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.

Like other Gilded Age palaces of the nation’s pre-Depression industrial titans, Lynnewood Hall is a relic of a bygone era facing an uncertain future. Will it befall the same fate as neighboring Whitemarsh Hall, the demolished mansion of banking magnate Edward Stotesbury? Or will it be returned to former glory, like industrialist Alfred I. duPont’s former Nemours Mansion in Delaware?

“It’s a tragedy that people drive past Lynnewood Hall and don’t know what it is, or don’t even notice it’s there,” said Stephen J. Barron, who runs a website and Facebook group aiming to drum up interest in the mansion’s plight. “It breaks my heart and it bothers me. The house is a work of art.”

Long before its current humble predicament, Lynnewood Hall was home to the uber-wealthy Widener family and called “the last of the American Versailles.”

The lord of Lynnewood Hall, Peter A.B. Widener, started out as a butcher. After making a small fortune supplying mutton to Union troops during the Civil War, he grew into a full-fledged tycoon from buying streetcar and railroad lines and investing in steel, tobacco and oil.

Among the spoils was his 480-acre estate, its centerpiece the 110-room, 70,000-square-foot Georgian-style palace designed by architect Horace Trumbauer.

Lynnewood Hall was completed in late 1900 and cost $8 million to build — a staggering $212 million in today’s dollars.

It had a ballroom that held 1,000 people, an indoor pool and squash court, a bakery and full-time upholstery and carpentry shops. The estate boasted its own power station, horse track and stables, and a 220-acre farm run by a staff of 100.

French landscape architect Jacques Greber designed the formal French gardens, which were graced by his brother Henri-Louis Greber’s fountain of bronze and marble statuary.

“It’s a great building and it has great potential for commercial use, especially for institutional use,” said Mary Werner DeNadai, principal of John Milner Architects in Chadds Ford. “It was certainly built to last.”

Contrary to accounts describing it as largely gutted, Lynnewood Hall is in surprisingly stable condition and generally intact, said DeNadai, who got a rare look inside in 2004 at the behest of an client interested in a possible purchase.

Her firm specializes in breathing new life into mothballed mansions, among them Nemours in Wilmington, Del., owned by a duPont-founded nonprofit and reopened in 2009 as a house museum after a three-year, $39 million rehab.

The rough estimate six years ago for rehabbing Lynnewood Hall was $12 million, not including grounds or other structures on the estate, DeNadai said.

For aging mansions without healthy endowments to keep them going, a second chance can come in the form of an upscale hotel, conference center or country club, said Jim Vaughan of the National Trust for Historic Preservation in Washington.

“If the building has good bones it might make sense, but it takes a major capital investment,” he said. “Coming up with a successful business plan, then finding investors to make it happen, is a real challenge with these great old mansions.”

He said it’s also easier to come up with workable ideas for “smaller” mansions — perhaps half the size of the Wideners’ former home.

“It’s a very wonderful property but a very difficult property in the sense of bringing it back from the edge,” said David Rowland, president of the Old York Road Historical Society, who has long followed Lynnewood Hall’s precarious plight.

Lynnewood Hall’s reversal of fortune began when P.A.B. Widener’s son, Joseph, died there in 1943 and the younger generation deemed the property too large to maintain. Much of the acreage was sold to developers and the opulent furnishings were auctioned. In 1952, the Rev. Carl McIntire of Collingswood, N.J., a controversial fundamentalist preacher, bought the property for $190,000 and established a Christian seminary.

As maintenance and heating costs on the past-its-prime palace skyrocketed, the Faith Theological Seminary sold Lynnewood Hall’s magnificent fountain, marble walls and fireplaces and other parts of its interior to make ends meet. New York physician Richard Sei-Oung Yoon, a former student of McIntire and one-time chancellor of the cash-strapped seminary, bought its mortgage in 1993 for $1.6 million with plans of establishing his own church there.

He and Cheltenham Township have been embroiled in a yearslong legal battle over Yoon’s request for tax-exempt status as a religious organization, which the township has denied. Meanwhile, Yoon has paid tens of thousands of dollars in property taxes, which Rowland said are being held in escrow while the case is held up in the courts.

