Biggest Houses in USA
Haileybury House - 65,000 sq ft (6,038 m²) - Biggest House in Canada
| Name | Haileybury House |
|---|---|
| Area | 65,000 sq ft (6,038 m²) |
| Phone | +1 502-479-9799 (from Google maps) |
| Address | Haileybury House, 250 Farr Dr, Haileybury, ON, Canada |
| Built for | Peter Grant |
| Year completed | Not completed |
The biggest house in Canada sits on 40 acres along the beautiful shores of Lake Temiskaming in Ontario and it has the same size as Xanadu 2.0 - Bill Gates's house near Seattle.
The biggest house in Canada includes a boat house large enough for a luxury 40-foot yacht, an indoor swimming pool, two elevators, 30-foot fireplaces in the living room and master bedroom and a giant hot tub.
The 65,000 sq ft area makes the house as large as the White House, with an area of 55,000 sq ft.
But the house is far from completed. There's no finished bathrooms, no flooring, and wall coverings.
Haileybury House - 65,000 sq ft (6,038 m²) - Biggest House in Canada
Wentworth Woodhouse - 247,500 sq ft (23,000 m²) - Biggest House in UK
| Name | Wentworth Woodhouse |
|---|---|
| Area | 247,500 sq ft (23,000 m²) |
| Rooms | 300+ |
| Phone | +44 1226 351161 |
| Address | Wentworth, Rotherham S62 7TQ, United Kingdom |
| Official website | http://www.wentworthwoodhouse.org.uk/ |
| Owner | Wentworth Woodhouse Preservation Trust |
| Architectural style | East front Palladian, West front English Baroque |
| Architects | William Etty, Ralph Tunnicliffe, Henry Flitcroft, John Carr |
Wentworth Woodhouse is a country house in the village of Wentworth near Rotherham in the English administrative district of South Yorkshire. Listed by English Heritage as a Grade I Historic Building, it served as "one of the great Whig palaces." Its eastern facade is 184 meters long and thus the longest facade of a country house in Europe. Wentworth Woodhouse is also the largest private house in the United Kingdom with 23,000 square meters of living space. The house contains more than 300 rooms, some of sources estimate the number 365, one for each day of the year, although experts disagree on the exact number. The house has an area of 1 hectare and is surrounded by a park on the 6100 hectare property, which today belongs to another owner.
Wentworth Woodhouse was originally a Jacobean house, but was completely rebuilt at the behest of Thomas Watson-Wentworth, 1st Marquess of Rockingham, (1693-1750). Later, the existing house was demolished by grand new additions, which his son, Charles Watson-Wentworth, 2nd Marquess of Rockingham, who was twice prime minister, demoted to only one wing of the new house. The 2nd Marquess established Wentworth Woodhouse as an important stronghold of the Whigs. In the 18th century, the earls Fitzwilliam inherited the house and kept it until 1979 in the family, when it fell to the heirs of the 8th and 10th Earls. The value was particularly appreciated, as huge amounts of coal were discovered under the property.
Architecture
Wentworth Woodhouse consists of two interconnected houses forming east and west facades. The original house, now on the west facade, with the gardens stretching northwest towards the village, was built of bricks and decorated with natural stone. The east facade of unparalleled length, it is credibly claimed, arose from a rivalry with the Stainborough branch of the Wentworth family, who inherited the minor title of Baron Raby from Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford, but not his lands, to the Watsons, including a remarkable series of Strafford portraits by Anthonis van Dyck and Daniel Mytens. The Watsons then adopted the addition "Wentworth" to their surname. The Stainborough-Wentworths, for whom Strafford's earldom was revived, lived in nearby Wentworth Castle, which they bought in 1708 in the spirit of the competition and had it rebuilt in a great way.
History
The west wing of Wentworth Woodhouse, built in bricks in English Baroque style, was started by Thomas Watson-Wentworth in 1725, after 1728 Lord Malton, after inheriting the estate from his father in 1723. New house replaced the Jacobin House, which was once the home of Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford, whom King Charles I sacrificed in 1641 to reassure Parliament. The builder, to whom Wentworth's grandson turned for the planning of the large house he intended, was the local builder and land architect, Ralph Tunnicliffe, who already had practice in Derbyshire and South Yorkshire. Tunnicliffe was so pleased with this top project of his provincial practice that he issued an engraving "R. Tunniclif, architectus" was signed and must date before 1734, as it is dedicated to "Baron Malton", Watson-Wentworth's earlier title. But the baroque style did not please the Whigs and so they did not admire the new house. Around 1734, even before the west facade was completed, Wentworth's grandson, Thomas Watson-Wentworth, commissioned Henry Flitcroft to build the eastern facade "complement," which was in fact a new, much larger country house, facing southeast, showed. Her model for this house was Colen Campbell's Wanstead House, which was illustrated in the Vitruvius Britannicus of 1715.
