Some Recommendations I can hardly believe it has been a year since my last post I have yet to find a concise comprehensive authoritative source of information on this subject But I ve continued to work on my chateau related project and I ve gained an improved understanding that might be of some value here I found it useful to start with the architectural history of actual 16th century French chateaux The related Wikipedia pages such as French Renaissance Architecture and Chateaux of the Loire Valley were of little help The best general explanation came from a professionally written traditional encyclopedia at the local library More detailed information can be found in any of several books I found Gebelin s The Chateaux of France translated by Hart to be an excellent source of information It was at the same library At the very least one can easily find the out of copyright 11th edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica from about 1910 at many locations on the Internet including archive org The section on 16th century French architecture is located in Vol 2 is still reasonably valid and can easily be downloaded in any of the usual formats The study reminded me that the appearance of the subject chateaux changed considerably during the 16th century Early examples generally extant medieval fortresses had defensive military components such as towers and turrets And they had few if any outward facing windows By the end of the period new construction had replaced fortresses with palaces Gone were towers and turrets and windows were now featured The early attempts to mix Gothic and Renaissance styles had been refined and had evolved into a distinctively French style The key point here is that there was never any single or ideal Chateau style It ranged from crudely decorated fortresses to spectacular palaces and included everything in between The distinction becomes important 300 years later Jumping forward to the last quarter of the 19th century in the United States there was considerable unrest in the world of architecture After nearly a century the country still had no original American styles Instead there had been endless revivals of ancient foreign styles usually as interpreted by French art schools Architects wanted something new Now up to this time professional architects largely followed a historicist revivalist philosophy In some ways it was like musicians who focus exclusively on classical music striving for the perfect interpretation of works written hundreds of years earlier but never daring to make their own changes As the unrest grew a new architectural philosophy gained momentum Eclecticism also known as academic eclecticism or classical eclecticism promoted the idea that a well trained architect should be allowed far greater flexibility and creativity in designing a building to meet a client s particular needs and wishes Those who were trained at the Ecole des Beaux Arts understood that philosophy So from an eclectic perspective Hunt s chateaux for the Vanderbilt family didn t need to be perfect replicas of old buildings or attempt to create or promote an architectural movement or specific style He was simply producing a distinctive product for a particular client At the time it was a revolutionary concept When the buildings were typically described as being inspired by a French chateau that s exactly what they meant It wasn t supposed to be treated as a formal architectural style Chateau style as one of many examples of an eclectic approach to architecture seems to explain the lack of specific information on the subject It also explains the lack of an official name for the style and possibly the context for Bunting s comments Unfortunately the above interpretation isn t covered here at Wikipedia or clearly stated in any books or encyclopedias that I ve read I ve had to piece it together myself which doesn t allow for inclusion on the main page of this article Probably just as well I m sure that the right person could describe it much better than I just did And as I mentioned in an earlier post comments and citations either in agreement or rebuttal are invited Meanwhile I ll dig deeper into the subject of academic eclecticism