Neither Yoon nor Cheltenham Township manager David Kraynik responded to repeated requests for comment. A caretaker lives on a 15,000-square-foot “guest house” but could not be reached.

Norman J. Manohar, current president of the seminary, now headquartered in Baltimore, referred all questions to the group’s attorney Herman Weinrich. He did not respond to a request for comment.

[Yahoo! News]

This week’s giveaway title is The Victorian Fern Craze. The title is rather self-explanatory, and I highly recommend this for the absolute beauty of the photographs included. According to the blurb, from 1867 to 1914, Pteridomania, or fern madness, swept Britain. The author paints a lovely picture of the care and madness that this seemingly plain plant aroused in Britain’s budding gardeners. It was during this period that the study of plants and flowers became a respected vocation, with the most masculine of gentlemen scaling mountains and valleys for one delicate flower. Pretty romantic, no? Leave a comment below to enter to win a copy of The Victorian Fern Craze by Sarah Whittingham. Entry period ends Saturday, October 31, 2009 at 11:59 pm. As always, this title and others are available from the Shire Books website.

The winner of the title is heidenkind!

*Denotes titles belonging to my personal library

In the Edwardian era, the most fashionable mansions, which frequently were the sites of the most exclusive social affairs and the most influential of political events, were Devonshire House, Dorchester House, Stafford House, and Londonderry House.

At first glance, Devonshire House appeared a plain, somewhat ugly mansion obscured by a high, solid wall. Forever immortalized by the antics of the 5th Duke of Devonshire and his two 5th duchesses Georgiana and Elizabeth, Devonshire House remained largely the same as when that menagerie resided within its tony walls. The mansion sat right on Piccadilly, an extremely busy and noisy thoroughfare–no doubt the reason for its walls. When the 8th Duke of Devonshire ascended to his title in 1891, and married his longtime lover Louisa Manchester the following year, Devonshire House became the center of London political life. The energetic and influential Louisa wielded her power from the mansion, and in 1897, she threw one of the most magnificent costume balls late Victorian society had ever seen. Not only English society, but Indian princes and princesses, American millionaires, and Continental aristocrats, attended this ball attired in sumptuous costumes worth thousands upon thousands of pounds. Despite her advanced state of pregnancy, Consuelo Marlborough recalled being laced tightly to fit into her costume, and finding her pleasure dimmed when walking across Green Park at dawn to see a number of homeless, wretched men sleeping in the grass. After the 8th duke’s death in 1908, Devonshire House passed to his nephew, who like aristocrats in the interwar era, abandoned his expensive, unnecessary London mansion and consigned it for demolition.

Dorchester House was one of Mayfair’s most breathtaking of mansions. Built for R.S. Holford in 1851-53 on the site of an older house of the same name belonging to the extinct earldom of Dorchester, Augustus Hare described it as “an imitation, not a caricature of the best Italian models.” The house was shaped like a parallelogram: the mansion stood before a triangular forecourt, a massive stone wall enclosed the grounds, and passage was gained through the lodge stationed at the entrance where Deanery Street ran into Park Lane. The most impressive part of this house was the grand staircase. It dominated the center of the house “in a great balconied hall that rose three full stories.”

This was also the hub of Anglo-American society, for Senator Whitelaw Reid was appointed American ambassador to St. James’s Palace in 1905, and rented the palace at a cost of $40,000 a year (about $960,000 in 2009 dollars). His lavish expenditure set the tone for American diplomats abroad, and very quickly it became apparent that the annual salary of $17,500 (about $400,000 in 2009 dollars) for a diplomat was not enough–which gives us a fair clue why it became the practice to choose wealthy men for diplomatic posts. Here Americans rang in the Fourth of July, and it was from Dorchester House where Alice Roosevelt Longworth prepared to make her court presentation to the King and Queen. After Reid died in 1912, the house was abandoned by the American diplomatic service as his successor, Walter Hines Page, was a man of much simpler tastes and fortune. During WWI the house was used as a hospital, and it was pulled down in 1926.

