Inside the NYC Mansion of Doomed Railroad Tycoon You Can Now Tour
Of the many treasures to be found in the swelling stacks at the Library of Congress, one of my favorites is a set of books from the early 1880s that belonged to Alexander Graham Bell. They have nothing to do with the telephone, however, nor technology generally. No, these books so hefty they must be brought to your reading desk on wheels, are of houses.
Artistic Houses: Interior Views of a number of the Most Beautiful and Celebrated Homes in the United States was published in 1883 by George William Sheldon with a run of just 500 copies. Bell’s was number 358. It is a window into American splendor before the third generation of Vanderbilts thrust domestic architecture fully into the palatial Beaux-Arts era. Most of the rooms are peak Victorian–cluttered, every inch covered in suffocating detail. Louis Comfort Tiffany, then at his peak, did many of the interiors, including the White House. Many names are recognizable: Morgan, Flagler, Field, and Tilden. There are glimpses, though, of what is to come. One palatial home in particular, constructed just in time for publication, was a harbinger–Villard House.
Gossip Girl might be how most people today recognize its imposing brownstone edifice, as it was the exterior shot of Chuck Bass’s hotel quarters. But HBO’s The Gilded Age is why I found myself here recently. The show’s success has stimulated a previously insipid interest in America’s own one-time aristocracy—we always seemed to prefer period pieces from turn-of-the-century England and France—into full fledged obsession. Capitalizing on that obsession, Lotte New York Palace Hotel, the occupant of the mansion and its stark black tower rising from its rear, is offering exclusive tours of the property as well as neighboring St. Patrick’s Cathedral.