Glenview: Mrs. Astor’s Mansion in "The Gilded Age" | Hudson River Museum

There is a mansion in Yonkers, New York that has lived more lives than most buildings ever get the chance to. It has been a Wall Street financier's country retreat, a museum of science and art, and a stand-in for Mrs. Astor's Fifth Avenue Palace on HBO's The Gilded Age. Hi everyone, Ken here. Hit that subscribe button and let's explore this house. In 1822, John Bon Trevor was born in Philadelphia to a father who had served as Pennsylvania's state treasurer. It was a background that positioned young Trevor well, not extravagantly wealthy by birth, but connected in the way that mattered in mid-19th century America. In 1849, at the age of 27, Trevor made the move that would define his life. He left Philadelphia for New York City and set about establishing himself on Wall Street. Just one year later in 1850, he became a member of the New York Stock Exchange and entered the brokerage business with the firm of Carpenter, Van Dyck, and Trevor. By 1852, the partnership had dissolved, and Trevor formed a new venture with a man who would become not only his business partner, but one of his closest lifelong friends, James B. Colgate. The firm of Trevor and Colgate operated successfully for two decades, navigating the turbulent economic waters of the 1850s and 1860s, including the massive financial disruptions of the Civil War. When the partnership was reformed in 1872 as James B. Colgate & Company, Trevor continued as a partner for the rest of his life. By the early 1860s, his financial success had reached a level where a certain kind of lifestyle became not just possible, but expected. In 1861, upon marrying his first wife, Louisa Stewart, he moved to Yonkers, a community that was quickly becoming the preferred address of wealthy Manhattan financiers who wanted the pleasure of a Hudson Valley estate without giving up the easy access to their Wall Street offices. The railroad had made this possible. Tragedy struck in 1867 when Louisa died, but Trevor remarried, taking his second wife Emily Norwood. She was the daughter of diplomat Andrew Norwood, the great-granddaughter of Colonel Benjamin Tallmadge, a key intelligence officer during the American Revolution and a descendant of William Floyd, one of the original signers of the Declaration of Independence. She would go on to be a founder and vice president of the Colonial Dames of America. In every sense, the Trevors were a power couple of the Gilded Age. By the mid-1870s, Trevor's career had reached its zenith. He was wealthy, well-connected, and active in politics, and it was precisely at this peak of wealth and social standing that Trevor decided to build something worthy of it all. Early in 1876, he purchased 23 acres of land adjoining his existing property in Yonkers. The price was $150,000, roughly $4.5 million in today's dollars, and the intent was clear from the start. Trevor was going to build a showplace. To design it, he turned to Charles W. Clinton, a New York City architect whose offices were conveniently located near Trevor's own on Wall Street. Clinton was no obscure draftsman. He had trained under the legendary Richard Upjohn, one of the founding fathers of American architecture and designer of Trinity Church in Lower Manhattan. Ground was broken for Glenview in May of 1876, and by autumn of 1877, the house was ready for occupancy, and the Trevors moved in. What Clinton produced for Trevor was a building that contemporary newspapers struggled to categorize, and that was entirely by design. The local press variously described it as being in the Old English style and as a French chateau, and both descriptions were partially correct. The truth is that Clinton, working closely with Trevor, created something deliberately and fashionably eclectic. Elements of Victorian Gothic and French Second Empire design dominated the exterior, but the overall effect was uniquely its own. The exterior was built from greystone. Rough hewn blocks quarried a nearby Hastings-on-Hudson, giving the façade a rugged, almost fortress-like quality that contrasted beautifully with the more refined decorative elements. Ornamental sandstone lentils and string horses were brought in from Indiana to provide contrast and detail. Crowning it all was a mantard roof finished in colorful slate tiles, red, ochre, and grey, arranged in a decorative pattern that gave the roofline a distinctly continental flair. But as impressive as the exterior was, it was the interior of Glenview that truly set it apart. For the interior finishes, Trevor and Clinton engaged some of the most accomplished craftsmen of the era. The most significant of these was Daniel Pepys, the renowned Philadelphia cabinetmaker whose work is now represented in the collections of museums worldwide. Pepys was a German-born master of the modern Gothic and Eastlake styles, known for pieces so bold in their construction that they blurred the line between furniture and architecture. He had won a medal for excellence at the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia for a monumental walnut sideboard, and it is likely that Trevor or Clinton encountered his work at that very exhibition. The library, known as the Ebony Library, was fitted with an ebonized chimney piece and matching bookcases that gave the room a dark, masculine intensity. These were not, incidentally, made of actual ebony. They were cherry wood, ebonized to appear darker. But it was all enjoyed by Trevor for only a short while. He passed away at the family's New York City townhouse at the age of 68. Emily continued to live at Glenview with her children, maintaining the seasonal rhythms of country and city living. In 1923, the house and its contents were put up for auction, but on June 30th of 1923, just before bidding began, it was announced that the city of Yonkers had purchased the property for $450,000. In 1924, the Yonkers Common Council approved a city ordinance establishing the Yonkers Museum of Science and Arts at Glenview. The mansion opened to the public in December of that year. Glenview's original furnishings, however, had been scattered among many buyers at auction. In the years that followed, the city made alterations to adapt the house for museum use, removing some original fireplaces and reconfiguring interior walls in the upper stories to create larger gallery spaces. These changes, while practical, came at a cost to the mansion's historic integrity. In 1948, the museum was renamed the Hudson River Museum, and in 1969, a larger, modern facility was constructed adjacent to the mansion. Over the course of several years, the Hudson River Museum undertook an enormous effort to restore Glenview's first-floor rooms to their original appearance. Using historical photos and family records provided by Trevor's descendants, the museum painstakingly recreated the mansion's original grandeur. The elaborate stenciling was restored, the rooms were furnished with period-appropriate pieces, and Glenview reopened to the public in 1999. The interiors were once again among the finest of their kind, open to the public anywhere in America. Today, visitors can tour the fully-restored period rooms on the first floor in addition to the art galleries. And in a twist that John Bond Trevor could never have imagined, Glenview found an entirely new audience recently. HBO's The Gilded Age used Glenview's interiors as the residence of Mrs. Astor, the legendary gatekeeper of New York high society. The mansion's rooms were so beautifully preserved that they could convincingly stand in for the home of the most powerful woman in Gilded Age America. Glenview was never the largest mansion of the Gilded Age, nor the most famous. John Bond Trevor was never the wealthiest man on Wall Street, nor the most powerful. But there is something deeply compelling about a house that has survived not because of its scale or its celebrity, but because of its quality. The care that went into its design, the craftsmanship embedded in its walls, and the community that recognized its worth and fought to preserve it when the easier path would have been demolition and subdivision. And on that happy note, I'll turn it over to you. What did you think about Glenview? Let me know down below in the comment section. I'd also like to say a special thank you to our This House supporters for making this video possible. If you'd like to support our research and the creation of these videos, join the membership program today. As always, thank you all for watching and I'll see you next time on This House.