In the same year the conversion was already in full swing. In a letter from amateur architect Sir Thomas Robinson of Rokeby to his father-in-law, Lord Carlisle, dated June 6, 1734, Sir Thomas reports that he found the garden façade "ready" to begin the main facade: "When it's done, will they are an amazing work, infinitely better than anything we have in England today, "and he added," All the work will be left to Lord Burlington, and I know that no citizen's house in Europe will have seven such splendid rooms, Nicolas Pevsner was supposed to agree with this opinion in the 20th century, but the mention of architect-earl Burlington, a referee of architectural taste, was a wicked prophecy to the provincial architect and construction supervisor Tunnicliffe. There is no doubt that Burlington's intervention at the time when the western facade was not yet finished moved the then Earl of Malton to commission 'Henry Flitcroft' to revise Tunnicliffe's plans and build the East Wing. Flitcroft was Burlington's professional architectural consultant - "Burlington Harry," as he was known. He had prepared for the engravers the drawings of Inigo Jones, which were published by Burlington and William Kent in 1727. Indeed, Kent was also invited to chatter about Wentworth Woodhouse, which was hosted by Sir Thomas Robinson, though Flitcroft attended the event and created drawings for the house over the following decade: he reworked and enlarged Tunnicliffe's provincial-baroque west facade she included wings, as well as temples and other buildings in the park. Contemporary engravings of the grand, public facing east facade are attributed to Flitcroft as architects. Flitcroft, the right hand of the architectural "dilettantes" and equally busy with his work for the Royal Board of Works, could not be constantly on site, but: Francis Bickerton, construction supervisor and builder from York, paid in 1738 and 1743 Bills.
The magnificent east facade is more often pictured. The west façade, the "garden front" that Sir Thomas Robinson found ready in 1734, is the private façade that looked at the "giardino secreto" between the house facade and the enclosed kitchen garden, which was more for the family's leisure than for social and political ambitions which was expressed in the eastern facade was intended. Most remnants were recreated in the 19th century.
Charles Watson-Wentworth, 2nd Marquess of Rockingham, short time Prime Minister in 1765/1766 and again in 1782, inherited Wentworth Woodhouse. The architect he commissioned was John Carr of York, who added another floor to parts of the east wing and fitted the matching wings with portici, each one an equivalent of a medium-sized country house. James "Athenian" Stuart provided drawings for disguises in the Pillared Hall. The Whistlejacket Room was named after George Stubbs' portrait of the most famous racehorse of all times of the same name. The extensions were completed in 1772. The second Marquess caught a sculpture gallery in the house, but never realized. Four marble figures were executed by Joseph Nollekens in anticipation of the gallery: the Diana, drawn and dated 1778, is now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, Juno, Venus and Minerva are together with an ancient Roman statue of Paris in the J. Paul Getty Museum.
Wentworth Woodhouse, with all its interior decoration, later fell to the Marquess' sister's family, the Earls Fitzwilliam.
The park
After completing all the renovations with the help of John Carr, Lord FitzWilliam turned in 1790 to the most famous landscape gardener, Humphry Repton, for whom this was the most ambitious project of the season, one he detailed because the memory of it was still fresh in Some Observations of the Theory at Practice of Landscape Gardening of 1803. A central terrace in front of the main building provided the transition from the house to the undulating pastureland. Four obelisks stood on the bowling green and looked small compared to the house. Repton killed her. Although there were a number of eye-catchers and other details in the parkland, Repton said there were too few trees and the house was just "surrounded by coarse grass and boulders." Which also had Repton removed before the large earthworks began Man with shovels and donkey carts were mastered and should turn the lumpy ground into soft hills. Two large ponds, seen from the east facade and from the driveway, were dug in serpent form. Some of Flitcroft's outbuildings were demolished, but not Carr's pretty stable yard of 1768, which was entered through a Tuscan archway with ornamental gables. Many trees were planted.
Follies
The estate and its surroundings contain a number of follies, many of which have associations with 18th-century Whigs politics:
- Hoober Stand: A pointed pyramid with a hexagonal lantern named after the ancient forest in which it was built. It is 30 meters high and was built 1747-1748 to Flitcroft's plans to commemorate the defeat of the Jacobites, in whose rebellion Lord Malton and his surviving son participated. Her defense efforts for the Hanoverian Whig establishment were rewarded with the appointment as Lord Lieutenant of Yorkshire and the title of Marquess of Rockingham. Thus, the monument indirectly indicates the greater fame of the family. The tower, which overlooks the surrounding landscape as if from a watchtower, is open to the public throughout the summer, on Sunday afternoons.
- Keppel's Column: 'A 35-meter-high Tuscan pillar commemorating the acquittal of the court-martial admiral Keppel, a good friend of Lord Rockingham. Their entasis is visibly bulging, indicating a reduction in the originally planned level, which was necessary due to funding issues. It was designed by John Carr.