Stafford House was the London residence of the 4th Duke of Sutherland. His wife, Millicent, whose descent down the gorgeous stairway figured in so many Edwardian memoirs, was half-sister to Daisy, Countess of Warwick, and associated with both the Marlborough House Set and the Souls–a unique event, for the aims of the two social circles rarely, if ever, met. The home was initially built in the 1820s for the Duke of York and Albany, and was known then as York House. After the duke’s death in 1827, the home was but a shell, but it was quickly purchased by and completed for the 2nd Marquess of Stafford, and it was known as Stafford House from then on. So magnificent was the mansion, Queen Victoria is said to have remarked on a visit, “I have come from my House to your Palace.” The family were liberal in politics, and the 2nd Duke and Duchess of Sutherland entertained distinguished guests such as Harriet Beecher Stowe and Italian revolutionary leader Giuseppe Garibaldi in the 1850s, and the 4th Duke and Duchess followed in that tradition by extending an invitation to Dr. and Mrs. Booker T. Washington. After the 4th duke’s death in 1913, the house was sold to Sir William Hesketh Lever, who renamed it Lancaster House in honor of his native county of Lancashire, and donated the home to the nation in 1913. Lancaster House was the temporary residence of the London Museum between 1924 and 1944, and since then has been used for private government receptions.

Also on Park Lane was Londonderry House, the residence of the Marquesses of Londonderry (pronounced “Lundundree”), the Anglo-Irish family of which Robert, Viscount Castlereagh, is the most well-known. Londonderry House was originally known as Holderness House, as it was formerly the residence of the Earls of Holdernesse, whose title went extinct with the death of the last earl in 1778. The house was purchased by the Londonderry’s in 1819 as a London residence for the family, who spent considerable time on their estate in Ireland. It was completely rebuilt and enlarged by the 3rd duke during the early 1850s, and at his death in 1854, the mansion rivaled Dorchester House and Stafford House for elegance. By the time of the 6th Marquess’s ascension to the title in the 1880s, the Londonderry’s had become staunch Unionists. The Marchioness in particular opposed Home Rule for Ireland and quickly gained prominence as a Conservative Party leader, going on to form the Ulster Women‘s Unionist Council in 1911. However influential and powerful Theresa Londonderry was, her political clout has been overshadowed by the extraordinary rift between she and her husband after his discovery of her affair with another man, and the possibility that his youngest son was not his own. Londonderry House remained in the family’s possession until 1965, when it was sold to the neighboring Hilton, and demolished to enable the hotelier room for expansion.

Of the political hostesses, Theresa (Nellie) Londonderry and Louise Devonshire, of the Conservative Party and Liberal Party, respectively, were the most powerful. In her memoirs, the Countess of Fingall identified them the dictators of the social scene, saying: “If you were Lady Londonderry’s friend or the Duchess of Devonshire’s, no one would dare to say a word against you. It was an equally bad thing to be the enemy of either.” Contemporary accounts distinguish Lady Londonderry’s regime as irrevocably haughty, and as a strong partisan–described by E.F.Benson as “a highwaywoman in a tiara”–her influence is said to have been behind some of the contretemps of the Tory party. Margot Asquith despised Theresa, characterizing her as arrogant and vulgar, but praised Louisa Devonshire as “the last great political lady in London society as I have known it,” noting that “she was powerful enough to entertain both the great political parties which few can do.”

After the Great War, the great London mansion and the accompanying social and political power attached to its grandeur began to pall. Not only had the winds of politics changed (the Labour Party began to dominate the British landscape), but these houses were unwieldy and expensive to maintain. Those that hadn’t already been opened to the public either followed suit or were shut up or, as in most cases, sold and demolished. Though these palaces may have disappeared (with the sole exception of Stafford/Lancaster House), and others not detailed have as well, there are many who continue to exist–Lansdowne House, Spencer House, Apsley House, etc–and continue the albeit “spiritual” link between today and Edwardian London.

Further Reading:
The Opulent Eye: Late Victorian and Edwardian Taste in Interior Design by Nicholas Cooper
Affair of State: A Biography of the Eighth Duke and Duchess of Devonshire by Henry Vane
The Private Palaces of London, Past and Present by E. Beresford Chancellor
The Marlborough House Set by Anita Leslie
Up From Slavery by Booker T. Washington
“The Cost of Representing America Abroad.” New York Times, April 5, 1908.
Wikipedia entries for Stafford House, Marquesses of Londonderry, Dukes of Sutherland, and Millicent Sutherland.
Currency Rates found at Measuring Worth

I live in a good neighborhood, close to a country station, ten miles from the city, where each house has its garden…The families are not rich, but intelligent and of good taste. They like to make their salaries go as far as possible, to have something for concerts and journeys… Each one raises potatoes enough for the year, summer berries and green corn for the season…Everybody says a garden is a great help.

