensive gardens, three of which were designed by Bruce Price–the Italian Garden, the Sunken Garden, and the Formal Garden–,while the Japanese Garden was designed by Takeo Shiota. So grand was Georgian Court, a visit to Lakewood to take part in the sporting and social events was added to the Social Calendar for spring, where the greatest novelty was a living chess game held at the Georgian Court Casino.

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Exterior view, LIFE Magazine, 1938

Lynnewood Hall, a century-old stunner of a building just outside Philadelphia, silently, almost invisibly, languishes 200 feet beyond a two-lane blacktop road like a crumbling little Versailles.

The graceful fountain that welcomed hundreds of well-heeled visitors, President Franklin Roosevelt among them, was dismantled and sold years ago. Its once meticulously sculpted French gardens are overgrown with weeds and vines. The classical Indiana limestone facade may have lost its luster but its poise still remains — at least from the other side of rusted wrought iron gates that keep the curious at bay.

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