Built and expanded between the 13th and 16th centuries, it originally served as the main residence for the powerful Counts of Geneva and later the Dukes of Genevois-Nemours.

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.

This small historic Victorian-style town, nestled in the Lehigh Mountains, is definitely worth exploring. The town’s main commercial streets are Broadway and Race Street with charming old buildings, some maintained, some restored. The coal mining and railroad town was founded in 1818, and named Mauch Chunk (derived from the Indian words meaning “bear mountain”).

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.

George C. Boldt, a millionaire associated with the Waldorf Astoria and the Bellevue-Stratford Hotels in New York City, built this 120-room castle to display his love for his wife, Louise, on picturesque Hart Island, which he re-named Heart Island.

The mansion was built for philanthropist Mary Flinn Lawrence her inheritance from her father, Pennsylvania Senator and construction mogul William Flinn.

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 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.

Naumkeag is the former Berkshire estate of New York City lawyer and U.S. Ambassador to Great Britain, Joseph Hodges Choate, and his wife Caroline, located in Stockbridge, Massachusettes. The Choate’s, who were part of the newly-rich, traveled in well-to-do social circles. They decided to build a 44-room shingle-style “cottage” with brick and stone details, designed by the architect of the day, Stanford White.

Robert Lincoln, the only child of Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln, retained the architecture firm of Shepley, Rutan and Coolidge to built his summer home on 392 acres in Manchester, Vermont. Lincoln had served as Secretary of War and Minister to the Court of St. James, and made his fortune as a lawyer before becoming President of the Pullman Company. Robert Lincoln and his wife, Mary Harlan Lincoln, lived at Hildene in high style.

Blithewold is a 33-acre seaside garden estate that once the Bristol, Rhode Island summer home of Augustus and Bessie Van Wickle.

Charles Deering was an American businessman and philanthropist. He was the son of William Deering, founder of Deering Harvester McCormick-International Harvester Company

The Edison and Ford properties are both on the National Register of Historic Sites and consist of 20 acres of historical buildings and gardens including the 1928 Edison Botanical Research Laboratory.

Crane created this lavish summer retreat for his wife, Florence Higinbotham Crane and three children, Cornelius and Florence. The Crane Estate would come to exemplify the American Country Place Era, which emphasized the integration of indoor and outdoor spaces.

The beautiful former estate of the world-respected innovator, George Eastman, houses two museums, the inventor’s 50-room fireproof home

It was the built in 1850 for a Scottish immigrant who became the city’s wealthiest ship owner and cotton merchant in 1849.

The Ebenezer Maxwell Mansion has been painstakingly restored to show how Philadelphia’s rising middle class lived in the period from the 1860s to the 1910s.

Glencairn was originally built as the home of multi-millionaire businessman Raymond and Mildred Glenn Pitcairn and their nine children.

iMajor and Mrs. James H. Dooley transformed rough fields and pastures into a showplace many American millionaires were creating during the Gilded Age.