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When a civilization ends, it does not leave behind a tombstone. Instead, it leaves stackings of stones (i.e. buildings.) We lose the remembrance of individual people, the things they said, did, and wrote, but we remember what they built because those things endure for much longer. The Ancient Greeks and Romans tell us about themselves through their Classical Architecture. We remember the Medieval period in Europe from its castles and Gothic Cathedrals. We remember the early 20th century from the Art Deco buildings it left behind. The style tells us something about their priorities, what they believed, what they knew, and what their hopes were. In a sense, the buildings that a culture leaves behind are a kind of epitaph.
Let’s look through the structural epitaphs of our ancestors.
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Lyndhurst Mansion (Tarrytown, New York)
This Gothic Revival beauty started as a local joke. Mayor Paulding of New York City had it built, and it was so poorly received that it was known as “Paulding’s Folly.” Every generation has it haters, it seems, and it’s likely that some of these same people lived long enough to call the 1867 purchase of Alaska “Steward’s Folly.”
Sidenote: I wonder how many people know that the Russian Empire used its Navy to help keep the European Powers out of the American Civil War and joining in on the side of the South. It seems to me that the purchase of Alaska might have been a way for us to pay back that help for the Union.
I fear I’ve gone far afield.
Perhaps Paulding’s original design was pretty ugly because the subsequent owner of the house did a lot of significant renovations to the place – doubling its size among other things. While I do not know whether the original design was worthy of the panning it received, I do know its final form is fantastic. The Gothic Revival design is gorgeous and I really like the look of the local limestone exterior as well. This period, after its renovation, is when it obtained its name Lyndhurst.
You might recognize this place, even if you’ve never been there, because it is frequently used as a filming location, or an establishing shot location, for television and films.
Paulding named his house “Knoll”, although critics quickly dubbed it “Paulding’s Folly” because of its unusual design that includes fanciful turrets and asymmetrical outline. Its limestone exterior was quarried at Sing Sing in present-day Ossining, New York.
Merritt, the house’s second owner, engaged Davis as his architect, and in 1864–1865 doubled the size of the house to 14,000 sq ft (1,300 m2), renaming it “Lyndenhurst” after the estate’s linden trees. Davis’ new north wing included an imposing four-story tower, a new porte-cochere (the old one was reworked as a glass-walled vestibule), a new dining room, two bedrooms and servants’ quarters.
Gould purchased the property in 1880 to use as a country house. He shortened its name to “Lyndhurst”, which he sometimes spelled “Lindhurst”, and occupied it until his death in 1892. In 1961, Gould’s daughter Anna Gould donated it to the National Trust for Historic Preservation. The house is now open to the public.
Architecture
Architectural detail of Lyndhurst
Lyndhurst’s rooms are strongly Gothic in character. Hallways are narrow, windows small and sharply arched, and ceilings are fantastically peaked, vaulted, and ornamented. The effect is at once gloomy, somber, and highly romantic; the large, double-height art gallery provides a contrast of light and space.
The house sits within a landscape park, designed in the English naturalistic style by Ferdinand Mangold, whom Merritt hired. Mangold drained the surrounding swamps, created lawns, planted specimen trees, and built a conservatory. The park is an outstanding example of 19th-century landscape design with a curving entrance drive that reveals “surprise” views of rolling lawns accented with shrubs and specimen trees. The 390-foot-long (120 m) onion-domed, iron-framed, glass conservatory was one of the largest privately owned greenhouses in the United States when constructed.
In popular culture
Arcadia, the 2014 debut album by the American singer-songwriter and producer Caroline Polachek, under the pseudonym Ramona Lisa, depicts the mansion on the album cover.
ABC‘s holiday television film The Halloween That Almost Wasn’t (1979), a.k.a. The Night Dracula Saved the World, was shot here. The scenes were used as the backdrop for both Count Dracula and the Witch’s castle. It later aired on the Disney Channel during its Halloween season, until the late 1990s.
From 1992 until the program changed filming locations from New York to Los Angeles in 2009, Lyndhurst served as the exterior of “Wildwind,” the home of Dimitri Marick, in establishing shots on the ABC daytime drama All My Children. Elements of Lyndhurst’s interior architecture influenced the design of the Wildwind sets.
Lyndhurst was also used as a filming location for ABC’s Forever in 2014, using the cottage on the property for exterior shots.
Lyndhurst’s landscape, bowling alley, and mansion interior were used as a filming location for NBC’s The Blacklist, starring James Spader.
In 2017, the Lifetime series Project Runway filmed an episode at Lyndhurst, challenging the designers to draw inspiration from the exteriors and gardens.
The 2021 and 2022 Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show was held outdoors at Lyndhurst on account of concerns about the COVID-19 pandemic in New York City.
Lyndhurst serves as a filming location for The Gilded Age. The mansion interior serves as the home of the character Aurora Fane and her husband, and the Lyndhurst Carriage House is the location of the New York Globe offices. Season 1 also featured the Lyndhurst grounds and greenhouse. The ferry terminal in the series’ premiere episode was modeled after the Lyndhurst Bowling Alley.
I definitely recommend you take the tour. Here are a couple that I hope you’ll enjoy.
