List of Gilded Age mansions

The so-called Gilded Age mansions were built in the United States by some of the richest people in the country during in the period between 1870 and the early 1900s.

Raised by the nation's industrial, financial and commercial elite who amassed great fortunes coinciding with an era of expansion of the railroads, steel and fossil fuels industries, economic, technical and scientific progress, and a complete lack of personal income tax. This made possible the very rich to build true "palaces" in some cases, designed by prominent architects of its day and decorated with antiquities, furnitures, collectibles and works of art, many imported from Europe.

This small group of *nouveau riche*, entrepreneur citizens of a relatively young country found context and meaning for their lives and good fortune by thinking of themselves as heirs of a great Western Tradition. They traced their cultural lineage from the Greeks, through the Roman Empire, to the European Renaissance. America's upper classes and merchant classes traveled the world visiting the great European cities and the ancient sites of the Mediterranean, as part of a Grand Tour, collecting and honoring their western cultural heritage. In their travels abroad they also admired the estates of the European nobility and seeing themselves as the American "nobility", they wished to emulate the old world dwellings in American soil.

All these houses are "temples" of social ritual of 19th-century high society, they are the result of the particularization of space, in that a sequence of rooms are separated and intended for a specific sort of activity, such as dining room for gala dinners, ballroom, library, etc.

These elaborate bastions of wealth and power played a social role, made for impressing, entertaining and receiving guests. Relatively few in number and geographically dispersed, the majority were constructed in a variety of European architectural and decorative styles from different times and countries, such as France, England or Italy.

In cinema, the Gilded Age society and mansions are accurately portrayed in Martin Scorsese's *The Age of Innocence* (1993), which was itself based on Edith Wharton's 1920 novel of the same name.

## California

* Leland Stanford Mansion State Historic Park, 1857, Sacramento, CA.
* Ralston Hall, 1864, Belmont, CA.
* McDonald Mansion, 1877, Santa Rosa, CA.
* Mark Hopkins Mansion, 1878 (destroyed by fire following the 1906 San Francisco earthquake)
* Charles Crocker Mansion, 1880s, San Francisco, CA.
* Winchester Mystery House, 1884-1922, San Jose, CA.
* Carson Mansion, 1886, Eureka, CA.
* James C. Flood Mansion, 1886, San Francisco, CA.
* Hearst Castle, San Simeon, CA, built by William Randolph Hearst. Julia Morgan, Architect, 1919-1947, added to National Register of Historic Places in 1957
* Huntington Library, San Marino, CA. Former residence of Henry E. Huntington, now an art gallery.
* Filoli, 1915, Woodside, CA.
* Carolands, 1916, Hillsborough, CA. One of the last of the great mansions built during the Gilded Age.

## Florida

### Palm Beach

* Whitehall (Henry M. Flagler House), 1902

## Illinois

* Nickerson House, 1883
* Palmer Mansion, 1885 (demolished 1950)

## Massachusetts

* Bellefontaine Mansion, 1912
* Searles Castle, 1888
* Ventfort Hall, 1893
* The Mount, 1902

## Minnesota

* James J. Hill House, 1891
* Glensheen Mansion, 1908
* Southways Estate (demolished 2018), 1918

## New York

* The Alexander Brown House, Syracuse, 1895, currently under rehabilitation.
* Beechwood, 1780, enlarged in the 1890s
* Mills Mansion (Staatsburg), 1832, enlarged in 1895/96
* Lyndhurst, 1838
* Olana, 1872
* Glenview (now part of the Hudson River Museum), 1877
* Rockwood Hall, 1886
* Estherwood, 1894
* Woodlea (now Sleepy Hollow Country Club), 1895
* Indian Neck Hall, 1897
* Hyde Park (the Frederick W. Vanderbilt Mansion), 1899
* Waldheim, 1901
* Harbor Hill, 1902 (demolished)
* Arden, 1909
* Kykuit, 1913
* Oheka Castle, 1919

### New York City

* Petit Chateau, 1882 (demolished)
* Cornelius Vanderbilt II House, 1883 (demolished)
* Henry T. Sloane House, 1894
* Mrs. William B. Astor House, 1896 (demolished)
* Gertrude Rhinelander Waldo House, 1898
* Oliver Gould Jennings House, 1898
* Harry F. Sinclair House, 1898
* Andrew Carnegie Mansion, 1901
* Henry Clay Frick House, 1914

## Pennsylvania

* Grey Towers, 1896
* Cairnwood, 1895
* Elstowe Manor, 1898
* Lynnewood Hall, 1900
* Whitemarsh Hall, 1921 (demolished 1980)

## Rhode Island

### Newport

* The Rocks, 1870 (demolished in 1945), home of Henry Clews.
* Beechwood, 1851 (remodelled in the 1880s)
* Chateau-sur-Mer, 1852 (remodelled and redecorated in the 1870s)
* Marble House, 1892
* McAuley Hall, 1882
* Ochre Court, 1892
* Rough Point, 1892
* Belcourt, 1894
* The Breakers, 1895
* The Elms, 1901
* Vernon Court, 1901
* Rosecliff, 1902

## Virginia

* Ellerslie, 1856 (extensively remodeled in 1910)
* Maymont, 1893
* Poplar Hill, also known as the Dunnington Mansion, 1897
* P. D. Gwaltney Jr. House, 1901
* Roseland Manor, 1887 (burned 1985)
* Swannaoa, 1912

## Washington, DC

* Anderson House, 1905
* Townsend House, 1901

## See also

* List of largest houses in the United States