This was a complete opposite of what was occurring in Britain, where a “rural exodus” of would-be farm laborers and domestic servants abandoned the countryside for industrial and office positions in the major cities. Though there was a push for “fresh air” and a sentimental view of the vibrant landscapes of suburban and rural Americans, only the wealthy could afford to leave the city to enjoy both bucolic attributes. Wanting to follow the advice of the leading physicians of the day, and consume conspicuously, America’s wealthy elite began to build country houses.

The American country house, as an unique, individual entity, developed in their fullest form after 1885. Yes, there were the large farms along the Hudson, which were built by the early Dutch settlers, and the plantation houses of the antebellum South, but the prototypical “country house” was created as a social center, a product of wealth and leisure, and a place where the privileged classes could “escape” the hustle and bustle of city life. Once the Vanderbilt family threw down the gauntlet with such estates as Idle Hour in Long Island, The Breakers and Marble House in Newport, and Biltmore in Asheville, North Carolina, America’s wealthiest citizens began a frenzy of building which resulted in a score of celebrated country houses and estates in all corners of the U.S.

But these socialites wanted not simply a country house, but an “all-around country place,” complete with a variety of other structures such as lodges, stables, garages, gazebos, terraces and other garden architecture, glass houses, sports buildings, workers’ cottages, model farm and churches. And many were situated on large plots of land where they could hunt, ride, play polo, croquet and other outdoor sports. In a way, these Americans wished to mimic the much-vaunted “English country house,” and those grandiose characteristics served to distinguish these houses built around the turn of the century from any other dwelling designed and built in America up to then. However, according to Clive Aslet in 1990′s The American Country House, the British model upon which Americans based their estates upon had moved away from its original focus by the 1890s: “its meaning had both narrowed and spread…because the country house no longer occupied the position of real power it had held in previous generations; the motive forces were now prestige, tradition, gardening, and sport…[T]he people who built new houses tended to prefer the illusion to the substance of country life [and] to many people it was important to be near a major city.”

Though being part of a landed class did not secure political influence or ensure that the owner would have some role in running the country, nor was the American country house a place where political stratagems were hatched, the construction of an estate in the country was considered vital to anyone claiming to a part of the smartest, wealthiest social sets. When a Vanderbilt, or an Astor, or a Drexel wanted a country house, they turned to the top architects of this time: H. H. Richardson (-1886), Frank Furness, Richard Morris Hunt and the celebrated firms of McKim, Mead and White (the “White” being Stanford White) Warren and Wetmore, and Shepley, Rutan and Coolidge. The popular architectural styles of the day were:

• Stick Style, which derived from the Carpenter Gothic style, and embodied the idea that architecture should be truthful
• Queen Anne, which was generally a eclectic mash of an asymmetrical silhouette shaped by turrets, towers, gables, and bays
• Shingle Style, which grew from the Queen Anne style, but was less ornate and more horizontal than the typical Queen Anne house



• Richardsonian Romanesque, named after architect H.H. Richardson, who interpreted Romanesque architecture into a distinctly different style, and created one which abandoned the vertical silhouettes and smooth stone facings of earlier times.
• Beaux Arts, which was named for the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, and refers to the aesthetic principles practiced by the American architects who trained there.
• Classical Revival, which was less theatrical than the Beaux Arts and based primarily on the Greek architectural orders.

These aforementioned architects designed, and popular architectural styles appeared in, not only country estates, but clubs both urban and suburban, museums, libraries, railroad stations, churches, monuments, bridges, city halls and other government buildings, banks, hospitals, schools and universities. Richardson’s most celebrated work is Trinity Church in Copley Square, Boston, but the William Watts Sherman House in Newport, RI and the Crowninshield House, also in Boston, which is also the earliest, still surviving, example of his private residence work, are equally famous. The designs of Furness were mainly found in Philadelphia and outlying areas, and over the course of his 45-year career, he designed more than 600 buildings, one of which what is now the Ritz-Carlton Philadelphia. Hunt was and is considered the preeminent individual architect of the Gilded Age. He designed not one, but five Newport cottages, and was responsible for Alva Vanderbilt’s glorious Marble House. Ironically, he also designed the cottage of her second husband, O.H.P. Belmont.

