Gold Coast Mansions in Long Island | Treasures of New York

they were castles on an island breathtaking Treasures of a bygone era it was very very much like you would see on TV with either down ABY or Upstairs Downstairs built by America's wealthiest families they would build houses as extravagant and ostentatious as their country Cottages as they would their City Homes homes built like castles that would last a lifetime the irony is in fact that it was only lived in by one generation where the Kings of New York rubbed elbows with their wealthy neighbors they stand as Testament to The northshore's Great Gatsby Legacy they are monuments to our history take a step back in time to a world of wealth power and living the American dream in Treasures of New York Gold Coast Mansions this program is made possible by the Metropolitan media fund Long Island's Northshore a vast and beautiful landscape of Rolling Hills and glittering Coastline that overlooks the Waters of the Long Island Sound stretching from Great Neck to Eaton's neck and as far south as old Westberry the NorthShore is perhaps best known not only for its natural beauty but for its long-standing reputation of Elegance and affluence a reputation that has earned it the nickname the Gold Coast it's a distinction that was bestowed to the NorthShore from the turn of the 20th century through the Roaring 20s when this pastoral Countryside became home to some of the wealthiest men and women in America who came here to build their castles which became known as Gold Coast mansions and in doing so they created their own privileged Society there was lots of social activity it was where business could be conducted it would be where could develop family relations where you could develop business relations where you could just have a good time there was a culture here that was like no other place in the United States that culture of wealth power and Indulgence is what inspired F Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby in his portrayal of the Gold Coast during the Roaring 20s how do you do o sport I'm Gatsby the story portrays a wealthy man who lived and entertained in a Grand Mansion reflecting what these industrialists actually did in real life the list of Gold Coast Mansion owners and The Architects and Landscape designers who created them read like a who's who of the time you had captains of industry and uh prominent Americans from all walks of life you had the Vanderbilts who were a strong presence starting in the late 1800s here you had the Marshall Fields of the the Chicago Department Store Fame the fses JP Morgan leis Comfort Tiffany lived on the NorthShore of Long Island autocon you could link almost every industry in the United States or around the world really to someone who probably had a summer house on Long Island summer homes no less designed by America's leading firms in architecture and landscape design the Olstead Brothers McKim me and white carrer and Hastings Delano and Aldrich they pushed the boundaries of their clients imaginations by building palaces never before seen this side of the Atlantic this is Long Island's Gold Coast a place and a Time embodied by The High Society Lifestyle the fashion the leisure the servants and most importantly the homes this is the story of how the Gold Coast Mansions came to be America at the turn of the 20th century was a nation swelling with tremendous Enterprise Innovation and wealth the country is United there's a national Market there's the building of railroads steel production begins the country is increasingly industrializing those who harnessed these growing Industries amassed huge fortunes and flocked to New York City the financial capital of the world these wealthy Aristocrats commonly had several family homes including a country Retreat where they could escape the hustle and bustle of Manhattan especially during the warmer months having a grand country home really was the ultimate calling C for any person in American society um the country house was really where you could show off you had the land to do it you had the ability to show off sporting activities you could really just let your hair down enjoy yourself be yourself and with its proximity to Manhattan Long Island was the ideal destination not too far from Wall Street but yet far enough that one could really get away and it was a journey made significantly easier with the Advent of a whole new mode of travel with the invention of the motorc car uh the NorthShore which had remained relatively rural Farmland started to become the perfect place for these families in New York to create a sort of playground where they could indulge in The beautiful landscape that we have here they could have uh a boat in the deep harbors they could also play polo hunt foxes ride horses and enjoy their easy access to Long Island Sound all within proximity of their massive Estates they were trying to recreate something that Europe had it was very very much like you would see uh on TV with either Downtown Abbey Upstairs Downstairs it was very reflective of the you know the European and especially the English uh Gentry they lived in palatial Estates spanning hundreds of Acres with tennis courts elegant stables and even indoor swimming pools owners were only limited by