Lyndhurst (Jay Gould Estate)
Lyndhurst or Jay Gould Estate is a neo-Gothic country house in a spacious, almost 27 hectare park on the banks of the Hudson River . The property is located in Tarrytown , New York , about half a mile south of the Tappan Zee Bridge on US Highway 9 . The house was built by Alexander Jackson Davis in 1838 and was the residence of former New York City Mayor William Paulding Jr. and then merchant George Merritt . Railroad magnate Jay Gould bought it in 1880, and his daughter Anna Gould , Duchess of Talleyrand-Perigord, donated it to the National Trust for Historic Preservation in 1961 . It can be viewed by the public.
After its construction, the house was nicknamed "Knoll" ; Critics immediately gave it the nickname "Paulding's Folly" because of its extremely unusual appearance , among other things because of the playful turrets and the asymmetrical floor plan. The limestone for the facade was quarried at Sing Sing (now Ossining ). The second owner, Merritt, doubled the floor space of the house in 1864-1865 and renamed it "Lyndenhurst" because of the linden trees on the property . The new north wing received an impressive four-story tower, a new porte-cochere - the old one was converted into a glazed vestibule - as well as a new dining room, two dining rooms and rooms for the servants. Jay Gould bought the house in 1880 as a country estate and used it until his death in 1892. The shortening of the name to the current form "Lyndhurst" was Gould's idea.
Lyndhurst's interior is extremely unusual. Unlike other country estates that were later built on the Hudson River, there are few rooms that are more modest in size and that are heavily influenced by Gothic architecture . The corridors are narrow, the windows narrow and pointed, and the ceilings are imaginatively decorated with ornaments. This creates a simultaneously depressed, gloomy and romantic impression; the large two-story art gallery, on the other hand, represents a contrast between light and space.
The house is located in a park that was laid out by Ferdinand Mangold in the style of an English landscape garden. Mangold had been hired by Merritt. He drained the surrounding swamps, created meadows, an arboretum and built the greenhouse . The landscape he created was the first of its kind on the Hudson River. It represents an outstanding example of landscape architecture of the 19th century. The gently rolling meadows are accentuated with bushes and trees and the winding driveway reveals surprising views, including the 130 m long steel frame greenhouse, which was the first in the United States.
The house was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1966.
The house was used as a location for the films " House of Dark Shadows " (1970) and " Night of Dark Shadows " (1971) and for the television film " The Halloween That Almost Wasn't " produced by ABC .
Library on the north side
Fireplace in the dining room
Web links
- Official Lyndhurst site (English)
- Photos of Lyndhurst on the Historic American Buildings Survey :
Individual evidence
- ↑ Listing of National Historic Landmarks by State: New York. National Park Service , accessed November 7, 2019.
- ^ Richard Greenwood: National Register of Historic Places Inventory-Nomination: Jay Gould Estate, Lyndhurst ( English , PDF, 665 KiB ) National Park Service. May 30, 1975. Retrieved January 11, 2011. and Accompanying photos, exterior, 1975 and undated. ( English , PDF, 1.36 MiB ; 3.5 MB) National Park Service. May 30, 1975. Retrieved January 11, 2011.
Coordinates: 41 ° 3 ′ 21 ″ N , 73 ° 51 ′ 55 ″ W.