White shared personal family stories of this private residence that has been in his family for seven generations. The room is exuberant and celebratory, but also restrained. In 1915 Country Life magazine recognized Whitefield, which was then known as The Orchard, as one of 12 significant country homes in America. let one link go and the rest of the chain doesn't look as good anymore. With a prime location overlooking Gramercy Park, accessible solely to those with keys, the 183-year-old Renaissance revival Gramercy Park Hotel was built on the site of infamous architect Stanford Whites home (which had replaced the house where novelist Edith Wharton was born) nearly 90 years ago. Robert White has also spotted plaster casts of his work around the site: a visitor comes across several plaster figures, for example, or a colossal pair of St. Anthony's feet on a barn wall. "White used a lot of refined patterns at the Isaac Bell House, and he borrowed design elements from various places like at the Sherman house," said Kligerman. The firm of McKim, Mead and White was esablished in New York in 1879, and three years later the architects began to design the H. A. C. Taylor House in Newport. The ornithologist John De Cuevas trapped and banded birds on the estate and studied, says Claire White, ''the Long Island dialect of finches.'' Using the money from his wife's inheritance, he started a 20-year renovation campaign, with the first major expansion in 1893. When and why did you decide to go into design? The Evening Standard spoke of his "social dissolution". [4], In 1884, White married 22-year-old Bessie Springs Smith, daughter of J. Lawrence Smith. [25] White considered Thaw a poseur of little consequence and categorized him as a clown, once calling him the "Pennsylvania pug" a reference to Thaw's baby-faced features. Harbor Hill was entered via wrought iron gates covered with a slate mansard roof and flanked either side by ivy-covered stone gate lodges - this structure in the village of East Hills survives today and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. But, most notably it was the party they hosted in 1924 for. [1][2] Thaw was ultimately found not guilty by reason of insanity. Bessie White was clearly a saint. One year later, they rented a half-timber non-Victorian farmhouse that would later be Box Hill, the center of their lives. The two "Marly Horse" replicas seen in the west gardens. Update: Another Harbor Hill Estate discovery: Remnants of the walls surrounding Clarence Mackay's dog kennels & cottages. [14] In New York's Hudson Valley, he designed the 1896 Mills Mansion in Staatsburg. Outgoing and social, he had a large circle of friends and acquaintances, many of whom became clients.