The stamp of McKim, Mead and White can be found throughout New York City, almost all of which have survived today. Ex. the Washington Arch in Washington Square Park, the Morgan Library, and Columbia University’s Morningside Heights campus. It is Warren and Wetmore who are responsible for Grand Central Station, the New York Yacht Club and CBS Studio Building, which at the time was built for the Vanderbilt family for use as a guest house. The firm of Shepley, Rutan and Coolidge grew out of Richardson’s architectural practice, when, after the latter’s untimely death, Mssrs Shepley, Rutan and Coolidge completed all of Richardson’s commissions. Based in Boston, this firm designed the South Station, the Ames Building, and a new campus for the Harvard Medical School in 1906.

Now that this wealthy American possessed a country house, it was time to fling open the doors for a week-end party. As with all new things suddenly deemed fashionable, etiquette sprang up to guide those uncertain hostesses thrust into a new world. According to The Etiquette of New York To-day, “the success of a house-party depends on inviting people who know each other well, or who, when introduced, will find each other’s acquaintance agreeable.” When a hostess sent out invitations, she was advised to definitely state the period of the visit, which is where the word “week-end” was formed, though the British disdained this Americanism for “Saturday to Monday.”

Guests would arrive by rail, and since so much of the Four Hundred’s wealth was built upon railroads, many estates were right on the railroad lines (or was it vice versa?). In some houses, the cards bearing the names of guests were found in their rooms, and they were expected to tie their keys to their trunks or suit cases on the cards to aid their maids and valets in keeping track of their belongings. The party was largely informal, with hostesses offering guests the option of rising for breakfast or having it in their rooms, and allowing them the opportunity to take part in any activity they chose or did not choose. This was all quite similar to what occurred in Britain, with one exception–week-end in the country did not include the casual adultery and bedroom swapping common within the Marlborough House Set–a fact that shocked many an American who moved within European social circles.

Though English-style country estates were built after the 1920s, the period between 1885 and about 1920 is considered the golden age of the American country house. Because few if any of the houses built were intended as dynastic seats, to be handed down from generation to generation as did the Europeans, and the advent of income tax ate away at the fortunes of the Four Hundred’s outrageous fortunes, many of these famed Gilded Age manors fell into disrepair and neglect. Many still stand, whether preserved as museums (such as the Newport mansions), or as businesses and schools, though many more were demolished or destroyed by disasters (such as Clarence McKay’s Harbor Hill).

Further Reading:
The American Country House by Clive Aslet
Newport Villas: The Revival Styles 1885-1935 by Michael C. Kathrens
Gilded Mansions: Grand Architecture and High Society by Wayne Craven
Harbor Hill: Portrait of a House by Richard Wilson
The Etiquette of New York To-day by Ellin T. Craven Learned
American Country Houses of To-day by Samuel Howe
American country homes and their gardens by John Cordis Baker
One Hundred Country Houses: Modern American Examples by Aymar Embury
Society in the country house by T. H. S. Escott,
Vintage Designs (interiors of many Gilded Age mansions and houses)

The source of continual expense was due to mansion being constructed of Virginia freestone, which was exceedingly porous, which needed a thick coat of white lead every ten years to keep the dampness from penetrating to the interior. Because of the cramped space and need for constant maintenance, many historians, and certainly former tenants of the White House, stated that it was not until President Roosevelt remodeled the building that it was made entirely sanitary and healthful.

When he came to office in 1902, President Roosevelt rebuilt the White House practically from scratch, architects considering it “necessary to reconstruct the interior of the White House from basement to attic, in order to secure comfort, safety, and necessary sanitary conditions.” The restoration conformed to the original design, though two wings were added, one being used as the Temporary Executive Offices, and the other for use on social occasions. These changes and improvements were made at a cost of over $600,000 ($12,000,000 in 2008 dollars).

