What Was America's 2nd Largest Home? (Shadow Brook)

Hi everyone, Ken here. Welcome to This House. Today we are exploring Shadowbrooke. Hit that subscribe button so you never miss an exciting episode of This House. In 1838, Anson Phelps Stokes was born into a wealthy New York family. His father was an incredibly successful businessman who headed Phelps Dodge & Company, importing and exporting goods as well as having extensive mining operations. But this was not new money. The family had long been wealthy and part of New York's high society, including being members of Mrs. Astor's 400 later on. When Anson was of age, he entered his father's company, eventually taking over the family business. He married Helen Phelps, the sole heir to her father's multi-million dollar fortune, and the two moved into her Madison Avenue townhouse in New York City. They wasted no time starting a family of their own, having 9 children. But the city was no place for a bunch of active children to run about and play, so they purchased their first country house on Staten Island. A stately second-empire style mansion, which had been built in 1862, they made virtually no changes to the lavish interiors, which included a wood-paneled library with an extensive art collection, and half-height bookcases overflowing with novels for the children to enjoy. While the kids played with each other, Anson set sail on the water, yachting until sunset. Anson kept himself in shape, taking every opportunity he could to yacht, go on hunts, and play sports with his friends and kids. But as the years passed, the once sparsely populated countryside of Staten Island became crowded with new construction never ceasing. The area had all but lost its charm as a getaway from the hustle and bustle of city life, so Anson and Helen began searching for a new country house. They headed up to Massachusetts and began buying up land starting with an old country home, which was simply named Homestead. Now that their children were starting to grow up, they needed a house to facilitate social functions such as courting. Homestead was perfect. It had over 40 rooms, including grand classically styled halls and massive ballroom with a minstrel gallery. But they quickly outgrew this mansion, and their now-teenage children began to entertain their own friends. Only a few years after purchasing Homestead, Anson and Helen hired the architecture firm of McKim, Meade, and White to design for them what would become the second-largest house to ever be built in the United States. Early on, Helen and Stanford White got into an argument and she fired him from the job site and brought in the little-known architect, H. Neil Wilson, to oversee the construction of the house. The 100-room mansion took a team of 500 workers nearly two years to complete. The sprawling Tudor Revival-style mansion boasted stucco walls broken up by timbers, with the stone accents being carved from rough cuts of marble below a brown-tiled roof. The expansive gardens were designed by Frederick Law Olmsted, who had worked on several large projects, including the planning of New York City's Central Park. He included areas for the active family to play various sports and yard games, including tennis courts, stables, and even a dedicated field for croquet. Walking inside, the foyer was decorated with oversized furniture below timbered The Pompeian Hall, as it was called, was clad in painted panels, both on the walls and the ceilings, with figures of humans and horses carved into the frieze surrounding the room in its entirety. Here you would find the treasures the family had acquired from their trips abroad, including a tiger-skin rug and potted, exotic plants paired with fine Chinese porcelains. The morning room continued this theme, with white walls and ceilings, as well as intricate fretwork dividing one corner of the room from a tower. This room was decorated with floral prints on all the furniture and textiles, and the walls were wainscoted with pilasters reaching towards the frieze, from which plaster garland elegantly draped over silk wallpaper. The main focal point of the parlor was the Gothic fireplace, with blown-out proportions offering spiraling vines worked into its upper mantel's relief work. Fluted Ionic columns were used not just as decoration in this house, but also for much-needed support of the expansive ceilings. The library offered a more rustic approach to decor, with unpainted millwork crafted into Gothic arches and paired with a rough texture of bricks on the fireplace. Diamond-painted windows were set below stained glass, adding to the ambiance provided by the English antiques which filled the room. Though the house had three dining rooms, this one was the largest. The exposed ceiling beams were supported by large corbels evenly spaced to line up with the pattern of the wallpaper over half-height board and battened wall panels. To give you an idea of just how large this room was, the rug was said to measure 30 feet by 48 feet. While guests certainly had enough space to spread out, no house of this magnitude would be complete without a ballroom. Its rich wood panels were carved by master woodworkers to feature seamless transitions between each panel. The ceiling was