by Scott Ian Barry
Email: scottIanbarry@yahoo.com
Castles of New York
Coming August 2010
LYNDHURST
I stand
with my back to the stark limestone tower of Lyndhurst, one of
America’s finest Gothic revival mansions, and gaze across an expanse of
lush, green meadows that roll like a tidal wave to the Hudson River,
below. This could be a scene plucked from the ancient myths of England,
Ireland, or Wales, replete with warriors bathed in the glow of
glistening armor. . . .
Instead, this is Tarrytown, New York, located just several miles down Route 9 from the village of legend, Sleepy Hollow. Lyndhurst seems very much at home here, very much a part of the land that was once called “The Hudson Highlands,” where a terrified school teacher named Ichabod Crane fled for this life from a malevolent headless horseman, and a wife-weary fellow named Rip Van Winkle fell into a deep, twenty-year sleep beneath an expansive oak tree.
Yet for all its Gothic majesty, Lyndhurst was designed as a country home for former New York City mayor William Paulding by famed architect Alexander Jackson Davis, in 1838. Despite its resplendent features, though, the public did not initially appreciate Davis’s design, and Paulding’s radical new home, which he called “Knoll,” became known in some circles as “Paulding’s Folly.” It was the second owner, New York merchant George Merritt, who renamed the estate “Lyndenhurst,” for the many linden trees he planted throughout the sixty-seven acre property, and who was responsible for doubling the size of the mansion between 1864 and 1865. The trees add to an atmosphere that speaks to an intense, stoic power not found in many of the castles I have visited.
All
is quiet beneath the golden cast of the late summer
sun. In the
distance, the Tappan Zee Bridge stretches like a gargantuan serpent
across the width of the Hudson River. I try to imagine the Lyndhurst
landscape before such monuments to modern society were constructed.
Known for its particularly asymmetrical silhouette of tall bay windows,
rising-and-falling crenellated rooflines, stark angles, and faceted
turrets, Lyndhurst has be come known, particularly after its opening to
the public in 1965, as one of the finest examples of Gothic Revival
architecture in the country.
Within its thick walls of Hastings and Sing-sing limestone, the main floor boasts a superb entrance hall, with vaulted ceiling sections, stone archways, and historic busts. The parlor room houses a star-shaped vaulted ceiling, a tea-service table, sofa and chairs, tall plants, ancestral paintings, and statues. But it is the dining room that is the “Grande Dame” of Lyndhurst’s main floor, with its central chandelier, intricately carved wooden alcove awnings, and long dining table, resplendent with silver plate setting and crystal glassware.
The high ceiling is constructed of a stout wooden cane pattern, and an ornate bay window allows copious amounts of light to stream in from the head of the room. The furniture was also designed by Alexander Jackson Davis. “One of the fascinating things about the Davis-designed furniture,” says current assistant director and curator of Lyndhurst, Catherine Anders, “is that he used a lot of the same ‘vocabulary’ as the decorations on the outside. He’d reduce it in scale, and apply it to his furniture.” In a brilliant stroke of symmetry, Davis designed the backs of the chairs in the drawing room to match the wave-like wooden corbels of the roofline.
Upstairs, where the families lived in comfort and luxury, there are more fascinating rooms.The art gallery,which is bathed in white and highlighted in gold, still displays the artwork purchased for Lyndhurst by its third owner, the railroad tycoon Jay Gould, which makes it a rare example of an intact nineteenth-century collection.
Gould poured thousands of dollars into Lyndhurst,
which he had
purchased as a summer home in 1880. He added a colossal, cast-iron
greenhouse, in the Gothic style, made by the firm of Lord and Burnham,
the first steel-framed conservatory in the United States. And his
“gardenesque” landscape was brought to life by the famed German
horticulturist Ferdinand Mangold, who had originally been hired by the
second owner, George Merritt.
After Gould’s death in 1892, Lyndhurst was placed in the care of his daughter, Helen When Helen died, in 1938, the property passed to her sister, Anna, Duchess of Tallyrand-Perigord. Upon Anna’s death, in 1961, the estate was bequeathed to the National Trust for Historic Preservation, who readied it for its grand opening to the public, four years later. Since that time, Lyndhurst has served as host to many weddings and special events, including—I am told by a staff member—the filming of the revered children’s classic Annie, starring Albert Finney, Carol Burnett, and Aileen Quinn.
I turn my back now on the Hudson River and the snaking roadway of the Tappan Zee Bridge. Lyndhurst Castle remains silent in the orange glow of the sunset light, except for the protestations and territorial mandates of bickering crows. I allow my eyes to slowly wander up the limestone facade of the pristine central tower, now a deep hue of beige. If this had been an overcast day, the magnificent Gothic giant would have taken on a completely different personality, bathed in a wash of stoic gray, all dour and serious and full of historic purpose.
I stare past the bay window, some fifteen feet over my head, to the six-pointed star inset above it; then to the leaded-glass
frames of the arched windows above that; and finally to the quartet of lean, facetted spires crowning the crenellated roof. A crow lands on the spire directly overhead, then launches itself south.
As with so many of the castles I have been fortunate to see, I tell myself: “I love this place. I find it hard to leave.”
But if there is one consolation, one comfort I can hold on to as I head my van down the winding driveway, it is that
Lyndhurst has stood the test of time against the elements. It has passed the test of greatness.
Castles of New York
Coming August 2010
Castles of New York
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© 2007-2009 Scott Ian Barry
(845) 389-2890
Email: scottianbarry@yahoo.com