- The Rockingham Mausoleum: A three-story, 27-meter-high building in a light forest, from which you can only see the top floor above the treetops. It was commissioned in 1783 by Earl FitzWilliam as a memorial to the later First Marquess of Rockingham. It was designed by John Carr, whose first plan, for an obelisk, was not accepted and instead opted for an adaptation of the Roman cenotaph of the Julians at Saint-Rémy-de-Provence at Arles. The ground floor consists of a closed hall with a statue of the former Prime Minister of Joseph Nollekens and busts of his eight best friends. The first floor is an open colonnade with Corinthian columns surrounding an (empty) sarcophagus. The second floor is a Roman lantern. Like Hober, the mausoleum is open to the public on summer Sunday afternoons.
- Needle's Eye: A 14-meter-high pyramid of sandstone blocks with a decorative urn at the top and a tall Gothic Kielbogendurchgang right through it, spanning a no longer needed road. It was built in the 18th century, allegedly to win a bet, after the second Marquess had claimed that he could steer a cart with horses through a needle eye ("Needle's Eye").
- Bear Pit: Accessible through the nearby garden center. Two-storey built with spiral staircase. The outer passage (around 1630) is part of the architecture of the original country house. At the end of the garden is a grotto guarded by two life-size statues of Roman soldiers.
Royal visit 1912
King George V and Queen Mary visited South Yorkshire from 8 to 12 July 1912 and spent four days in Wentworth Woodhouse. Her entourage consisted of a large number of guests, such as For example, the Archbishop of York Cosmo Gordon Lang, Henry Lascelles, 5th Earl of Harewood, and Lady Harewood, Lady Londonderry, Lawrence Dundas, 1st Marquess of Zetland, and Lady Zetland, Aldred Lumley, 10th Earl of Scarbrough, and Lady Scarbrough, William Parsons, 5th Earl of Rosse, and Lady Rosse, Charles Beresford, and Lady Beresford, Walter Long, 1st Viscount Long, and Lady Doreen Long, and Lord Helmsley, and Lady Helmsley.
The visit ended on the evening of July 11 with a torch-lit prank of miners and a music program by members of the Sheffield Musical Union and the Wentworth Choral Society. A crowd of 25,000 people gathered on the lawn to see the King and Queen on the balcony of the portico. The king spoke to the assembled crowd.
Destruction of the property
In April 1946, at the direction of Emanuel Shinwell, the then Energy Secretary of the Labor Government, a "series of trucks and heavy construction machinery" arrived at Wentworth Woodhouse. The intention was to mine coal on a large part of the property near the villa. This was an area where the rich Barnsley Seam (a coal seam) was no more than 30 meters below the surface of the earth, and so the area between the cottage and Rockingham's mausoleum became the largest coal mine in Britain at that time: 132,000 tons of coal only mined from the area under the gardens. The coal was said to have been urgently needed as fuel for the railroads in Britain's post-war economy, but the Energy Minister's rationale was then still considered by many a useful cover for an act of class struggle against the coal-owning aristocracy. A study by the University of Sheffield, commissioned by Peter Wentworth-FitzWilliam, 8th Earl Fitzwilliam, revealed that the quality of coal was "very bad" and "not worth mining". This was the exact opposite of what Shinwell had assured: he said the coal was of "exceptionally good quality."
Shinwell, who had in mind the destruction of the FitzWilliams and "the privileged rich," decreed that coal mining should continue to the back door of Wentworth Woodhouse, the country house's eastern facade. What followed was the dredging of 400,000 square meters of lawn and woodland, the well-known formal gardens, and the exemplary driveway graveled with pink shale (a byproduct from the family coal mines). Ancient trees were uprooted and the overburden of earth and debris piled up 15 meters high in front of the living quarters of the family.
The locals supported the earl in his argument. Joe Hall, president of the National Union of Mineworkers' Yorkshire group, said that "the miners in this area would do almost anything to keep Wentworth Woodhouse from being destroyed. For many mining communities, this is a sacred reason. "In an industry known for its rough handling of workers, the FitzWilliams were respected employers known to treat their employees well. The union's Yorkshire group later even threatened to strike against the government's plans for Wentworth Woodhouse and Joe Hall personally wrote to Clement Attlee and made an ineffective attempt to stop coal mining. This spontaneous local activism, based on the honest popularity of the Fitzwilliam family among the people of the area, was misinterpreted in Whitehall as the "intrigue" of the earl.
Coal mining worked into the fields west of the country house and continued until the early 1950s. The excavated areas took many years to return to their natural state; large parts of the sparse forest and formal gardens were not restored. The property's current owners claim that mining near the biggest house in UK would have caused significant structural damage to the building by settlement and, in 2012, filed £ 100m of damage claims against the Coal Authority for remediation work.
Twice inheritance taxes in the 1940s and the nationalization of their coal mines significantly reduced the wealth of the FitzWilliams. A large part of the country house was auctioned in 1948, 1986 and 1998 at auctions. At Christie's auction in 1948, the painting Rinaldo, laced with the love of Armida by Anthonis van Dyck, was auctioned for 4,600 Guineas (now £ 156,189).
Many pieces still remained in the family, including many works that have been awarded to museums by Trustees of the FitzWilliam Estates.
