sure. i. made good evening. thank you for joining us for tonight's program. we are so thrilled to have you here with us tonight. my name is stephanie barnett and i'm the associate director of public programs and community outreach here at the greenwich historical society. and we are so thrilled to have you with us and pleased to present tonight's program on gilded age architecture, which is going to precede the highly anticipated series coming to your screen in october, which i'm sure you may already know. before we dive into tonight's

program, i'll just review a few housekeeping details. first of all, we like to welcome american history television from c-span, who will be recording tonight's program, which is very exciting and we are also are going to finish with the wine and cheese reception back down in the lobby where you came in. so that will be around 7:00. you'll also have the opportunity to buy mr. dodd's book and have it signed by him. while you're enjoying your beverages. and finally, as i mentioned, this will be recorded. so we will make sure that you all receive the link after the program. and now it is my sincere pleasure to introduce our speaker for the night, mr. phillip james dodd. born and raised in the united kingdom. philip james dodd is an alumnus of the prestigious prince of wales institute of architecture in london. he moved to america more than 20 years ago, and after training

with some of the most recognized classical architecture firms in the country, he founded his own company, philip james dodd bespoke residential design llc in 2015. his designs can be found in new york, greenwich, palm beach and as far away as bangalore, india. in 2022, he was a recipient of the elizabeth l and janet schuller architectural award and was named as one of the top 50 coastal architects by ocean home magazine. he has a master's in architecture from the university of notre dame and an undergraduate degree in architecture from the manchester school of architecture. he is a fellow of the institute of classical architecture and art and serves as a commissioner on the town of greenwich historic district commission and now it is my pleasure to welcome to the stage mr. philip james dunn. thank you very much, stephanie, and thank you for everyone here at the greenwich historical society for inviting me to come

and talk with you this evening. tonight, we're going to be looking at some of the material from my book, an american renaissance, beaux arts architecture in new york city. and for those of you who came in, you saw it. it's a big, huge book formed in 12 pages. and in those 420 pages, we spanned from 1875 to 1928. and we tell the story of not just 20 buildings, but the stories of those people that designed and commissioned them. and before i forget and i always do on the front cover of the book is the interior of grant's tomb, which was completed in 1897, when this was finished for a whole generation. this was the second most visited attraction in new york city, behind only the statue of liberty and everybody forgotten about it. now, people really just remember it from groucho marx, and he was buried in grant's tomb.

but by only featuring 20 buildings, we're able to really showcase them in detail. so buildings like the frick and the university club, which will get a little snippet tonight in the book, have got over 30 dedicated pages with new photography. and so with that in mi, st a couple of people iould like to thank on the left is john wallen. my collaboratoon this project, who took all the wonderful photographs that you're going to be doing and worrying about. and then next to h is julian fellowes, lord fellowes, who wrote the forward to the book, and when i started work on this, i realized i needed somebody famous to write the forward because nobody knows who i am. and he just finished downton abbey. and there was a rumor going around that he'd be working on an american version of downton. so i was able to reach out to him. maybe i'll tell you that story later on over an alcoholic beverage and he agreed to to to write the foreword to my book.

and after that, it was just very serendipitous that it would take me five years to finish the book and it would take him five years to finish what would become the gilded age on hbo. and as stephanie said, for those of you who are fans of the show season two is coming out on sunday, october 29th, at 9 p.m. so in the coveted hbo 9 p.m. sunday slot. so i'm a i'm a big believer that the success of a tv series or a book or even the design of a house comes down to good storytelling. and so this evening, i'm going to tell the stories of four of the buildings, but a featured inside the book and all of these stories start here with this elegant and sophisticated french chateau, which was built for william kissin vanderbilt and his wife, alva vanderbilt, who

would later become alva belmont. and this building was called the petite chateau. it was built in 1882 in a style that would become known as vanderbilt gothic. and this is the house that this house literally transformed architecture and america and i often get asked what is is the biggest architectural loss in this country? and astounded answer to that is penn station. but you could make an argument that actually this is right up there with it for just how influential this building was. and while the architecture and the architect are different, the story of the petite chateau is the inspiration behind the story of the russell house in the tv series where carrie --'s portrayal of beth russell is very much based upon all the vanderbilts and this is one of the things that julian does very well in the tv's series.

