Gilded Age Mansion

George Wightman Mansion // 1902

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Tucked within the historic Longwood neighborhood of Brookline, the George Wightman Mansion stands as a striking reminder of turn-of-the-century wealth and architectural ambition. The mansion was built in 1902 for industrialist George Henry Wightman (1855-1937), a steel magnate associated with Andrew Carnegie and was known as one of the “Carnegie Boys“, a close-knit and influential group of partners and executives who managed Carnegie Steel. Wightman retired around the time of building his Brookline house, which coincided with the formation of U.S. Steel, a merger which benefitted the Carnegie Corporation and its partners handsomely. With his expansive wealth and eyes set on retirement, George Wightman hired the prominent firm Shepley, Rutan & Coolidge, to design his new mansion to live out the remainder of his life in solitude. The brick and stone Renaissance Revival/Beaux Arts style mansion sits atop large, elegantly landscaped grounds and is of a scale unlike anything else in the neighborhood. George H. Wightman was also known as the “Father of American Lawn Tennis” and his only son, George W. Wightman also played tennis at a high level. It was George W. Wightman’s wife however, who became a champion. She was Hazel Hotchkiss Wightman, who won 45 U.S. titles during her life and founded the Wightman Cup, an annual team competition for British and American women from 1923 to 1989. Over time, the mansion’s role evolved alongside the community. After Wightman’s death in 1937, it transitioned from private home to institutional use, notably housing the Boston Hebrew College beginning in 1952, adding onto the building to the rear, and later becoming part of Boston University, serving as event space for the University. 

John E. Thayer Mansion // 1883

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Photo from real estate listing.

A lesser-known residence built for a member of the wealthy Thayer Family is this stately Queen Anne mansion tucked away in South Lancaster, Massachusetts. The John E. Thayer Mansion was built in the 1880s for its namesake, John Eliot Thayer (1862-1933), who graduated from Harvard College in 1885 and engaged in business before becoming one of the world’s most prominent ornithologists. John began collecting and housed his collections in several wooden buildings close to his home in Lancaster, but when these became unsafe and crowded he built a beautiful brick building in 1903 nearby, opening it to the public as a museum a year later. John Thayer hired esteemed Boston architect, John Hubbard Sturgis, who was then working with his nephew, Richard Clipston Sturgis, to design the English Queen Anne style country mansion. The residence features a stone first floor with wood-frame above that is given half-timbering treatment, suggesting the English design. John Thayer’s country mansion was a short walk away from his twin brother, Bayard Thayer’s mansion, and his other brother, Eugene’s country house, both in Lancaster. The house remained in the Thayer family until the 1960s, and was recently sold to new owners. The interiors are some of the best preserved for a country estate I have seen and worthy of the Thayer name. 

Fairlawn Mansion // 1883

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One of the great mansions built for the wealthy Thayer Family, “Fairlawn” stands as one of the finest Gilded Age homes in Lancaster, Massachusetts. This home was built for Eugene Van Renssalear Thayer (1855-1907), a financier and businessman, and his wife, Susan Spring Thayer. The gracious Richardsonianeque Shingle style house was designed by the Boston architectural firm of Andrews & Jacques as one of their first commissions after leaving the office of H. H. Richardson to establish their own practice. After the deaths of Eugene and Susan, the property was inherited by Susan Thayer Bigelow, the youngest daughter of the couple, and her husband, architect, Henry Forbes Bigelow. Under the ownership of Henry and Susan Bigelow, a massive renovation occurred, where Henry F. Bigelow oversaw in 1923, the removal of the south wing of the house, which was relocated to the south and became a detached residence, painted the brown-stained shingles white, and removed the Richardsonian arches to create a 20th century country house more in the Tudor Revival mode. From 1965, the property was owned by the former Atlantic Union College, and was colloquially known as the White House, but has since been sold to private owners. The former south wing, now a detached house, is under separate ownership. 

Detached portion of original house.

Roughwood // 1891

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Roughwood is a historic estate house on Heath Street in Brookline, Massachusetts. The main residence and the various outbuildings on the grounds were designed by the Boston architectural firm of Andrews, Jaques and Rantoul, and built in 1891 as the summer estate of William Cox, a wholesale dealer in the footwear industry. Mr. Cox died in 1902 and the property was sold to Ernest Dane, the year before he married Helen Pratt, the daughter of Charles Pratt, a wealthy New York businessman and philanthropist. Mr. Dane was a banker who served as President of the Brookline Trust Company. The Dane’s owned the property for decades until the property was eventually purchased by Pine Manor Junior College in 1961. The estate house remained a centerpiece of the campus. In the early 21st century, Pine Manor College saw financial distress, and was saved by Boston College, who acquired the campus and its existing students as Messina College, which opened in July 2024 for over 100 first-generation college students. Architecturally, Roughwood is a high-style example of the Queen Anne/Shingle style of architecture. The mansion is built with a puddingstone and brownstone first floor and a second floor of varied patterns of wood shingles, all capped by a slate roof. The facade is dominated by towers and dormers and the great rustic entrance portico with dragon’s head brackets. To its side, a 1909 Tudor Revival addition served as a music room for the Dane’s family and while stylistically unique, is designed with impeccable proportions.

