Lyndhurst (mansion)

Lyndhurst or Jay Gould Estate is a Neo-Gothic country house in a sprawling, nearly 27 -acre park on the banks of the Hudson River. The property is located in Tarrytown, New York, about 800 meters south of the Tappan Zee Bridge on U.S. Highway 9 The house was built in 1838 by Alexander Jackson Davis and was the residence of the former mayor of New York City William Paulding, Jr., and then the merchant George Merritt. The railroad magnate Jay Gould bought it in 1880, whose daughter Anna Gould, Duchess of Talleyrand - Perigord, in 1961 the National Trust for Historic Preservation presented. It can be visited by the public.

After its construction, the house was known as " Knoll "; Critics gave him, however, because of its highly unusual appearance immediately nicknamed " Paulding 's Folly ", partly because of the playful turrets and asymmetrical floor plan. The limestone for the facade was broken at Sing Sing (now Ossining ). The second owner, Merritt, doubled 1864-1865, the footprint of the house and named it because of the linden trees on the property in " Lyndenhurst " around. The new North Wing received an impressive four-story tower, a new Porte- cochere - the old one was turned into a glazed vestibule - and a new dining room, two dining rooms and rooms for servants. Jay Gould bought the house in 1880 as a country residence and used it until his death in 1892. The shortening of the name to its present form " Lyndhurst " Gould was incident.

Lyndhurst interior is extremely unusual. Unlike other estates that were built later on the Hudson River, there are only a few rooms, the extent of which is modest and are strongly influenced by the Gothic architecture. The aisles are narrow, curved windows narrow and pointed, and the ceilings decorated with fanciful ornaments. This creates a more depressed at the same time, dark and romantic impression; the large two-story art gallery, however, represents a contrast of light and space

The house is located in a park that was created by Ferdinand Mangold in the style of an English landscape garden. Mangold was hired by Merritt. He put the surrounding swamps, created lawns, an arboretum and built the greenhouse. The landscape created by him was the first of its kind on the Hudson River. It represents an outstanding example of landscape architecture of the 19th century represents the gently rolling grasslands are accented with bushes and trees and the meandering driveway reveals surprising views, even on the 130 m long steel frame greenhouse, which was the first in the United States.

The house was declared in 1966 a National Historic Landmark.

The house was used as a filming location for the feature films "House of Dark Shadows" (1970) and "Night of Dark Shadows" (1971 ) as well as for those produced by ABC-TV's "The Halloween That Almost Was not ".

Fireplace in Dining Room