all of the principal characters are fictitious, and yet they're based on real life people. but then he intersperses them with actual historic figures like donna murphy's portrayal of caroline astor and then nathan lane, also portrays ward mccallister and he uses a lot of actual stories that actually occur. and so the story in the tv show of how bertrand russell is able to persuade mrs. astor to attend the ball is actually a true story. but with arthur vanderbilt and the petite chateau and the aritect o designed the petite chateau was this gentleman, richard maurice hunt, who is referred to as the dean of american architecture. he is the first american to study at the called a beaux arts in paris. i a second person is h.h. richardson, who people would know in boston who designed

trinity church up there. the third is charles mckim, who was a senior partner, mckim and white and then after that, the floodgates just open and almost every architect's a consequence from that generation attends. you call the beaux arts, but a couple of exceptions. stanford white did not. george posted not. daniel burnham did not. but they did all make sure that their sons attended and when they were in paris, they learned not one style of architecture, but they learned about the architecture of ancient greece and rome, as well as the italian and french renaissance. and then they traveled around europe and they got introduced to medieval architecture, especially in england and in france. and then when they came back to the states, the amalgamated, all of these styles together in what we call american beaux arts, architecture, and richard maurice hunt is now best remembered for the houses he designed for the grand children of cornelius vanderbilt, the

breakers in newport, which was designed for king william vanderbilt, the second marble house also in out in newport, which was designed for william kissin vanderbilt. and he had that designed as a birthday present for alva vanderbilt. so when they got divorced, a lot of people think that she actually got marble house as part of a divorce settlement, but it had already been gifted to her as a birthday present. and he also designed the biltmore estate in asheville, north carolina, for george washington. vanderbilt, the second and in new york city, only three of his buildings remain. they used to line the streets of new york and the only three, but still remain the pedestal to the statue of liberty. the vanderbilt family mausoleum, which is on sten island. and thethe entrance to the metropolitan museum, which is called wing d. and i say wing davis was

completed in 1902 and obviously faces onto fifth avenue. but i say winged because most buildings in the gilded age, when they got too small, they just knocked them down. they built something bigger, they knocked it down. they built something even bigger. they didn't do that at the met, at the met, they kept on adding wings. and so it really kind of becomes this living, breathing, kind of architectural history of america over the last hundred and 50 years. and anybody who's been to the met, don't k me how we took this ptograph because 24 hours a day was a hot dog stand right at the bottom of the steps. i wish you managed to somehow get rid of and if you walk in to the building and you go up the steps, you walk through the the entrance, you go all the way to the back of the building, into the layman gallery, which the lehman gallery gallery is winco

is was added in the seventies by kevin roach. but if you turn around, this is what you see, this is the original structure. this is wing a and this faced on to central park. so the original entrance to the met faced onto the park. and the reason for that was because this was designed by calvin fox and calvin volks was the architects of central park. everyone remembers frederick law. olmstead but olmstead was his junior partner. volks was the senior partner and volks had trained under andrew jackson downing and it was very much a proponent of this picture, victorian style of, of architecture that was prescribed by john ruskin in the stones of venice. and so in a very short period of time we go from this picturesque gothic to the grand monumental classicism of winged and so that's how much architecture was shifting in this time period. and a lot of people actuall

think this is the original trce, this is and this is wing b and this was added by theodore weston, who was really just a civilngeer. this is really the only buildg that he ever did. and this faces south towards where the city was. it's now part of the petrie sculpture gallery, which is wing y again, which was added in the nineties by kevin roach. i hope you're keeping track of all these wings. they'll there'll be a test afterwards. and this is an archival shot of that. and so that's the old image. and just to get your bearings on the far left, you can see cleopatra's needle, the obelisk that was installed when central park was completed in 1880. and another archival image. this is when davis is the original entrance. this is before the wings. the flanking wings were later added and just to get an idea of of scale, you can see those those carriages at the front. and also look at the steps that

they had, that original steps of the building, which were treacherously steep and they were replaced much later on in the background, you get to see the other wings that were added and you come in to the great hall of the metropolitan museum. it's 166 feet long, 48 feet wide. it's three stories tall and you have to remember, when this was built, there was not a space like this in new york city. this completely transformed how people kind of experience grand spaces, which we kind of take for granted now. but this was the first time there was structurally able to do this. and it's somewhat based upon the professor carroll caracalla in in rome. it's all clad in limestone and we come to take this photographs and a lot of the buildings we went back to on several occasions, but with the met, they let us in once and we had to get to 6:00 in the morning

and we had to be done by the time they opened at ten. and so we go in to the the staff entrance on the north side and we we used to go into buildings with this. would we got name badges, there's metal detectors, there's all sorts of security. and we come in and be like, oh, you're the people here to photograph you. and yeah, they went, okay, and you come and i'm like, if they never seen the thomas crown affair and i just realized how many photos, how many cameras must have been on us. and we, we come up to take this shot. and up until this point, we've made a point of having no people in any of the images. and we realized we couldn't take it because without any people, there was no sense of scale. and so we waited. we went and photographed elsewhere, and we came back just when it opened at 8:00 for a few private tours, so we could get a few people in there to give it a sense of scale. and the wonderful kind of saucer shaped dome structure. it was done by gus trevino.