their imaginations and like their European counterparts the Gold Coast Mansions were staffed by teams of servants gardeners and chauffeurs they were discovering a new identity and uh they started to build these Grand Country Homes to sort of create an instant ancestry to create a history to America in less than a 40-year period from 1890 to 19 1930 nearly 1,00 of these Mansions were erected on the North Shore creating the single largest concentration of wealth in America at the time it really was a money no object era you had the greatest architectural talents in the world and Artisans coming together and it really was um living your own fantasy Marshall field air to the multi-million dollar department store Fortune bought over 1,700 acres of land on Lloyd Harbor and built comset a 65 room Georgian style Manor featuring its own indoor tennis court today comset is a state park William K Vanderbilt II air to a great shipping and railroad Fortune built Eagles Nest adorning the back lawn with thousand-year-old columns from ancient Carthage the estate is now open as a museum and planetarium Alfred DuPont the DuPont company built White Eagle today known as The derski Mansion an 18th century style home constructed of Caledonian brick and white marble the home is now on the campus of the New York Institute of Technology Henry Clay Frick co-founder of us steel purchased Clayton as a gift for his son the Mansion was originally owned by Poet William Cullen Bryant and is now the Nassau County Museum of Art Daniel gugenheim whose family fortune was made through mining bought an elaborate Compound on sans's point that ultimately boasted four individual Mansions the property is now open to the public as a nature preserve but there is one mansion that outsized them all oika the largest Gold Coast mansion ever built on Long Island Otto Herman KH was a remarkable American success story a German Jewish immigrant KH came to America in the 1890s and joined a prestigious New York banking firm he played an important role in reorganizing the US railroad system and became one of the richest men in New York City but great wealth did not guarantee acceptance from the established families on Manhattan social register he was known as the King of New York in New York City actually among his peers um but being Jewish had gave him a lot of um uh problems socially you know he was um shunned from country clubs and uh Even parties like the Astro parties and things like that Long Island would prove the perfect place for Khan to create his own Social Circle he purchased over 400 acres of land in Huntington and named the estate oeka deriving from the letters of his own name khanan hired the architectural firm of Delano and Aldrich one of the gold Coast's Premier Mansion Builders to design a French style Chateau Khan wanted his house to stand on the highest point on Long Island and spent over 2 years erecting a hill just for that purpose it took 4 years to complete construction and in 1919 when it was finally finished the home was was unlike anything long Islanders had ever seen oeka consisted of 127 rooms 39 working fireplaces and a 2300 squ ft Ballroom the Olstead brothers whose father designed New York Central Park were commissioned to landscape the entire estate to the side of the house they designed a vast formal Garden complete with reflecting pools clipped hedge RS and Orchards invoking the Elegance of the Gardens at Versailles all in all KH spent over 11 million building his dream Retreat equivalent to over $100 million today oeka is the largest private home that's ever been built on Long Island in fact it was and still is the second largest private home in the entire country second only to the Vanderbilt family's builtmore mansion in North Carolina the scale of the house which was originally 109,000 Square ft was built to throw lavish parties and the main floor of oeka has really three main large rooms a huge Ballroom a huge Library a huge dining room and a large foyer that connects all three of those and so if you see the way that it was design that it was really designed to give him a place to to entertain Khan invited guests from all walks of life to oeka but the Upper Crust was less receptive to his status as an immigrant and so he filled his ballroom with famous singers musicians and artists he had a lot of celebrities of the day you had Douglas Fairbanks Charlie Chaplain who would come out to visit world famous opera singer enrio Caruso composer George gerswin and Orchestra conductor Arturo tuscanini all came here and performed in Khan's lavish Ballroom much to Edy Khan's dismay his wife she called it ou she thought it was just garish and horrible what was going on here and she did not approve of Auto entertaining in such a way after Khan's death in 1934 oeka was sold to the city of New York and ironically became a retreat for the city sanitation workers they nicknamed the place Sita using the grounds for cookouts and swimming in the garden's shallow pools the local residents who were of course Very affluent and of upper class uh weren't so keen on the idea of having a bunch of dustmen walking around their neighborhood so that didn't last too long during World War II the home was used by the merchant marines and then became a military academy