Lease at Lady Mabel College
The Ministry of Health tried to requisition the biggest house in UK as an "apartment for homeless industrial families." To prevent this, the Earl tried to transfer the house to the National Trust, but the trust refused. Finally, Lady Mabel FitzWilliam, sister of the 7th Earl and local Alderman, threaded a contract whereby the West Riding County Council leased most of the house from the property administration to run a school, while a small part (40 rooms !) was still available to the family as an apartment. From 1949 to 1979, the biggest house in UK housed the Lady Mabel College of Physical Education, where sports teachers were trained. The college was later merged with Sheffield City Polytechnic (now Sheffield Hallam University), which then terminated the lease in 1988 for intolerable maintenance costs on the buildings.
Sold by the FitzWilliam family
In 1989, the country house was in poor condition. After the Polytechnic no longer wanted to lease the building and the family no longer needed it, the family's trustees decided to sell it, including the surrounding property of 280,000 square meters, but retained the 61-square-kilometer estates. The home-grown businessman Wensley Grosvenor bought Baydon-Baillie, who immediately began a restoration program, but his business collapse saw the house fall into the hands of a Swiss bank and resell in 1998. Clifford Newbold (July 1926-April 2015), a Highgate architect, bought it for just over £ 1.5m. Newbold continued with the defined restoration and refurbishment program, as in the Country Life magazines of the 17th and 24th February 2010. The surrounding parkland belongs to the Trustees of the FitzWilliam Estates.
Again for sale
In 2014, the biggest house in UK was formally offered for sale without mentioning a desired retail price, but According to The Times, it was thought to be around £ 7m. It was claimed that the home would need repairs worth around £ 40m , Following the death of Mr Newbold, the home was formally offered for sale through Savills in May 2015 for £ 8m.
In November 2015, the proposed sale to the Hong Kong investment firm Lake House Group failed. In 2016, the Wentworth Woodhouse Preservation Trust acquired the property for £ 7m. The Trust estimates the cost of renovating the building and property at £ 42m, of which the UK Government plans to borrow £ 7.6m.
In film and television
The biggest house in UK and estate served as backdrop for a number of film and television productions:
Wives and Daughters (1999)
Mr. Turner - Master of Light (2014)
The Thirteenth Tale (2013)
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (2015)
Downton Abbey (2019)
Darkest Hour (2018)
Wentworth Woodhouse - 247,500 sq ft (23,000 m²) - Biggest House in UK
Hearst Castle - 68,500 sq ft (5,634 m²) - Biggest House in California
| Name | Hearst Castle |
|---|---|
| Area (Casa Grande) | 68,500 sq ft (5,634 m²) |
| Rooms | 300+ |
| Phone - tour reservations | +1 (800) 444 4445 |
| - private tours | +1 (805) 927-2065 |
| - press office | +1 (805) 927 2093 |
| - Foundation at Hearst Castle | +1 (805)927 2138 |
| - Hearst Castle Theater | +1 (805) 927 6811 |
| Address | 750 Hearst Castle Rd, San Simeon, CA 93452, United States |
| Official website | http://hearstcastle.org/ |
| Built for | William Randolph Hearst |
| Owner | California Department of Parks and Recreation |
| Year completed | 1947 |
| Architectural style | Mediterranean Revival, Spanish Colonial Revival |
| Architect | Julia Morgan |
Hearst Castle is a castle-like estate near San Simeon, California, built in the 1920s by newspaper publisher William Randolph Hearst on a hill overlooking the Pacific Ocean.
Location
Hearst Castle is located halfway between Los Angeles and San Francisco in the mountain tops of the Santa Lucia Mountains near San Simeon. Below the property runs California State Route 1, also known as the Pacific Coast Highway.
Description
The exotic fantasy castle shows what happens when a simple idea is tackled with unlimited amounts of time, money, architectural talent and enthusiasm. The main house La Casa Grande (Spanish: The Great House), with its twin towers, occupies the highest point and is surrounded by three guest bungalows:
- Casa del Mar
- Casa del Monte
- Casa del Sol
There is also the more than 30-meter Neptune Greek-style swimming pool built with green and white marble, an Italian temple façade and a Classicist colonnade. Inside is the Roman basin with blue and golden Murano tiles.
The architecture is completely eclectic, but the main influences came from the cathedrals of the Spanish Renaissance.
History
In 1919 Hearst decided to build a simple bungalow for himself and his girlfriend, movie star Marion Davies. Hearst began in 1919 after his success as a newspaper publisher to rebuild the family farm near San Simeon from a simple camp in a stately home. The huge estate had been acquired by Hearst's father George Hearst in 1865. Together with the architect Julia Morgan, Hearst created until 1947 a $37 million house with 165 rooms, numerous outbuildings, an outdoor and an indoor pool, 127 acres of gardens, a small cinema and guest houses. Furthermore, belonged to the property of the largest private zoo in the world, with a variety of exotic animals such. Zebras, which can still be seen grazing on the estate today.
Morgan and Hearst used various European architectural styles (such as churches from different eras or Neuschwanstein Castle), which was supplemented by antiques and original buildings from Europe.