whenever you see a vaulted space in new york city, you can pretty much guess is by gus divino and then it was clad and actually a lot of it actually had a lot more ornament on this that was stripped back in the 1950s. and then you climb up the grand staircase again. this is all by richard morris hunt and grand staircase led to vox's original wing, the second floor of his original wing, which houses the museum's collection of european old masters and at the top of the staircase is the triumph of mario's party below and back outside these of a new steps that kevin roach added and you get to see the wings either side which charles mckim leader at later added. so the whole facade of fifth avenue spans over a thousand feet and four city blocks. it's absolutely huge. but on the outside of the building, this is what, you know, most people kind of

remember. and so, believe it or not, there's over 31 pieces of sculpture on the building and all done by karl bitar, who did a lot of work with richard morris hunt. and there was meant to be this great aligarh called sculptures of ancient medieval renaissance and modern art, which was supposed to go over these columns, but hunt died about seven years before the met was finished, and it was taken over by his son, richard howell and hunt and citing that they had no money left, the metropolitan museum decided that they wouldn't do the sculpture and on junior being i guess a little bit passive aggressive, decided that he would hoist these unattractive piles of stone up there in a way to persuade the met. but it was so unattractive they would have to do this sculpture and 150 years later, those temporary bits of stone are

still up there. so you can see it didn't really work, but hunt was well regarded that when he passed away, this memorial was built for him. it'on fifth avenue. it baco central park. it'een 75 and 71st street. if you want to go into architecture and you want monuments, architecture is not the profession. this is the only monument in america to a architect. and the sculpture is by daniel chester, french and the architecture is by bruce price. and bruce price. bruce price is better known as the father of emily post, who wrote the book on social etiquette. and so from one grand beaux arts building to a other and joined the gilded age. the center of the economy was driving railroads and in particular, one family, the

vanderbilt family and it's it's, you know, withstood here in the vanderbilt education center. so it's kind of nice to be talking about the vanderbilt family. well, if i was just going to talk about grand central and just talk about the vanderbilt, that would be the whole evening tonight. so we're going to fast forward through a lot of that and. by 1890, the family business is being run by william chisholm, vanderbilt. he of the petite chateau and then the vanderbilt controlled all of the railroads to the north of new york city, the harlem, the hudson, the new haven lines. that's why metro north gets the names of its lines. the old train lines. and they built the original. their original station was called grand central depot. and it was built in 1871 by john snook in the second empire

style, same location on fort street and 1898, which is when this was taken. it was given a facelift by bradford gilbert, and it was renamed grand central station. but this was still hardly the way to enter into this great city, which was trying to rival the great cities of the world of london and paris and rome and what is that joke about? you know, you you you wait for a bus and then to come along at the same time. and that's what happened. here we go from having no train stations to getting to we first we get penn station in 1910 and then three years later, we get what would become grand central terminal in 1913. and if you just look at the very top corner, the top right hand corner, you'll see the eagle up there and that eagle was reused. it's cast iron.

there's quite a few of them actually on the original, on the, on the prior building and they reuse it not just on this building, but a lot of sculpture. when buildings were taken down, they reused a sculpture and they used a lot of these eagles elsewhere. if you're entering into grand central in the corner of 42nd street and vanderbilt avenue and look up, you'll see the eagle and that salvaged from one of the previous iterations. now the design of grand central terminal. so we went from depot to station to terminal is was a collaboration between two architectural firms and the first of those was called arden stem. they were from saint paul, minnesota, and they specialized in designing train stations and it was their organizational skills that were responsible for the elevated roadway that allows park avenue to wrap around grand central and then also for the ramps inside, which we place staircases. this may seem common sense now,

but this is one of the problems that penn station had beautiful staircases which were not really ideal. if you're hauling a lot of suitcases around, if you and it actually sped up the pedestrian traffic as well and the second firm was one. and wetmore, who had just finished a new york yacht club on 44th street and they and in particular, whitney warren, were responsible for the artistic composition of grand central terminal, which is really one of the great spaces in new york city. it measures 12 stories tall, 275 feet long, 120 feet wide. and we were at iba end of the of the concourse, you see the big arched windows. and behind those windows actually walkways which lead to offices and so this photograph is taken high up on on one of those walkways, peering through a little window.