Oakwood/ // 1902

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Oakwood, another massive gambrel-roofed “cottage” in Newport, Rhode Island, is another of the McKim, Mead & White designed residences in the Old Beach Road vicinity of town for wealthy summer residents. Built in 1902 for George Gordon King (1859-1922), Oakwood is a large, elongated two-and-one-half-story structure with a gambrel roof with walls in pebbledash finish. Its off-center main entrance with double-height engaged Corinthian columns supporting a pedimented gable and a blind balustrade set on smaller Ionic capitals. The massive home was later converted to condominiums. It sometimes amazes me that families (but with many servants) would live in these houses just for a season…

Boxcroft // 1883

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“Boxcroft” (also known as “Whileaway”) is a historic Shingle style summer “cottage” on Red Cross Avenue in Newport, Rhode Island. While it is surrounded by vegetation and tucked away, not facing the road, the house is a landmark example of the architecture style and very significant. The house was completed in 1883 from plans by the architectural firm of McKim, Mead & White a white shoe firm who designed many summer cottages in Newport for social elite. The original owner was Samuel Colman (1832-1920), a well-known landscape artist, the first President of the American Water Color Society, a connoisseur of Oriental art and an interior designer in business with Louis Comfort Tiffany specializing in fabrics and wallpaper. Colman lived here with his first wife, Ann Lawrence Dunham until her death in 1902. The property was later owned by Mary Appleton, an unmarried daughter of publisher William Henry Appleton. She would sell Boxcroft to lawyer and socialite J. Coleman Drayton, years following his bitter (and very public) divorce from Charlotte Augusta Astor, a member of the prominent New York Astor family, following a cheating scandal by Charlotte. Mr. Drayton died in Newport in 1934. Boxcroft remains an architecturally and historically significant piece of Newport’s Gilded Age.

Butler House // 1865

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A true Italian Villa can be found in the dense center of Newport, Rhode Island. This is the Butler House, built in 1865 for physician Samuel Butler (1816-1881) and his wife, Emeline. Dr. Butler was born in Maine and was educated at Harvard before moving to Newport to become a member of high-society there. Besides working as a physician, Samuel Butler served on the Newport School Committee and as a director of the Redwood Library. His house was originally built in 1865 (as the right half) in a late-Greek Revival style as a side-hall house with flushboard siding and pilasters between the bays. As Newport continued to grow in wealth as a summer destination, Dr. Butler modernized his home in 1876, adding the oversized corner tower with round arched windows and bracketed cornice. The two aesthetically opposing styles somehow work well together in this eclectic home, which today, is further enhanced by a color palette to accentuate the two sections.

Hutchings-Pfaff Mansion // c.1865

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In the mid-19th century, Roxbury was seen as a country retreat for wealthy Bostonians. Many purchased large estates of land and built mansions where they would find peace and solitude from the polluted Downtown areas. As the need increased for more workers, old farms and estates were subdivided, and single family homes, row houses, and multi-family homes sprang up to accommodate the growing population with the advent of trolley service in 1887. This is one of those estates that were demolished. This house was seemingly built for Colonel William Vinson Hutchings after the conclusion of the American Civil War. The stone mansion featured ample porches and a large stone stable amongst winding dirt paths and mature trees. The property was eventually purchased by Henry and Agnes Pfaff, of the Pfaff Brewing Company nearby. The lot was subdivided by 1895 with houselots carved out of the larger estate. By the 1930s, the stone mansion and stable were demolished, leaving just the stone gatehouse (next post) as the last survivor of this once great Roxbury estate.

Ashton Croft Mansion and Carriage House // c.1892

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Tucked behind the Jesse Lee Memorial Church on Main Street in Ridgefield, you will find this stately Queen Anne/Tudor Revival estate. The ‘Ashton Croft’ Manor House, now called Wesley Hall, is part of the Jesse Lee Memorial United Methodist Church complex and it has been modified several times blending two distinct styles into a single, pleasing composition. This house was originally constructed by Henry and Elizabeth Hawley circa 1892 in the Queen Anne style. The house was later sold to Electa Matilda Ziegler, a wealthy New York City widow in 1912, who reconfigured the structure to include half-timbering on the gables and upper story walls in the Tudor Revival style. She spent summers at a mansion in Darien, Connecticut, and would sell her Ridgefield property to Sanford H.E. Freund, a New York City attorney. The local order of Odd Fellows bought the estate from the Freund family in 1956. Three years later, the organization sold most of the property — retaining the carriage house for its lodge — to Jesse Lee Methodist Church, which planned to eventually build a new church there to replace the old one at Main and Catoonah Streets. Today, the entire former Ashton Croft estate is owned by the local Methodist Church and is known as Wesley Hall.

Far From The Wolf Cottage // 1891 & 1902

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John Godfrey Moore (1847-1899) was born in Steuben, Maine, a small town just east of Mount Desert Island, the son of a ship captain. He moved to New York City at 18 and would become was a wildly successful businessman, financier and Wall Street stock market promoter during the Gilded Age. He gained fame by successfully suing the United States government in 1893, to stop the new income tax Act from coming into effect, delaying it by 20 years. Oh how the rich stay rich… He purchased a 2,000-plus acre estate on the Schoodic Peninsula and formed the Gouldsboro Land Improvement Company, which sought to develop the peninsula into a summer colony that would rival Bar Harbor. As part of this, Moore was a huge reason for Winter Harbor separating from Gouldsboro, to lower his and his neighbors’ property taxes. He built a cottage here in 1891 and named it “Far From The Wolf” a cheeky reference to its comfortable distance from Wall Street. He died unexpectedly in 1899. His second wife Louise and daughters Ruth and Faith did not share his aspirations for Winter Harbor, and their visits to the area became less frequent. A large portion of his land on the Schoodic Peninsula became a part of Acadia National Park. His property in Winter Harbor was sold, expanded in 1902, and renamed “Ingleside” by Frank B. Noyes, a publisher and later founder of the Associated Press. The home was for a time operated as an inn, and was recently sold for $1 Million at auction. What a steal!