The first tenants of the White House, President and Mrs John Adams immediately required $15,000 ($180,000) to provide furniture, and the first appropriation for repairs was of the same amount but seven years later! Thomas Jefferson had his office outside the White House on the site occupied by the resent Executive offices, and in 1818, Congress appropriated $8,137 ($11,000) for enlarging the offices west of the Presidents House. The South portico was finished subsequent to 1823, at a cost of $19,000 ($325,000); the East Room was finished and furnished for $25,000 ($480,000) in 1826; and three years later, the North Portico was added, in accordance with the original plan, at an expense of $24,769.25. The White House was first lit by gas in 1848, and a system of heating and ventilating was installed in 1853. Four years later the stables and conservatory east of the White House were removed to make room for the extension of the Treasury Building.

How the White House received its name is a source of debate. One source states that Washington so named it in honor of the name born by the home of Martha Washington, while others have it that Martha never lived in a building named the White House, but the name belonged to the home where she and George became engaged. A third source states the house was originally called “The Palace,” but a strong “anti-monarchical sentiment” frowned on this and Congress formally declared it “The Executive Mansion,” and by that name and “The President’s House,” it was known until it was burned by the British in 1814. Then, when its blackened freestone walls were repainted white to hide the traces of the fire, it was rechristened “The White House”.

Though President Washington died before the White House was completed, he left his stamp indelibly upon it. He named the place where the capitol of the United States was to be “District of Columbia” and then a competition was opened to all architects to design the Executive Mansion. The winner was James Hoban, who received $500 ($6000) at first prize, for a design he based on the newly-built mansion of the Duke of Leinster in Dublin, Ireland (Hoban’s native city). When the Adams’ took residence in the mansion, they were less than impressed. The driver, who transported them and their effects from Baltimore, had lost his way, and when they finally arrived in Washington, it was night and the servants could hardly find lights to make the rooms distinguishable. Mrs Adams found them “exceedingly barn-like” in their unfinished and unfurnished state, and they were uncomfortable and cold. By New Year’s of 1801, the downstairs rooms were still unfurnished and unfinished, and Mrs Adams used the East Room in which to dry the household linen and the State parlors were so in name only.

When the mansion was rebuilt in 1814, Hoban was hired for $1600 ($16,000) a year, and Congress voted the sum of $500,000 ($5M) for rebuilding and repairing the public buildings burnt in the fire, with the larger part of the money spent on the Executive Mansion. The first President to live in the rebuilt mansion was James Monroe, who opened his official residence in January 1, 1818. Between then and 1902, the White House was remodeled and repainted and refurnished according to the current Presidents’ tastes and that of his wife’s. When President Roosevelt appropriated some $600,000 ($12M) from Congress, the legendary architectural firm of McKim, Mead and White were placed in charge of the work, with directions to complete the work in four months. They did this ably, and the first official function in the restored White House occurred on December 18, and at the New Year’s reception, Jan 1, 1903, when the new White House was reopened to the public.

In their report, McKim, Mead and White gave the following facts:

“The entire lower floor was used for house service. The principal rooms at the southeast corner were occupied by the laundry; the central rooms on either side of the main corridor were used for heating and mechanical plants; the kitchens occupied the northwest corner; and much of the remainder of this floor was occupied by storerooms and servants’ bedrooms.

Of the floors of the first story, those under the main hall, the private dining room, and pantry, were found to be in good condition. The floor of the State dining-room, while not showing settlement, was so insufficiently supported as to cause the dishes on the sideboards to rattle when the waiters were serving, and the plastering below was badly cracked from excessive vibration. In many places where the plaster was removed, evidence of the fire of 1814 were visible. Also cut into the stonework were found many names, evidently of workmen employed on the construction.

There was scarcely a room in the house in which the plaster was in good condition. In a number of instances as many as five layers of paper were found, and when the paper was removed, the plaster came also. The second floor showed such a degree of settlement as to make an entirely new floor necessary.

The attic, occupied by servants, was reached only by the elevator. The roof drainage had been carried through the roof, and thence on top of the attic floor to central points, descending to the ground through the house itself. The electric wiring was not only old, defective and obsolete, but actually dangerous, as in many places beams and studding were found charred for a considerable distance about the wires where the insulation had completely worn off.