and the the ceiling is in civilian blue with gold leaf constellations and the stars are illuminated by little tiny electric lights. and it is depicted as a view of the heavens from aquarius of cancer. in an october sky. what that means is not the view. looking up at the view, looking down, but is astronomically incorrect. and there has been so many conspiracy theories over the year as to why it's wrong. is the alumina body is, you know, all sorts of things, treasure hunters and it's really the you know, the most obvious answer is the artist who is from brooklyn called charles bashing. he just made a mistake. and again, i love this ima. and in hamfisted renovation at was done quite a ng time ago in the night, i think in the 1940s, theeiling was actually

covered. by 1944 concrete and asbestos boards, each measuring four feet by eight feet. and if you look, you can see those four feet by eight feet boards with the rivets holding them in. and when this was restored in the 1990s, it was decided. but it was too dangerous. it was too expensive to remove those asbestos boards. so they were just cleaned and repainted and they're still up there and around the windows. we have a really sculpture which kind of alternates between winged locomotive ships. i wishe took the wing locomotive shop because that's a nicer picture. but this one is a globe which is surrounded by clouds and they're meant to be emblems of will travel and over the entrance to each of the train tracks are these panels that incorporate the van, the built, the monogram and and because they were new

money the vanderbilts, they did not have any previous heraldry and so it had to be invented for them for this project. and they adopted the acorn and oak leaves as their family emblem and most of the interior of grand central is actually constructed from what we call cahan stone, which is actually a cast stone. it's crushed limestone, portland cement, lime and plaster and it actually gives the appearance, but it's all limestone, but it's not the rose reading room, actually, a lot of interiors of new york public library are built out of can as well as and the structural. so the sculptural composition on the on the front facade of the building is tied transportation and it s modeled in place to a quarter scale in pis by an artist called jules curtain. and then thamodel was shipped over to america and it was

carved full scale in long island city and when they asked jules crichton to come and oversee the installation of it, he refused. he said that he would get offended by all of the buildings that were over here. he wasn't a fan of typical french. he wasn't a fan of american architecture. i can say that because i'm english. but this would be put in place over a year after grand central was completed. and grand central actually remains the largest train station in the world. and the story of grand central very much goes hand in hand with the story of penn station that we've already mentioned. and it's demolition in the 1960s really led to the creation the new york landmarks preservation commission, which was put in place to safeguard other buildings from the same fate, including grand central station. now, penn station was designed

by mckim, mead and white, and principally by charles mckim and charles mckim is in the center next to him. on the left is william gilford mead, who was the managing partner of the firm, and he said his job was to stop the other two for making them fools of themselves. and then closest to me is the infamous stamford dwight and you have to understand, this was not a firm of equals. and the division of profits gave mckim 42%, made 53% and white as the junior partner just 25%. and so despite the popularity of stamford white in modern day folklore, after the death of richard morris, it really was charles mckim in the center here who took up the mantle of the leading architect of the day and one of mckim's other designs is the university club, which is

located on the corner of fifth avenue and 54th street, which was located very much in the heart of vanderbilt row. and this is a nine story structure that is designed to resemble a proportionally correct 16th century italian palazzo and the modern architect. look, abusir said, if you want to see the best palazzos in the world, don't go to italy. come to new york and mckim had a mckim and white had very different ways of designing. they would keep the offices and the commune wide open all night long because they never knew when. stanford white would stumble in and throw napkin at somebody with a sketch on it. mckim didn't do that. he would set himself up at a drafting table with two assistants and he would say to one, i want the window to look like the villa madama and the of associate would go to the library, come back with a book and he had this photographic memory. and a lot of his buildings are very much kind of amalgamated

versions of lots of different buildings. so they're not just a copy of one building. and so for this particular building, he sourced different palazzos in florence, bologna and siena and one of the things that's fascinate thing about this building is there's no grand staircase. most of these buildings had a grand staircase and the university club doesn't. and so what that did was it allowed there to be this great space, this great kind of atrium space set on each floor and all the rooms on each floor would flow off that atrium space. and here on the first floor are the columns, all in connemara marble, which came over from ireland at 25 feet tall. you can see the vaulted space the lounging room.s leads into of fifth avenue, and it'sength finished with this wonderful and a decorative gceiling.ngs

corinthian columns. and we took this phph. we didn't think anything of it. working it up and he's os zoom in. and we have the gentleman there reading the newspaper, and you'd th'd be reading sng like the wall street journal or the new york times, and instead he's reading the post. he didn't exactly bring a lot of gravitas to the to the space and up on the seventh floor is the dining room, which is the largest of the rooms in the clubhouse. it measures 136 feet long, three feet tall. it's all finished in english oak and the ceiling is actually modeled on the same ceiling of the doge's palace in venice and actually around the attic. you see these plaques originally there was a taxidermy that there was the heads of various animals were up them and the dining room incorporates these these

