A Season of Splendor: The Court of Mrs. Astor in Gilded Age New York

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Recommended Books

Click HERE to learn more about this book on Amazon Books. NOTE: " As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases" which helps to maintain this blog, two FB groups and two Instagram accounts. Thank you.

Recommended Books

 

Click HERE to learn more about this book on Amazon Books.

NOTE: " As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases" which helps to maintain this blog, two FB groups and two Instagram accounts. Thank you.

Astor Family Books

 

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American Rascal: How Jay Gould built Wall Street's Biggest Fortune

The Gilded Age wasn't just about the Vanderbilt fortune.You should enjoy this newer 2023 look at Jay Gould. "American Rascal: How Jay Gould  built Wall Street's Biggest Fortune", by Greg Steinmetz. You can learn more about this book HERE.

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Fifth Avenue: A Very Social History

 

“Fifth Avenue, A Very Social History,” by Kate Simon, is one of my favorite books. It not only delves into the opulent Gilded Age mansions of Fifth Avenue but also weaves captivating stories about the people who inhabited them. For more information about this 1978 book, you can visit the following link HERE.  While it’s readily available on Amazon in various price ranges, you can also find it online at other used bookstores, eBay, or your local library.

Gilded Age Books

Click HERE to see all posts that feature books about Gilded Age Mansions & Lifestyle.

 

Long Island Country Houses & Their Architects: 1860-1940

For those that want to learn and see the most complete reference book about the great estates & mansions of Long Island's Gold Coast. I highly recommend this book. The book is filled with certainly more than a thousand listings and while the photos are often small, it does make you aware of so many mansions, obscure & familiar.

Please click HERE to see it on Amazon. If you choose to buy from the Amazon Link, "As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases", which helps to maintain this blog, two FB groups and two Instagram accounts. Thank you.

The Astor Mansion Auction

The Astor Mansion at 840 Fifth Avenue Photo: MCNY

Here is a great find, the auction catalog from the sale of contents of the famous Fifth Avenue mansion of Mrs. Astor. Once located at 840 Fifth Avenue & 65th Street, this beautiful mansion was torn down in 1926. Have a look at the contents and be amazed at the prices that items sold for!

Click HERE to see it.

Colorized aerial view of the Hudson Estate, Muttontown, LI, NY.

The Charles I. Hudson Estate was built circa 1906 and originally named Westbrook Farm. The architects were Hiss & Weekes and the landscape was designed by a young Ferruccio Vitale. The North Shore of Long Island once discovered by the New York City millionaires became very popular because it had rolling hillside and old forests. Previously it was mostly used for farming. When the millionaires came calling to the farmers to buy up their swaths of land, the farmers couldn’t be happier and gladly took the inflated amounts for land that was often rock and hilly, not the best for good farming. As we see here in the aerial photo the top part of the photo shows dense woodlands, but the bottom once cleared farmland. The estate builders wanting to have their homes surrounded by trees had perfect rows planted to achieve that effect quicker than Mother Nature could do. The once magnificent mansion by the 1950’s became a vandalized ruin and eventually demolished. The now returned to nature landscape is a nature preserve where all can visit and search for the few remains of the great mansion, Knollwood. More information & photos HERE. NOTE: The mansion in the  colorized photo has some quirks in it, but will be fixed which requires much more time,but the main photo does show the lushness of the landscape.