Step Inside a Real Gilded Age Castle! | Lyndhurst Mansion

Join me today on Walk With History from the Gilded Age Mansion, Linhurst in New York. Hi Jen, Walk With History historian, veteran, lover of all things Gilded Age and this mansion is actually used in the TV show Gilded Age and it has a connection actually to one of the characters in the show as well. But this is used, the downstairs is used and I'll talk about whose character it's used for but inside the house you can tour it today. It's open to the public. You cannot take video inside but I took pictures so there'll be pictures dispersed throughout this as I tell you the story of this home. You might also recognize it from Dark Shadows. This is Barnabas Collins's home in the movie Dark Shadows. It has this gothic revival architecture so it fits in very well with a castle, a medieval castle, but it also belongs to a railroad tycoon of the Gilded Age. So Linhurst went through basically three main owners. It's going to end up belonging to Jay Gould and Jay Gould is the railroad tycoon who George Russell is based off of in the TV show The Gilded Age. Now it's the gothic revival country house and by all three people who owned it, it was used as their country house. It's right along the Hudson River so you could get right into New York City if you needed to. There's a railroad line right on the edge of it plus a boat so you could take the boat to the Hudson River as well. But the history of the mansion, it was designed in 1838 by Alexander Jackson Davis and that's the architect throughout the entire house. He's also the one who made most of the furniture in the house and the furniture has 80 to 90 percent of the original furniture. So when I show you pictures, the person who designed the house also designed the furniture. So you can kind of see how they go hand in hand. Now it was first owned by New York City Mayor William Paulding is from Sleepy Hollow and we're not far from Tarrytown here so we're close to Sleepy Hollow and Paulding is actually one of the names of the men who catch Major Andre at the Trader Tree. So he has a deep family connection to the area but he's mayor of New York City for five years and he comes out here to build his country home. And then it's sold to a merchant named George Merritt and the Merritt family is the family who's going to enlarge the house from 7,000 square feet to 14,000 square feet. Again using the same architect so it keeps in but if they put in this side here and along the big tower here. So it went from 7,000 square feet to 14,000 square feet and then it would be sold to railroad tycoon Jay Gould and you'll see pictures of him throughout the mansion. He owns it for the rest of his life. He leaves it to his six children. Two of the daughters will eventually own it and they will live in it until their deaths and then they donate it to the trust here in New York and so it's operated as a home in the National Trust. Lynnhurst has been used for tv shows. We talked about Dark Shadows, Project Runway filmed from here, All in the Children filmed from here, as Lewis Mr. Kennell's dog show filmed from here. But you might know it for The Gilded Age and this is the home for Aurora Fane and her husband Charles. Now Aurora Fane and Charles in the third season broke up and this is the house that's used when they have a lot of their fights and he walks up the staircase here at this house. It's featured in season one The Grounds and The Greenhouse but this is the home of Aurora Fane and Aurora Fane is really the first person who introduces Mrs. Russell into society. It's funny because Jay Gould who actually owned this house is who George Russell is based off of. A railroad tycoon who wasn't well liked by the people because he could manipulate the stock market and make his fortune and that is really who George Russell is based off of. And Aurora Fane's house is what Lynnhurst is used for. So we'll cut in some scenes from there and some pictures so you can kind of see how cool it is to walk in a Gilded Age mansion actually used for the show and a character that is actually one of the main characters in the show is based off of his real home. So it was used for the 1970 movie Dark Shadows. This is the house of Dark Shadows used for the History Channel. The men who built America because of course they're talking about the tycoons of the Gilded Age and Gould is one of them. So of course they're going to use it for that as well. A Winter's Tale was filmed in Lynnhurst. Travel Channel's Castle Secrets and Legends was filmed here as well. The Blacklist, Project Runway. What's neat about this house too is they did a type of faux finish inside where they painted the marble inside to look like marble. It's not actual marble. They wanted the stucco to give you that feeling of marble because they had seen that in Europe and they wanted to look very cultured to have that kind of decoration in their home as well. So you see a lot of that throughout this house. What's interesting is they have a couple likenesses of George Washington. They have a bust in here. They have a portrait of George Washington and then they have some faces in the art gallery along the top of the art gallery and one of them is George Washington. Another bust they have in here and I took a picture with it is the Marquis de Lafayette and they have him because they wanted it to look again cultured and like they are well-traveled Europe and so it's George Washington and the Marquis de Lafayette that will welcome you when you first walk in to Lynnhurst. Like I said 80 to 90 percent of the furniture inside is original and you can see the other side of these windows out here. Now to make that faux finish where they looked like it was marble but it wasn't they had painted the plaster to look like marble actually cost more than it would have cost them to put in the actual marble but they wanted it to look more expensive that they had done the European style. It just was a status symbol to show that and just a beautiful view of the Hudson right behind the mansion as well you can see the Hudson right up. The Tiffany windows are just breathtaking and yes a couple windows in here are attributed to Tiffany especially in the art gallery we saw those beautiful pieces of art and in the bedroom where you have this beautiful pink window. Now in the art gallery I show you some of those paintings that is supposed to be the single greatest Gilded Age art collection private art collection that still exists and you can go in and visit it today just beautiful beautiful paintings but this is the back of Lynnhurst and you can see these beautiful Tiffany windows from the outside and the nice gothic revival architecture that's used here as well so but you can see I think that's the Tiffany's window right there and that's the main bedroom and these are the luscious grounds of Lindenhurst beautiful trees of course Linden trees that are planted here and then off on the pathway is a little play cottage kind of like the Breakers had a play cottage running water electricity now what's interesting about this house is this house was first had oil you can imagine the whale oil that was here first used to light the house then gas was brought in by the second owner so the the Paulings had oil the Merrits had gas and then the Goulds brought electricity so this house has been through three ways to power the lights in there and everything was retrofitted each time that that happened and if you're looking for things all things sleepy hollow they have sleepy hollow things gifts and merchandise in this store so Jay Gould will own this until his death right before the 1900s and his two daughters who love Lindenhurst and love their father will take it over and just keep it up even though they visit Europe fairly often until they die the one sister will pass first and the other sister passes in 1961 and then that is when it is given over to the state of New York as a trust I hope you enjoyed that little tour of Lindenhurst today one of the Gilded Age mansions one of the filming locations for the tv show Gilded Age and the home of one the inspiration for one of the main characters in the show probably my favorite character George Russell on to my next walk with history