wonderful six circular murals which are placed over doors, circle round walls, and they depict the six oldest colleges in america, this harvard, william and mary, yale, pennsylvania, columbia and princeton. and as wonderful as that is and it's a spectacular space, you then go to the fourth floor and again, this is the atrium space. this is the library floor. and this aging atrium space is very much designed in a way to resemble the was very fashionable at the time. the architecture of pompeii. but this is really just a wonderful neo classical kind of pompeii and space is this great appetizer for what i think is the finest room in new york city, which is the library of the university club and complex vault of space is divided into five bays with alcoves, and each side, and it's centered on th arched windows

that face onto 54th street and the ceiling springs from these double height bookcases whic are all out of english. oak and with a little narrow staircase in between each of themwhich leads to these little bronze balconies. so you can access those upper bookcases and originally there was no budget to paint the ceiling. and so mckim intentionally left it white just bare plaster until the university club would come up with the funds. and this time, unlike at the met, this was a ploy that worked. they decided to give him the money and, splurge on this and so he hired henry siddons brain and he immediately sent him to rome to spend two years studying the paintings at the borgia apartments in the vatican. and i've been waiting my whole career for client to, you know, send me to rome for two years and bear down.

but when beaupre returned and he spent like i said, he spent two years studying and then he comes back to new york and he spends three years painting the muralsnd in this age, most of his murals actually painted on ca and the artist studio, and then they were plied afterwards, much like wallpaper now d in the center of the vault terature, art, science and philosophy. and then otherhes include yptian mythology., greek and and so five years after the club house opened, charles mckim brings this gentleman, j.p. morgan, to the unveiling of the murals, and he's trying to impress him. and there's a long, painful silence and. finally, mckim says, to two to morgan, he goes, you know, stanford white, he's crazy about

this work. and morgan famously responds, well, stanford white's always crazy. and then he says, magnify ascent and he must have been impressed because he hired mckim and he re mallory to work on his own library museum at 225 fifth avenue, madison avenue. and you can see the similarities between the spaces and by the way, the it was from inside the university club that j.p. morgan would broker the deal to create u.s. steel, which was the first multibillion dollar company in this country. and so from one famous robber baron to another in season one of the gilded age, george russell, who who was played by morgan spector, is very much based upon the infamous jay gould, who was referred to as

the king of the robber barons. and along with his partners, gould would manipulate manipur gate the stock market to cause the first financial panic of 1869. what would become the first black friday and camille cornelius vanderbilt, the commodore famously said of him that it never pays to kick a skunk and and actually one of my one of my favorite stories, i'm going off script, but one of my favorite stories is jules house is is lyndhurst, which is not far from here, right on the hudson. and he's actually buried in woodlawn cemetery, which is the last chapter in the book. and his mausoleum is right in the center of of woodlawn. and when he passed away, they welded his sarcophagus shut. and the newspapers of the day reported that it was to stop his soul from escaping and causing more havoc on wall street. that's the reality was at that

time there was a problem with grave robbers. people would come steal the bodies and ransom them back to the families. so this was a way to prevent that from from happening. but for anyone who's seen the trailers of season two of the gilded age coming up, season two very much involved strikes and union busting. and so it seems that, you know, perhaps the character of george russell russell is not so much based on jay gould anymore, but another of the most hated robber barons of the day, henry clay frick and after frick had finished his kind of somewhat tumultuous business relationship with with carnegie, he sells his stake in u.s. steel, and he moves from pittsburgh to new york city and he rents one of one half of the vanderbilt triple palace on fifth avenue, between 51st and 52nd street,

which is the two buildings closest to us. it's a strange name, the triple palaces, these two buildings. and so but these two buildings were designed for william henry vanderbilt, who was the heir to the commodore. it was designed by charles atwood. both of them were designed by charles atwood and her two brothers. and the southernmost mansion is the one closest to us was the william and then the northernmost one was actually a duplex, hence the name triple palaces. and it was a duplex for his two daughters, for margaret and emily, for one vanderbilt. and between the two structures with a courtyard and a loggia, which enabled the two daughters to go and visit their parents without ever having to leave the property. and upon william's death, the southernmost mansion is inherited by his son, george washington and vanderbilt, the second who is busy building biltmore, has no interest in living here, and so he rents it out to frick. and frick had long been an admirer of this building.