Hearst gathered all over Europe to fill more than 100 rooms, removing entire suites of Spanish palaces. In this construction project, finished parts were constantly torn out and renewed until Hearst ran out of money in 1937.
The wild 20s
In the 1920s and 1930s Hearst let Hollywood stars fly in and celebrate regular parties. There were strict rules and strict practices on Hearst Castle, to which all the guests invariably had to comply; for example, each guest was expected to attend a formal dinner, but during the day he was usually left to himself, while Hearst took care of his business. His most famous guests included Charlie Chaplin, Winston Churchill, Rudolph Valentino, Cary Grant, Charles Lindbergh, Joan Crawford, Calvin Coolidge and Clark Gable.
Current
In 1957 Hearst Corporation was handed over to California State Parks by the Hearst Corporation for management, offering daily guided tours of the estate for $20 - $25. Even today, members of the Hearst family may use the property at any time or even move back in, but since there was an attack in the 1970s, the property is uninhabited. Nobody was harmed by the explosion in a guesthouse on the property in February 1976. The assassination took place during the trial of Patty Hearst for her membership in the Symbionese Liberation Army. On June 22, 1976 Hearst Castle was included as a monument in the National Register of Historic Places. Since May 11, 1976, the building complex is considered a National Historic Landmark. Though far from urban centers, the museum, with its considerable art treasures and fabled history, still attracts around a million visitors a year.
It is considered a model of the castle Xanadu in the movie Citizen Kane by Orson Welles.
The future of the facility and its eventual destruction following a fictional disappearance of humanity will be shown in episode 5 of Season 2 of the series Life After People (Home Wrecked Homes, USA 2010).
In 2014, Lady Gaga shot the video for her single G.U.Y in Hearst Castle.
Hearst Castle - 68,500 sq ft (5,634 m²) - Biggest House in California
Versailles - 85,000 sq ft (7900 sq m) house, Michigan, USA
| Name | Versailles |
|---|---|
| Area | 88,000 sq ft (7900 sq m) |
| Address | 6121 Kirkstone Lane, Windermere, Florida, United States |
| Built for | David A. Siegel |
| Owner | David A. Siegel |
| Year completed | (under construction) |
| Architectural style | Châteauesque |
| Architect | William E. Kapp; Smith, Hinchman & Grylls |
Versailles is a biggest house in Florida with an area of 85,000 sq ft. The house belongs to a founder of Westgate Resorts, David Siegel. The house is located at 6121 Kirkstone Lane, Windermere, Florida, and is under construction now. The lot belongs to the Lake Butler Sound gated community in Orange County, Florida. Designed and named after the Palace of Versailles (France) the completed project would be one of the biggest single-family houses in the US. The house is designed as the main residence of the Siegels.
Versailles - 85,000 sq ft (7900 sq m) house, Michigan, USA
Meadow Brook Hall - 88,000 sq ft (8175 sq m) Biggest House in Michigan
| Name | Meadow Brook Hall |
|---|---|
| Area | 88,000 sq ft (8175 sq m) |
| Phone | +1 248 364 6200 |
| Address | 350 Estate Dr, Rochester, MI 48309, United States |
| Official website | https://meadowbrookhall.org/ |
| Built for | Matilda Dodge Wilson |
| Owner | Oakland University |
| Year completed | 1929 |
| Architectural style | Tudor Revival |
| Architect | William E. Kapp; Smith, Hinchman & Grylls |
Meadow Brook Hall is a house built in Tudor revival style. It was built between 1926 and 1929 for Matilda Dodge Wilson (the widow of John Francis Dodge, auto industry pioneer). In 1957, the house and the surrounding buildings and property were donated to the Michigan state for funding the Michigan State University–Oakland. The university now has name Oakland University. The house was named a National Historic Landmark in 2012.
Meadow Brook Hall - 88,000 sq ft (8175 sq m) Biggest House in Michigan, USA
Shadow Lawn (Woodrow Wilson Hall) - 90,000 sq ft (8360 sq m) Biggest House in New Jersey
| Name | Shadow Lawn |
|---|---|
| Area | 90,000 sq ft (8360 sq m) |
| Phone | +1 732 571 3400 |
| Address | 400 Cedar Ave, West Long Branch, NJ 07764, United States |
| Official website | https://www.monmouth.edu/about/wilson-hall/ |
| Built for | Hubert T. Parson |
| Owner | Monmouth University |
| Year completed | 1927 |
| Architectural style | Beaux-Arts |
| Architect | Horace Trumbauer |
Shadow Lawn is a historic house located in West Long Branch, New Jersey, United States. Now the house called Woodrow Wilson Hall, and in 1956 the house became a part of Monmouth University.