In short, it was necessary to reconstruct the interior of the White House from basement to attic, in order to secure comfort, safety and necessary sanitary conditions. “

When they completed their renovation, the conservatory on the west side was replaced with an esplanade leading to the new Executive Office, and the public entrance was now through a colonnade on the east. This led to the basement corridor, on which walls were hung with portraits of the mistresses of the White House. Broad stairways led to the main corridor, from which access is had to the East Room, and the Blue, Green and Red rooms, which took their name from the color of the decorations and furnishings.

	The East Room, or State parlor, was used for receptions, and was 40ft wide and 82 ft in length, with a ceiling 22ft high from which dripped three massive crystal chandeliers. The walls were paneled throughout with wood, save for a base of red Numidian marble, the panels being enclosed between pilasters supporting a finely modeled cornice. The decorations of walls and ceiling were white and gold, with moldings and tablet ornamentation in relief, and window draperies of old gold.
	The Blue Room, oval in shape, is the President’s reception room. The walls were covered with rich blue corded silk, and the window hangings were blue with golden stars in the upper folds. On the mantle stood the clock of gold presented by Napoleon I to Lafayette, and by him to Washington.
	The Green Room, had on the wall green velvet with white enamel wainscoting. In front of the white marble mantel was a screen of old Gobelin tapestry which was presented to Mrs Grant by the Emperor of Austria. A lacquer cabinet was presented to America by Japan in 1858 in honor of the first American ships to enter Japanese ports.
	The Red Room walls and window draperies were of red velvet, and a cabinet of mahogany and gold contained seven exquisitely dressed Japanese dolls presented to Mrs Roosevelt by the Japanese Minister.
	At the opposite end of the corridor, at the west end of the building, the State Dining Room was paneled in dark English oak, and decorated with the heads of American big game. The white marble mantle was surmounted by an old Flemish tapestry, and the mahogany table seated 100 guests.
	The President’s Room and the Cabinet Room were in the Executive Office, west of the White House.

Upstairs, the old Cabinet Room, which was accessed through the stone stairway near the main entrance of the East Room, was used by President Roosevelt as his workroom. Completing the renovation, all offices on this same floor were transformed into bedrooms for the family, creating a White House which finally served its purpose: a private residence for the President and his family, and a State residence for formal events.

Resources used: Inside History of the White House by Gilson Willets; The Standard Guide of Washingon, 1905 edition; American Estates and Gardens by Barr Ferree. Current money calculations provided by The Inflation Calculator.

For more information:
TR Renovation – White House Museum
The Changing White House – PBS

According to Helen Taft, “the management of the White House is a larger task than many women are ever called upon to perform.” During the presidency of Theodore Roosevelt, the White House staff consisted of more than forty men and women, including the clerical force in the executive office, Mrs. Roosevelt’s social secretary and three maids, the steward, two butlers, the President’s family cook, the house cook and assistant, one pantry man, four cleaners, the gardener and his assistants, laundresses, firemen, watchmen, janitors, plumbers and electricians. All of these positions were paid for by the Government, with the exception of the family cook and the white maids–as most of the domestic staff (for most D.C. and Southern households) at this time were black. White House standbys included the Paymaster, the Doorkeepers, the Assistant Secretary, and the Telegrapher and “Chief Intelligence Officer.”

The most important position was the White House Steward. A virtual autocrat of the official table and cuisine at the President’s house, almost every question governing the State dinners was within their control. Receiving an annual salary of $1800, the steward supervised and accounted for every detail of the household; no piece of broken glass or china could be destroyed except upon the order of the Superintendent of Public Buildings and Grounds. Even the First Lady had little say in the culinary department of household affairs–though Mrs Taft promptly hired a housekeeper in lieu of a steward from the beginning of her husband’s presidency most likely in response to this lack of control.

For protection, the First Family was guarded by the Secret Service, and in addition, the White House itself had its guards in the form of policemen from the regular Washington Police Force. The actual number of Secret Service guards in attendance upon the President was never made public, but it was certain that at all receptions, a number of such guards were on duty within the house, while several more were stationed outside. The President never stepped outside the White House, never traveled even the shortest distance, without being followed by one or more Secret Service officers.