and so he is very happy. and if you look right next of trouble, palaces, you see the petite chateau that we looked at earlier on. and then a little bit further on fifth avenue between the two churches, which is the university club, which we just looked at, which had recently been finished when his photograph was taken and so the story goes that frick is very happy living at the triple palace, and one day he takes a carriage ride through central park and he gets off a 96th street and he makes his way back down fifth avenue and he passes this georgian mansion, which was surrounded by gardens. and this was unusual because most of the homes actually went all the way to t street because they were trying to take advantage of all of the real estate so it was quite luxurious for a house to be surrounded by gardens. and he says to his driver, he goes, whose house is this? and he goes, well, it's andrew

carnegie's house. and so he, in an era of rivalries, he says, well, i'm going to make want to build a house that makes his look like a minus shack and so the what would become the frick collection, the frick mansion was very much built in spite. it was a spent mansion and this is now the the cooper hewitt smithsonian design museum. and this was actually the entrance to this on 91st street is very much t inspiration to the entrance of the russell house on the tv series. and so frick goes and he purchases a property on fifth avenue between 70th and 71st street. and if you're paying attention, that's the same blocks that the richard morris memorial was on. and opposite was was the lenox library, which was built by hunt. and that's why they placed his monument there.

so he would be overlooking one of his buildings in eternity, but the lenox lobby would be knocked down. it was knocked down when it merged its collections with the tilden trust. and they asked a library to create new york public library. and so he purchases this this property, and he hires this, this dream team of thomas hastings on the left, who was the architect of new york public library. in the middle is the charles allen, the famous english decorator who had just been knighted for working on buckingham palace and then next to him is lord joseph levine, the purveyor of european art and antiquities. you had showroom rooms and london, paris and new york and by the way new public library took six years to build. and frick had to wait five years before he could start construction on this because part of a deal was he couldn't start construction until the library moved his collection

over. and because of his union busting, he actually accused all the workmen of new york public library to be working slow just, to just to stick it to him and but this was actually completed just two years. so new york public library years, the frick collection just two years and is bedn a parisi helarticular. and i've always thought that this was kind of much more well-suited to newport than what it is to the hustle and bustle of of new york city. and hastings actually loved these urns that you see flanking the the garden entrance. but the same urns that he used at the flank, the entrance at new york public library and later on the let's go back a second. so on the left is the original entrance to the frick. so you would come through these metal gates, you would come to a port cashier and then it would be a court. i mean, it was a courtyard and that's how you would enter the building and when it was

converted into a museum in 1932, the port cashier was moved forward to the streets. they able to salvage a lot of the pediment. and so in the carved element you see in the pediment is this scandalously figure lying down there? and she's actually based on a model called audrey marie munson, audrey marie munson was referred to as miss manhattan. she did not win a beauty contest, but she was a favorite of much of the sculptors of the time. and so you see her all manhattan and as how she got a name and she's actually one of the figures on the memorial which is opposite and the pompei in court was added later on in 1935 by john rusllope as partf e conversion. and this is actually originally partf e courtyard. this was where t pled into. so this is not part of the original structure and but in the original structure you would

you would enter and pretty much everything see was actually designed by sir charles allum hastings and frick did not get along at all. and so he did very little of the architecture. and inside of it all is all embodied casino, marble, the balustrade on thgrand staircase is inspired by one at hampton court. and one of the interesting things here is that the frick mansion had no ballroom. most of the homes had grand ballrooms for entertaining. and so because there was no ballroomthere was nowhere for an orchestra to play. and so an organ was incorporated into this design. and frick actually played an organ is called archie gibson, an annual salary of $400,000 to play the organ every night to his guests. and there was long time there was a story that the the organ was actuallyalvaged from a sir christopher wren house in england. that's not true. it was all designed alarm, and it was actually fabricated

in new york city and this is the staircase that leads up to the second floor. the trick is closed right now for renovations. the second floor rooms were all by lcd wolf. they were they remained intact over the years. they used them as their offices when the museum conversion is finished, those rooms were open and used as so, everyone will get to finally see the outside, the wolf rooms. but when we took this photo, we felt so special because they wouldn't let anybody up the staircase. and now going to be able to go up the staircase. but we're taking this picture. and john says to me, because we can fit everything in up to that little picture on the left and the lady where we're from, the frick, she says, did you just carve out a little painting? and we're like, yeah. and she goes, well, it's a vampire. and i'm like, okay, but it's a little painting.