Shadow Lawn (Woodrow Wilson Hall) - 90,000 sq ft (8360 sq m) Biggest House in New Jersey, USA
Winterthur - 96,580 sq ft (8970 sq m) Biggest House in Delaware
| Name | Winterthur |
|---|---|
| Area | 96,580 sq ft (8970 sq m) |
| Toll free | +1 800 448 3883 |
| Phone | +1 302 888 4600 |
| Address | Winterthur Museum, Garden & Library, 5105 Kennett Pike, Winterthur, Delaware, 19735, United States |
| Official website | http://www.winterthur.org/ |
| Built for | Henry Francis du Pont |
| Owner | Winterthur Museum, Garden and Library |
| Year completed | 1932 |
| Architectural style | Georgian Revival |
| Architect | Henry Francis du Pont |
The Winterthur Museum, Garden and Library is a 979-acre (3.96 km²) mansion, botanical garden, arboretum and museum located in Winterthur, Delaware.
Since 2011 it houses one of the most important collections of Americana in the United States of America. It was the former residence of Henry Francis du Pont (1880-1969), a renowned collector of antiques and horticulturist. Only recently the house was recognized as the "Henry Francis DuPont Winterthur Museum".
The gardens are open every day of the week and weekends free of charge.
History
At the beginning of the 20th century H.F. du Pont and his father, Henry Algernon du Pont, conceived Winterthur in the spirit of the European country houses of the 18th and 19th centuries. The youngest du Pont added rooms to the house many times, until the number of rooms was six times larger. He later founded the public museum in the main building in 1951, and moved to live in a smaller building on the estate.
Winterthur is located on 979 acres (4 km²), near Brandywine Creek, with 60 acres (0.2 km²) of naturalistic gardens. The entire land is 2,500 acres (10 km²).
Initially, a collector of European art and decorative arts in the late 1920s, H. F. du Pont later became interested in the antiquities of American art. Subsequently, it became a very important collection of American decorative arts, based on the Winterthur estate to house the collection, conservation laboratories, and administrative offices.
The museum has 175 exhibition rooms per period with approximately 85,000 exhibits. Most of them are open to the public on guided tours of small groups. The collection covers more than two centuries of American decorative arts, especially from 1640 to 1860, and contains some of the most important pieces of fine art and American furniture. The Winterthur Library includes more than 87,000 volumes and manuscripts, with approximately 500,000 images, mostly related to the decorative arts, architecture and history of the United States. The facility also has extensive equipment focused on conservation, research and education.
In the 1990s, the galleries of the most informal museums opened in a new building adjacent to the main house, as it has temporary and permanent exhibitions. The museum also houses the Winterthur Program of American Material Culture and the Winterthur Art Conservation Program in collaboration with the University of Delaware.
The museum is named after the city of Winterthur (in Switzerland), the ancestral home of Jacques Antoine Bidermann, a son-in-law of Eleuthère Irénée du Pont, the founder of the Pont du family in the United States.
The estate includes:
- Main museum (salty periods and offices), 96,582 square feet (8,970 m²)
- The Cottage (home of H. F. du Pont after opening the museum), 21,345 square feet (1,980 m²)
- The Galleries 35,000 square feet (3,300 m²), 22,000 square feet (2,000 m²) of exhibition areas.
- Research Building 68,456 square feet (6,340 m²)
- Visitors Center 18,755 square feet (1,742 m²)
Winterthur - 96,580 sq ft (8970 sq m) Biggest House in Delaware, USA
Arden House - 97,100 sq ft (9000 sq m) house, Harriman, NY, USA
| Name | Arden House |
|---|---|
| Area | 97,100 sq ft (9000 sq m) |
| Address | Harriman, NY 10926, United States |
| Official website | http://www.theardenhouse.com/ |
| Built for | Edward Henry Harriman |
| Owner | Mo Tianquan (via Research Center on Natural Conservation) |
| Year completed | 1909 |
| Architectural style | Châteauesque |
| Architect | Carrère and Hastings |
Arden House is a mansion in Orange County, New York. It sits on a ridge between the Ramapo River and the wooded banks of the Cranberry Lakes, where it overlooks the Hudson Highlands.
The villa was built in 1885 by the railroad magnate Edward Henry Harriman as a summer residence with 9000 m² of living space. The 6700 hectares of the surrounding landscape, today Harriman State Park, belong to it. Until Edward Henry Harriman death in 1909, when the house was finally completed, it was a meeting place for the American money-man. The project was designed by the architectural firm Carrère and Hastings, which also designed numerous public buildings such as the Capitol in Washington D.C. and the New York Public Library. The landscaping was done by Wadley & Smythe. It is located in the part of the Village of Harriman, which accounts for the Town of Woodbury, about 1.5 hours by car from Manhattan in the southeast of the state.
Averell Harriman, the son of the owner, received the house in 1915 from his mother. During the Second World War, he made it available to the United States Navy as a rest home. In 1950, he transferred it to Columbia University as a "home" for the founded by Dwight D. Eisenhower political forum The American Assembly. The university also used the building for educational purposes. The Ministry of the Interior classified it in November 1966 under the name E. H. Harriman Estate as a National Historic Landmark, whereby the use of religious, philanthropic or educational purposes is limited.