During dinners and other receptions hosted by the President, secret service men and police officers dotted the White House. When entering the White House, every person was closely scrutinized, particularly since Congressmen were in the habit of giving cards of admission to anyone who asked for the favor. The most important rule was to keep one’s hands in plain sight. It was the most rigid rule of the White House, and if a person happened to rest a hand in their pocket, or under their coat-tails, a low whisper immediately told them to take it out. Also in attendance upon the President, at all receptions and on all State occasions, were military and naval aids. Their duties were purely social, yet prestigious.

Despite the tumult of incoming and outgoing Presidents of different political persuasions, the cogs that kept the White House running always ran smoothly. Many White House staffers ended up working in there for many, many years, and cherished their time spent in the President’s House.

For more information:
Workers in the White House

The Mount was to be a writer’s retreat and also a place for entertaining distinguished guests like Henry James, the Vanderbilts or her neighbors at Ventfort Hall, the George Morgans. Inspired by the 17th century seat of Lord Brownlow, Belton House, and classical Italian and French architecture, she used the principles detailed in her first book, The Decoration of Houses (1897), when she designed the house. Accordingly, she stressed that “good architectural expression included order, scale, and harmony.” On a plot of 113 acres, the house overlooked Laurel Lake, with spectacular views to the Berkshire Hills and beyond, its striking white stucco exterior set off by black shutters and rose from a foundation of coarse field stone. Three stories at its entry elevation, this main house is augmented by Georgian Revival gatehouse and stable, and a greenhouse, while the garden side was of two stories, with an opening onto the large, raised stone terrace overlooking the grounds.

A visitor to the house would enter from a courtyard, then ascend a flight of steps to the main floor where the principle spaces–library, drawing room, dining room and sitting room–would open onto a terrace which offered that spectacular view of the lake and the hills. From this terrace, a Palladian staircase led to a “lime walk” of linden trees, which connected the two formal gardens on the estate.

The gardens were Wharton’s own labor of love, expressing the ideas of her 1904 release, Italian Villas and Their Gardens, envisioning her gardens as an elegant series of outdoor rooms. Designed and constructed between 1901 and 1907, they are the only surviving landscape elements she designed in the United States. After the “lime walk,” one was a walled Italian garden with walkways and a lion’s head fountain, given minimal plantings, so that it had “a charm independent of the seasons.”

Contrasting this was the flower garden filled to the brim with petunias, phlox, snapdragons, stocks, penstemons and hollyhocks, and featured a dolphin fountain and a latticework niche. To complete the landscaping was a rock garden, for which Wharton searched out native varieties of sweet ferns. To form a gradual transition from the formal plantings to the landscape beyond, clipped hedges and trees followed Wharton’s principle that “each step away from architecture was a nearer approach to nature.”

It was here Edith Wharton wrote several of her novels, including The House of Mirth, the first of many chronicles of the true nature of old New York, and entertained the cream of American literary society, including her close friend, the novelist Henry James. But this haven failed to completely soothe Wharton’s restless spirit; acerbated by Teddy Wharton’s alcoholism and general dissipation, she sought refuge in Europe and by 1910, the Wharton’s had separated. After selling The Mount in 1911, they finally divorced in 1913 and Wharton remained primarily in Europe, where she continued to write, publishing such masterpieces as her Pulitzer Prize winning novel, The Age of Innocence and her final, incomplete manuscript, The Buccaneers, before passing away in 1937.

In the meantime, The Mount was passed from owner to owner, first a private residence, then a girls’ dormitory for the Foxhollow School, and the site of the theatre company Shakespeare & Company. It was finally purchased by Edith Wharton Restoration, which has restored much of the property to its original condition. Currently open from May to October for visitors and tours, The Mount unfortunately faces foreclosure after 106 years of existence. Despite this hovering dark cloud, the estate nonetheless retains the elegant, precise charm of Wharton’s imagination.

Further Reading:
The Mount: Edith Wharton’s Estate and Gardens
The Mount: Edith Wharton and the American Resistance
The Victory Garden: The Mount; Edith Wharton’s House & Gardens