and in the dining room, again, all designed by sir charles alamo. over the over the fireplace is the john hopper of the lady sarah and catherine bly, and one of the things that duveen did, he was very clever, very smart. made sure when he selected this fireplace and other things in the house to make sure that the mantelpiece was deep enough so that he could self-exam mcvay's is to display on top of them. the next room is the famous fragonard room and this was actually added a year after this was the original drawing room and these panels were purchased from the estate of j.p. morgan as believe it or not, his family was struggling to pay is inheritance taxes after he passed away and the crazy thing with him walking past most of his fortune was in art and antiquities and not in in cash and actually had his funeral. john de rockefeller famously said he owned all of us and he

wasn't even that rich. but after him and and by the way, just again, these panels were installed higher up than what they should be. that's where you get a little tiny crown in this room. the reason they were applied higher was so that duveen could sell more furniture to be placed underneath them. also always thinking about that stuff and then so after dinner, so, you know, entertaining is a huge part of the gilded age. the men in this house would go downstairs to where the billiard room was, is actually also a bowling alley down there. and they would smoke cigars and have their cognacs down there. the ladies would go to the drawing room. that's where they the name comes from. they would withdraw to the drawing room and then afterwards they would meet up here in the living room with his oak panels. and over the fireplace is the famous el greco of st jerome. and then either side of that are the whole bines of sir thomas moore and thomas cromwell. and then fally is the art

salon, which when this was built, was theargest private gallery space in new york city. and it's it'important to know that, you know. duveen had sold a lot of quest pieces to a lot of newly minted millionaires. the vanderbilts had a top of that list, but he he reserved all of the good stuff for morgan frick and especially andrew mellon and i think it's interesting that all three of those collections have now become national museums. andrew mellon is the national gallery in in d.c. morgan most of morgan's collection is actually the backbone of the metropolitan museum in new york. and obviously here the frick, we have the frick collection, but just as the stories of frick and and and actually freaking carnegie died just a few months

apart and when when carnegie knew he was coming towards the end of his days, he sent intermediaries to go to see frick because he wanted to try and patch things up and and frick responded, you can tell carnegie i'll see him. i'll see him in health. so there their stories are kind of linked together, but so too are the stories of frick and morgan. and so when titanic left, say, southampton on its maiden voyage on april 10th, 1912, both frick and morgan were meant to be on board. morgan had actually en negotiating with the u.s. government to remove import duties on art and antiquities and which had prevented him from bringing his collection over from london to new york and believing a deal was done. he booked his passage on titanic. he was actually one of the investors in the white stallion and had most of his collection

was meant to be on board at the last minute. the deal fell through. he kept his collection in london and he extended his stay on french riviera and and missed us later on by the way, the u.s. government did allow him to bring his his collection in without paying any taxes. frick and his wife were touring around italy. she sprained ankle had to be briefly hospitalized and so that also caused them to miss the voyage. and so it's very serendipitous because construction of the frick collection didn't start until a few months after the titanic sank. and so if they'd both been on board, we would not have you, you know, we wouldn't have the frick collection and we wouldn't have these great art collections that j.p. morgan had contributed towards. and so when you watch season two of the gilded age, if any of the cast would avoid disaster by having a business deal go wrong

or by spraining their ankle, you're going to now know where the inspiration for that storyline came from. and with that that is it. thank you very much. and if anybody has got any questions, stephanie, is got a microphone and go. and i only take it easy questions. i think this is easy. okay. why did they make k.m. or whatever it was called instead of using limestone in those days because it was cheaper? was it away any of us know? it's just it's just, you know, it's one of the other things that they did was there's a lot of them, what you think of as marble columns actually are not marble. it's actually material called scale tula, which was plaster, which was made to resemble it. the ironic thing was scale ula.

now skeletal is more cost more to make than what it to turn a marble column because the technology changed is easier to work with stone now and the craftsmanship has disappeared not many people know how to make skeletal, but they were constantly looking to save money. things look much grander, a more impressive than what they were. a lot of the time. you look up and you see sculpture high up and you think is carved out of stone. wasn't it? was plaster cast out of plaster and they just fill painted it. so it's a lot of kind of stage set design going on here with a lot of these buildings. can you comment on the recent renovation of the frick? as i recall, two or three years ago, when they were redesigning it, there was some discussion to do away with the interior garden and that ended and they do have the garden back in. i don't know what the story behind that story is, so i don't know specifically about that. it's a i'll answer it

differently. so one of the because people often ask about, you know, these buildings getting knocked down and you know, people assume that, you know, when a great building's knocked down, it's replaced by a not so great building. and generally speaking, that's case. and you can look at all, you know, the monstrous buildings that have gone up replaces some of these beautiful buildings. the frick's actually an example of when it wasn't because the lenox lived, it was a very famous building, was a beautiful building. but the fix, a much better building. and so new york city's constantly evolving. they weren't trying to build in the gilded age architecture of antiquity. it was for them. this was contemporary and so every fence always being changed and added to. and so i kind of it's a contentious of argument to get involved with how you should do how you should do in addition to a museum, a lot of don't like