In 2007, the university sold the building and 150 hectares of forest to the conservation organization Open Space Institute (OSINY) for $4.5 million.
Arden House - 97,100 sq ft (9000 sq m), Harriman, NY, USA
Whitemarsh Hall - 100,000 sq ft (9300 sq m) house, Wyndmoor, Pennsylvania, USA
| Name | Whitemarsh Hall |
|---|---|
| Area | 100,000 sq ft (9300 sq m) |
| Rooms | 147 |
| Address | Wyndmoor, PA 19038, United States |
| Built for | Edward T. Stotesbury |
| Owner | demolished in 1980 |
| Year completed | 1921 |
| Architectural style | Georgian |
| Architect | Horace Trumbauer |
Whitemarsh Hall is a castle in Wyndmoor, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, USA. Built in 1921, it was destroyed in 1980. It belonged to the banker Edward Stotesbury and his wife Eva. It is considered one of the biggest private residences in the United States.
The castle is located on an area of 1.2 hectares. Despite its name, it was located in the town of Springfield, Pennsylvania, not Whitemarsh, Pennsylvania.
History
The castle was built between 1916 and 1921. It is a wedding gift from Edward Stotesbury to his second wife, Eva. The building was delayed during the First World War: if the external elements were practically finished at the end of the war, the decorations and interior furnishings, many of which were bought in Europe, then ravaged by the war, have took a lot longer to arrive.
More than 70 gardeners worked on the property. 40 people worked in the castle, but many followed the couple when they went to their mansion in Florida for the winter or Bar Harbor in Maine for the summer. In addition to the couple and their servants, in Whitemarsh Hall two children of Eva's first marriage were lived, Jimmy and more rarely, Louise; they had both already reached adulthood.
For about nine years, the mansion is a home to sumptuous balls and receptions. Their frequency dropped a little after the Great Depression of 1929 and even more after 1933, when the Stotesburys were openly criticized for their lavish lives as Americans suffered throughout the country from the economic crisis. The death of one of their daughters in 1935 also helped put an end to this life.
After the death of her husband in 1938, Eva Stotesbury ran into financial difficulties. It took more than $1 million a year to maintain the castle and the vast property around it. Moreover, as a result of the Great Depression, the value of Whitemarsh Hall and its valuable furniture has been greatly reduced. She leaves the castle and moves to her property in El Mirasol, Palm Beach, Florida. She donated the steel fences that surrounded the estate (3 km long and 2.4 m high) to the War Department to be turned into metal to create 18,000 rifles.
During the Second World War, the castle was used to preserve works of art from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, in fear of a German attack on the city. After the death of her husband, Eva Stotesbury tries to sell the property, but she finds no buyer. Whitemarsh Hall was eventually sold for $167,000 to the Pennsylvania Petroleum Corporation (now Total Petrochemicals USA) as a research laboratory. Much of the land surrounding the castle was transferred to real estate developers, whose activity is flourishing after the end of the war. Pennsalt retains the castle and its scenery while modernizing it and building new facilities in the gardens they have conserved.
In 1963, the company, then renamed Pennwalt, built a new research center and then left Whitemarsh Hall, which was sold to a real estate investment group. Attempts were made to save the castle but they fail and the property deteriorates over the years, before being vandalized. Demolition is accomplished, although disputes over the project replacing the castle (luxury apartments are being considered) delayed its implementation for a number of years.
The castle, which was larger than the Washington White House, was destroyed in 1980. A modern houses called Stotesbury Estates replaced it. The massive limestone pillars that formed part of the gateway to the castle were left on the spot as a tribute as well as the large belvedere at the back of the castle. No house occupies the site of the castle itself, whose lower floors and foundations were backfilled. Various elements still remain of the park, like a fountain, several statues, stairs, pieces of low stone fence as well as walls. Two pillars of the castle's outer entrance, located 1.6 km from the old building, are still standing on Douglas Road, near Willow Grove Avenue, but without their steel doors; today they allow access to a private residence.
Description
The building was designed by Beaux Arts Horace Trumbauer. With a total area of 9300 m² and Neo-Georgian inspiration, it is composed of six floors (three partially or completely underground), 147 rooms, 45 bathrooms and a ballroom, a gymnasium, movie theater, and even a refrigeration facility.
It was richly decorated, with statues, paintings and tapestries purchased by the Stotesbury as a collection, later donated to the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The eighteenth-century French furniture was purchased through Joseph Duveen, who had previously helped Stotesbury acquire the second-largest American collection of English portraits. The floor was covered with Oriental carpets, also purchased through Duveen. The latter also advised Stotesbury for his purchases of French sculptures to decorate the castle.
The gardens and landscaping were designed by landscape architect Jacques Gréber, whose drawings are inspired by André Le Nôtre. He had already done those of Lynnewood Hall for the businessman Peter Arrell Brown Widener, who then recommended it to the couple Stotesbury and who followed the progress of the work.
The estate also included several outbuildings and service buildings spread across the property as well as four large arboreal greenhouses. Small greenhouses were built for the cultivation of the many flowers needed for the decoration of the castle for the sumptuous parties organized by the Stotesburys.
