Imagine spending millions of dollars on a house that you hate.
Hi everyone ken here, welcome to this house.
Today we are exploring eagle rock in part 2 of the many mansions of Henry Frick.
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In our last video, we explored Henry Clay Frick’s rise to wealth as a baron of industry
while living in his home Clayton in pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
While Henry Frick was there, several incidents prompted him to relocate.
In the 1880s, Frick established a private club along with some of the country’s most
elite in the hills above Johnstown in Pennsylvania.
The South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club sat on the private Lake Conemaugh which had been
created by building the world’s largest earthen dam.
After only a few short years, the dam had fallen into disrepair and the club members
continued to ignore its maintenance.
Daniel Morrell, the owner of Cambria Iron Company seemed to be the only person who was
concerned with the dam’s integrity.
He hired his own engineers to inspect it, though nothing came of these inspections after
Daniel suddenly died in 1885.
With no one following up, the dam continued to fall into disrepair.
On May 31st, 1889, the dam gave way.
Water rushed out with more volume and force than the Mississippi river, barreling towards
Johnstown down the hill.
On this day, 2,209 innocent people lost their lives as the water, moving faster than a train,
crashed into their homes.
Frick along with several members of the club formed a relief fund to appear charitable
while they buried the evidence of their neglect.
The Johnstown Flood was investigated by the American Society of Civil Engineers, but the
reports were muddied over and downplayed leaving no blame to be assigned for the dams failure
until a few years ago when the full reports were released to the public in 2018.
3 years later, in 1892, striking workers had taken control of the Homestead factory.
In an attempt to stop a union from forming, Frick deployed 300 armed pinkerton agents
to break up the protests resulting in 9 employees being killed and 70 others being left with
injuries.
This scenario was quickly spiraling out of control so Pennsylvania called in 8,000 state
militia to break up the fight.
It was no surprise that an assassination attempt ensued.
On July 23rd, Alexander Berkman confronted Henry Frick in his Pittsburgh office.
Standing on the other side of his desk, he shot frick twice in the neck and stabbed him
five times.
Frick survived this ordeal, but he wouldn’t be spending much more time close to his work.
He leased a section of the Vanderbilt Triple Palace in Manhattan and began planning his
country escape.
He would later build his own house in Manhattan, which we will cover in our next video.
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series.
Henry found a secluded tract of 25 acres along boston’s north shore and hired the architectural
firm Little and Brown to design him a vacation house, as he put it, “kept as simple as
possible”.
Frick wanted a place to come to clear his mind that was free of clutter.
When asked about the interior, he simply instructed for the architects to keep it “severely
plain” He wanted the opposite of what he had at clayton, just a collection of unadorned
walls set in the woods.
The firm began construction of a 104 room Neo-Georgian estate.
By 1905, it was far enough along that they were able to take pictures to send to Frick.
He wrote back, “ I was rather alarmed.
While it probably is beautiful, it is far too elaborate to suit my tastes as I have
always explained to you”
The house was too far along at this point, so it was finished in time for Henry to summer
here in 1906.
He named it Eagle Rock due to the eagles flying above the property.
The interior of the house was everything Henry did not want.
The living hall boasted grand marble columns with intricately carved relief work in the
marble door surrounds.
The drawing room had busy floral carpets, set against floral wallpaper broken up by
floor to ceiling door surrounds embellished with urns set below ornate plaster work on
the ceiling.
The dining room was more to Henry’s taste with simple, but elegant wood paneling cladding
the walls below an unadorned ceiling.
Though Henry did not care for the house, his family made great memories here.
His daughter Helen was known to be rebellious against society’s expectations of her.
For her 21st birthday, Henry had planned to gift her some of the finest jewelry, but she
declined.
Insisting that he instead purchase and donate 150 acres to the city of Pittsburgh to be
used as a children’s park.
Henry did just that.
When he began planning her party, she demanded that it be open to the townsfolk and not just
the family’s rich friends.
So two separate birthday parties were thrown in the same house on the same night at the
same time.
One to entertain the townspeople and one to appease high society with a guest count of
over 500 people.
After Frick death, his wife Adelaide continued to visit every summer until her passing in
1931 When it was willed to Helen.
She found the house too grand for her and had sections of it demolished over time.
When the tax burden became to much for her, she had the entire estate leveled in 1969
aside from a couple of the out buildings.
Before Eagle Rock was demolished, she had all of the artwork moved out of the house
to the family’s Manhattan Mansion which we will explore in our next video.
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