what was done to the morgan i, i actually don't mind because i think it actually the morgan was a collection of various buildings that weren't connected of various styles. and i think what was done by renzo piano actually kind of helps bring them all together into a, into a cohesive home. so we'll see what happens with what they end up doing at the frick. it's been a while and i think it's slated to be open next year. so you come back here. you are so engaging. why, thank you. i would love to know how you got interested in this and how. see, because of your enthusiasm and knowledge, what you're with us can help better convince people to appreciate this because yours here in greenwich, who you're seeing the demolition

of so many historic homes with cookie cutter homes with no architectural style whatsoever. but la arch coming and i see you as helping. share the enthusiasm of the love that you have and the knowledge to educate people to appreciate design. but i really want to know, how did you get so excited about what you talked about tonight? oh, my gosh. so i so i come to new york in the fall of 1996, and i don't know anybody. i've got one suitcase and. i'm making $10 an hour in new york city, which meant i could eat bagels sometimes with cream cheese. and i had nothing to do with them, just walk around the city. and i thought i would. i was coming to a city that was full of skyscrapers. because that's what you think when you live overseas. instead, you come here and you find all of these great classical buildings. and i would literally walked out each street. and, you know, i've always loved

traditional classical architecture. and one of my colleagues said and again, this is 96. so this is kind of before the internet and emails that took off. one of my colleagues said, if you need to send a postcard back home, don't go to the to the main branch of the post office. go down to bowling green and go into the cunard building. and the cunard building, which is it? which is in the book. it was the first building we photographed back then, had little satellite office inside it like a little spaceship and landed inside it. and you go inside that building and it's just, just awe inspiring in the book, it's one of the pages that actually pulls out and you just stand in that space and it's and it's right next to the ball, which is down there, bowling green. all the toys stand next to the ball and no one walks inside the cunard building to see this spectacular space. so i've always you know, i've always loved this and i've always loved history. and it's it's it's kind of it's

so interesting. i was just up newport, i was asked to give a talk up at the breakers for the preservation foundation up there and afterwards i was talking to the head of the preservation foundation and she was saying how the year before julian fellowes had come and had met with a board of directors and told them that their success depended on storytelling rather than giving history lessons. and i'm a big believer in that. that's what this book is. this book is not an architecture book. the architecture is the backdrop to all of these stories. and people remember stories that people tend not to. remember names and numbers. i don't. but you remember these stories, and that's why it kind brings these buildings to life, especially when you talk about the houses. and because the houses is there's a personal connection there. it's harder to get personal when you're talking about a grand civic structure. but with a house, you know,

that's what you need to do. and i think that's an important component nowadays with my architecture. but the homes that i design, i'm trying to tell a story. i, i try and paint a picture in my client's head of how they're going to be using the space is how they're going to feel in those spaces. so that's i hope, i hope that answers your questions. all right. i think we have time for one more question. i think right here and then after this, we'll have lots of time for questions down in the lobby. so, yes, the newport flower show this year was held at marble house and as i was snaking my way through, i kept looking up at the ceiling, wondering, is that real marble or is that faux? it's a combination. so when it's close, when it's close and you can touch it, it tends to be real. and when it's somewhere where you can't touch it because so much of materials is is you

know, it's to the touch, it's how you feel it. and so, yeah, they, they, they, they wanted everything to look grand, but they didn't, they didn't waste their money and back then, designers were creative and they knew how to come up with creative solutions. i actually referred to, you know, the marble house as a jewelry box that the entire house is just is it's a big jewelry box, but it's a jewelry box. it's not like the breakers. it's not like built more these huge homes where i feel like this jewelry box is within those buildings. but the marble house itself is just you know, spectacular. and to think that the same architect did that and the breakers and biltmore is is pretty amazing. and again, it's somebody who most people don't even know about unless you go up to newport. and those were brothers that were competing for the rest of the house. one the so the i don't know if

they were trying to outdo each of us. so and not to get into a history but you have the commodore the commodores and then it's all of his children. and that's what all of these homes were built for, for for for that, for the grandchildren of of the commodore. so you get built more, you get marble house, you get the breakers, you also get hyde park on the hudson, and you also get elm cort, which is in lenox, was the largest shingle style house built. that was emily form vanderbilt. so that whole generation of vanderbilt just built some of the the grandest homes that have ever been seen in this country. i think that's it. yes. thank you so much. let's give one more big round of applause to mr. phillips, james dodd and to our audienc