Whitemarsh Hall has often been dubbed the "American Versailles" because of the architectural detail of the castle and gardens.
Whitemarsh Hall - 100,000 sq ft (9300 sq m) house, Wyndmoor, Pennsylvania, USA
Oheka Castle - 109,000 sq ft (10100 sq m) - Biggest House in New York State
| Name | Oheka Castle |
|---|---|
| Area | 109,000 sq ft (10100 sq m) |
| Rooms | 127 |
| Phone | +1 631 659 1400 |
| Address | 135 W Gate Dr, Huntington, NY 11743, United States |
| Official website | https://www.oheka.com |
| Built for | Otto Hermann Kahn |
| Owner | Gary Melius |
| Year completed | 1919 |
| Architectural style | Châteauesque |
| Architect | Delano and Aldrich |
Oheka Castle is a building located in New York, United States. Also known as the estate of Otto Kahn, it is located on the Gold Coast of Long Island, in Huntington, New York. It was the country house of Otto Kahn, a financier and philanthropist. Built by Kahn between 1914 and 1919, it was and continues to be the second biggest private house in the United States, comprising 127 rooms and more than 109,000 square feet, as configured. The property was registered in the National Register of Historic Places in 2004, and is a member of the "historic hotels of America." Today, it is a historic hotel with 32 rooms and suites on the upper floors of the mansion, a popular venue for high society weddings, celebrities and dignitaries, and the backdrop to many Hollywood photo shoots and productions. The property also offers tours in all areas of the castle.
The name of Oheka Castle is an acronym for the name of its original owner, Otto Hermann Kahn.
Oheka Castle - 109,000 sq ft (10100 sq m) - Biggest House in New York State
Biltmore Estate - 175,000 sq ft (16,260 sq m) - Biggest House in North Carolina and USA
| Name | Biltmore Estate |
|---|---|
| Area | 175,000 sq ft (16,260 sq m) |
| Rooms | 250 |
| Phone | +1 800 411 3812 |
| Address | 1 Lodge St, Asheville, NC 28803, United States |
| Official website | http://www.biltmore.com/ |
| Built for | George Washington Vanderbilt II |
| Owner | William A.V. Cecil Jr. |
| Year completed | 1895 |
| Architectural style | Châteauesque |
| Architect | Richard Morris Hunt |
Biltmore Estate is a property near Asheville, North Carolina. The Biltmore House mansion was built in the Renaissance style and is now used as a museum.
It was built by New York architect Richard Morris Hunt on behalf of George Washington Vanderbilt II between 1888 and 1895. At that time, it was the biggest private estate in the US with a total area of 8,000 acres (about 32 square kilometers). The 175,000 square foot (16,260 square meter) mansion has a 238-meter Indiana limestone façade, 250 rooms, plus a swimming pool, bowling alley and gym. Completed in 1895, it was fully equipped with electrical outlets and was one of the first homes to use Thomas Edison's light bulb.
History
George Washington Vanderbilt, the youngest son of William Henry Vanderbilt visited regularly with his mother, Maria Louisa Kissam Vanderbilt (1821-1896) from the 1880s, the climatic health resort of Asheville in North Carolina. While his older siblings had set up their summer homes around New York City (Newport, Rhode Island, and Hyde Park, New York), he decided to have his summer residence built here. The estate also includes its own village, the Biltmore Village, and a church known as the Cathedral of All Souls.
The name Biltmore was derived from the surname meaning van der Bildt (meaning "from Bildt"), meaning the Het Bildt community in the Netherlands, from which the family came, as well as More, the Old English word for "Weites country."
The property is still family owned but can be visited since 1930. It served as a location for movies and TV shows:
Tap Roots (1948)
The Swan (1956)
The Pruitts of Southampton (1966)
Being There (1979)
The Private Eyes (1980)
A Breed Apart (1984)
Mr. Destiny (1990)
The Last of the Mohicans (1992)
Forrest Gump (1994)
Richie Rich (1994)
My Fellow Americans (1996)
Patch Adams (1998)
Return to the Secret Garden (2000)
Hannibal (2001)
One Tree Hill (2003)
The Clearing (2004)
The Odd Life of Timothy Green (2012)
Hannibal (2015)
Architecture
It was Vanderbilt's wish that his summer residence should be built in the style of French Renaissance architecture. He commissioned the prominent New York architect Richard Morris Hunt with this task. Hunt, who studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris and had previously worked for the Vanderbilts, designed for his client a castle-like estate. Hunt's designs made the Châteauesque style popular in the United States.
Interior
During construction, Vanderbilt went on a trip abroad. He returned to North Carolina with thousands of pieces of furniture for his newly built home. The interior includes furniture, tapestries, hundreds of rugs, prints, linens and decorative items, all from the period between 1400 and the late 1800s. The range comes from different Eastern and Western countries around the world.
Biltmore Estate - 175,000 sq ft (16,260 sq m) - Biggest House in North Carolina and USA
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