Westbook Farms started when William Bayard Cutting purchased the George C. Lorillard estate on the Connetiquot River in the Long Island town of Great River. Cutting was a New York City lawyer and sugar beet refiner, who made his fortune in railroads and in the development of the Red Hook, Brooklyn waterfront.

Beauport, also known as the Sleeper-McCann House, was the shingle-style summer home of one of America’s first professional interior designers, Henry Davis Sleeper.

The 50-acre Sonnenberg Gardens and Mansion State Historic Park is located in Canandaigua, New York. The historic park contains the former summer mansion, a collection of period garden architecture, nine formal and informal gardens, statuary, and a greenhouse complex. The property is a gift to New York State from philanthropists Frederick Ferris and Mary Clark Thompson.

Located in the heart of the Old Town, Maison Tavel is the oldest private residence still standing in Geneva — a rare surviving example of medieval civil architecture in Switzerland.

The Riga Art Nouveau Center was once the home of renowned architect Konstantins Peksens and was built in 1903.

Alexander Hamilton’s summer home, Hamilton Grange, is located in the Hamilton Heights and Sugar Hill sections of Harlem. It has occupied three different sites within the neighborhood, all within the original bounds of Hamilton’s estate.

Clayton remained the family’s primary residence until they moved to New York in 1905. When they left Pittsburgh, the Fricks left behind much of their life there, including 93% of Clayton’s original contents—an impressive array of fine and decorative art objects.

Kentuck Knob, located in the scenic Laurel Highlands of western Pennsylvania, is a striking example of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Usonian architecture. Designed in 1954 for Isaac and Bernardine Hagan, founders of the Hagan Ice Cream Company.

Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens, located in Schenley Park in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, was founded in 1893 as a gift from American entrepreneur Henry Phipps Jr.

A traditional caravanserai, or fondouk, was essentially a roadside inn that provided shelter, food, and water for travelers.

American architect Frank Lloyd Wright designed Fallingwater in 1935 as a vacation home for the Edgar J. Kaufmann family, owners of Pittsburgh’s largest department store.

The 40-room, 80,000-square-foot mansion was completed in 1912 after six years of construction on 135 acres close to Lloyd Harbor.

In 1826, Joseph LeCarpentier hired architect François Correjolles to design his dream home, complete with rear dependency buildings, in the French Quarter

Founded in 1960, the museum opens many of these buildings to the public at various times throughout the year, offering events and opportunities to explore the rich history of the area.

In 1920, Edith Rosenwald of Chicago had met Edgar Stern of New Orleans in New York and fell in love. Edith was the daughter of Julius Rosenwald and an heiress to the Sears-Roebuck fortune.

In this blog post I highlight five of the Vanderbilt family homes that I have covered in the past. As I’m sure you know, members of the Vanderbilt family were master builders of massive homes - some were only used a few weeks or months of the year.

In 1893, a 27 yeard-old Frank Stranahan moved to Fort Lauderdale from Ohio. At the time, South Florida was just beginning to be settled by pioneers alongside the local Seminole Indians.

Loewe decided to retire to Palm Springs, California, where, in 1960, he purchased a mid-century luxury estate.

In 1654, Thomas Pell, an English physician from Connecticut, purchased 50,000 acres from the local Lenape tribe.

Built in 1964, this residence was designed by influential architect, Albert Frey as his personal retreat.