truly unique to Shadowbrook, with a dizzying array of geometry built in layers and lit by electric lights in its medallions. The house continued on, with artisan millwork found at every nook and cranny. The second floor was reserved for guests, with over 20 guest suites, and the third floor was set aside for the family, with each of the nine children's bedrooms boasting their own private bathrooms, something which was rare for the time period, regardless of social class. Now that the house was finished, the Stokes could entertain as often as they liked, hosting huge parties for Christmas and New Year's. They offered their younger guests sleigh rides, while the men competitively ice fished in the frozen ponds. But Anson and Helen's paradise did not last long. In the summer of 1899, Anson was riding his horse around the property, one of his favorite activities, when something spooked the horse out in the woods. He threw Anson from his saddle, which sent Anson crashing into trees. His leg was so badly mangled that it had to be amputated shortly after. With Anson unable to enjoy playing golf, riding horses, or any other sports for that matter, he and Helen decided to place the house up for rent and move back to the city. Shadowbrooke was leased out for a few years, before being purchased by Henry W. Merrill, who used the estate as a hotel, with 100 guest suites scattered about its upper floors. The hotel flopped, so after being open for only two years, Merrill sold Shadowbrooke to Spencer Schotter, who enjoyed the house until 1909, when he was tried for violating antitrust laws. He ended up winning his case, but in doing so, he had spent nearly his entire fortune on his legal defense. In desperate need of money, Spencer leased Shadowbrooke to Maggie Vanderbilt for $15,000 per month, or the modern day equivalent of about $442,000 per month. Meanwhile, U.S. steel magnate Andrew Carnegie's health was failing. His doctor had advised him not to travel to his beloved castle in Scotland, but rather to stay near the city, up in the mountains where he could get fresh air. That's when he decided to rent the Brick House, which Anson and Helen had built in Fairfield County, Connecticut when they left Shadowbrooke. It was a grand estate, with perfectly manicured gardens. Inside, grand halls were classically styled, leading to large rooms finished out with wood-paneled walls. When Carnegie's daughter came to visit him here, she mentioned that the same family who had built this house had also built a beautiful home remotely situated in the Berkshires. Carnegie decided to look further into this dreamy property which his daughter had described. He found that Spencer Schotter no longer owned the property, even though he was collecting rent on it. In fact, the bank had foreclosed on him. So Carnegie purchased Shadowbrooke from the bank, and moved in to spend his final seasons in one of nation's largest homes. He lived here comfortably until his passing in 1919, when his widow put the house up for sale. She sold it for a bargain price to the Jesuits of the province of New England, who used it as a seminary until 1956, when the house spontaneously exploded. Upon investigating the tragedy, it was found that the large reserves of oil stored in barrels had caught fire when a broiler malfunctioned. The explosion and following inferno left the house in ruins, taking five lives with it, with no practical way of restoring or rebuilding Shadowbrooke. So, it was lost forever. Of the Stokes family's other homes, the brick house went on to be used by their politically active adult children as a meeting place for the Communist Party of America, before it was gifted to the Convent of the Sacred Heart to be used as an all-girls school. Tragically, when the school shut down in 1966, most of the was demolished, with only two of its wings being reconfigured into single-family houses. Homestead ended up catching fire the same year the Stokes moved out of Shadowbrooke. Because the house was all wood construction, the only thing remaining after the blaze were the brick chimneys. The rest was a total loss. On Staten Island, when the Stokes moved out, Anson had developed a handful of houses on the property's grounds to create a small neighborhood. He sold the main house to another member of Mrs. Astor's 400, John G. Wendell, who let the house fall into a state of disrepair. By 1928, John had abandoned the property and it was torn down out of concern for public safety. But thankfully, one of their homes did survive. Their townhouse at Madison and 37th in Manhattan went on to become the Morgan Library, with much of its façade remaining intact. Having seen so many elegant homes of different architectural styles once owned by the Stokes family, which one did you find the most appealing? Did you have a favorite? Let me know down below in the comment section. And while you're there, hit that subscribe button so you never miss an exciting episode of This House. I would also like to take a moment to say a special thank you to our This House supporters whose names you can see on screen right now. If you would like to show your support for the creation of these videos, join our membership program today. I'll see you next time on This House.