they really didn't use the estate with any Integrity they added rooms they added latrines they painted everything blue they used the ballroom as a as a basketball court and there was no um love affair with with the actual architecture of the estate over time oika was abandoned the H's Grand architecture along with its lavish past became but a decayed and forgotten m [Music] it was not until the early 1980s when developer Gary melus discovered the withering estate and decided to buy i s a meth I can't say anything good about it there was sticker bushes all in this lawn area about 4T High there were quaner huts and where the reflecting pools are they were filled in [Music] it was just a mess melu spent 30 years and over $40 million restoring the home to its former glory employing the same care and attention to detail that KH had nearly a century ago my feeling is always been that in the past people uh took more time and more thought in what they did did in positioning a building and scales so I wasn't going to try to do something on my own I wanted to copy what he did in 2000 oiko was opened as a luxury hotel so that guests could have the Gold Coast experience for themselves in truth it actually is living out what 's intention was because people love to dress up and they love to have parties here and to me as if they're creating history now just 10 miles to the West in the town of old Westberry is the John S fips estate commonly known as old Westberry Gardens John fips or Jay as he was known was the heir to a great steel Fortune he married a British heys Margarita Cecilia Grace who had grown up in an English Countryside estate fips made a grand gesture in order to convince his new bride to move to America he said if you move to America I'll build you a home and garden as beautiful as the ones you're leaving in England fips hired English designer George Crawley to create his Country House the house is basically in this style of Charles II which would be the late 17th century which is a little bit of the what we would call the Baroque Era and the house itself is composed of Virginia brick which is a red brick and it has U elements of Indiana Limestone decoration and the roof is of kie Weston slate which is very unusual for the United States but was typical of Charles II original houses over in the UK this home we call it Charles II style so it gives the impression of being hundreds of years old uh but it's actually they finished building it in 1906 and although it's English from the outside once you get inside it feels like a combination of styles Crawley decorated the home with 18th century antiques that he purchased from other great English houses you know after World War I people in UK were were looking for ways of increasing income people owned States they had to pay death taxes they began selling off collections items from these collections found their way here including gilded mirrors ornate Crystal chandeliers elegant furniture and artwork including this 18th century portrait of young Scottish Aristocrats by the renowned artist sir Joshua Reynolds remarkably it's one of only five signed works by the artist in existence the grounds were elegantly landscaped using similar garden designs as seen in Europe there are Gardens on the property that are almost like little rooms um and which is very typical of the early 20th century that you were meant to discover these little rooms like The Cottage Garden like the Rose Garden Westberry house remained in the family for over 50 years it is now open to the public as a museum and garden and like so many other Gold Coast Mansions old Westberry Gardens has also provided the perfect setting for dozens of films and television shows so uh for example a show like Royal payes which is supposed to take place in the Hamptons they use places like Old Westbury Gardens just 20 minutes north of old Westberry by car in the town of Oyster Bay is another Gold Coast estate known for both its architecture and its pristine landscape this is co Hall located on what is today called the planting fields AR bitum the home was built by William Robertson Co a British shipping Insurance Tycoon and his wife may Rogers daughter of one of the founders of Standard Oil Mr Co said one of the smartest things he ever did was marrying rich and may Rogers family was a very wealthy New York family and he he didn't do so badly himself it was a little bit of a joke and a little bit of Truth together they purchased a 400 acre estate called Planting Fields the Coes loved the country life and chose an estate where they could pursue their many outdoor Hobbies which included a great passion for horiculture he came from a very sort of English background that loved their Gardens and and he was very fascinated by uh collecting different plants and species and so he really wanted to create an arboretum The Gardens and grounds were designed by some of the leading Landscape Architects of the time including guy LEL Andrew sergeant and the Olstead Brothers they fulfilled CO's dream of creating a peaceful Retreat he really wanted to have a place that I think that he could relax in and that could be sort of his his uh home away from home I mean when you really think about it the family was only here for about 6 to 8 weeks out of the year it's only fitting that he would want a home that reflected his English upbringing the architectural firm of Walker and Gillette designed a tutor Revival style mansion drawing inspiration from medieval monasteries well the sense I get going from room to room is that the Architects have brilliantly described the the sensibility of a great old house and you come into the gallery and it looks as though it might have been a great hall even from the 15th century as a stone floor and the owner Mr Co was giving himself this great ancestral home and the irony is in fact that it was only lived in by one generation Co imported many significant relics of Europe European history from overseas it's believed that these stained glass windows in the dining hall were brought here from he Castle in Kent The ancestral home of Anne Bolin who reigned as Queen of England in the 16th century this room off the main entrance was used by Mayo to entertain her friends and was decorated floor to ceiling with authentic French Furnishings but Co also infused his love for America a into the home by commissioning an enormous mural of the Wild West in his breakfast room the Buffalo room really allowed him to explore the American West in a different way they commissioned Robert Chandler who was a Paris artist uh very interested in the theater Robert Chandler transforms this room into this sort of glittering array of um Buffalo and I think that room really was uh William CO's sort of tribute to the American West and since his home home was built just before the age of prohibition Co made sure it would still be a suitable place to entertain installing a hidden Speak Easy behind a wood panel wall in the den not knowing exactly what the terms of prohibition would be he made sure that in those years leading up to Prohibition in the late teens that he stocked up particularly on champagne and Scotch which were his favorite drink this Gold Coast home had everything one needed to impress and entertain well we certainly can imagine that it would be used in the sort of Great Gatsby party fashion and that you know may was probably welcoming guests into the reception room the French styled room uh with calling cards and you know I'm sure that they were having lovely parties in the Great Hall but the co had a grander vision for planting fields and deeded the property to the state of New York in the 1940s the home opened to the public as a Horticultural school then in the 197 70s the property became a state park and Arboretum and it remains so to this day it's one of the last surviving great Estates on Long Island which has all of its land and the great man house it is the sort of unity the completeness of this estate in this house that makes it very important and it is quite wonderful that it is in public ownership and that it can all will always be seen by visitors today Estates like these all stand is reminders of the glittering society that once existed here on the Gold Coast a society that faded as the Great Depression took hold of America a lot of people thought that the mark crash of 29 was one of the big impacts that just really slowed down the home building it wasn't really until after World War II when the baby boom happened that a lot of these homes started to disappear and uh men like levit were creating plac places like levit toown and this new Rising middle class where everyone wanted a home the estate started to get gobbled up and absorbed by modern development by the uh ' 50s and 60s you probably saw close to half of the homes being torn down on the NorthShore of Long Island of the more than 1,000 Gold Coast mansions that once dotted the NorthShore less than a third remain never to be replaced you can't create these today you know for it would cost 110 million to build it today uh but they would they just wouldn't do it we don't have the Craftsman there might be a handful but we don't even have the heart to do it these things take years to build and our philosophy today is really to build very quickly and knocked down the loss of these great Estates has prompted a preservation movement on Long Island with the hope that the remaining Gold Coast Mansions can be saved we're trying to save not just the land but also some of the houses so we can you know show them to our children we're not living here but you know we're showing a lifestyle that want existed we might envy it we might not envy it but the point is it existed and we can't let it go for they represent a legacy that is entirely unique to Long Island Winston Churchill was quoted as saying we shape our buildings and afterwards our buildings shape us I think that's a very it rings very true here on the NorthShore of Long Island each gold Coast Mansion past and present tells a story a story of wealth opulence and power each Mansion has a unique history and each Mansion is a monument a testament to a byon era on Long Island one that was truly golden this program has been made possible by the Metropolitan media fund [Music]

Channel: THIRTEEN

Views: 347,609

Keywords: nyc, pbs, thirteen, wnet, new york city, new york, public television, public broadcasting service, wliw, wliw21, channel 13

Id: ms-oS-GfBNU

Length: 26min 6sec (1566 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 06 2024