At one time, it was the second largest home in the United States. Hi everyone,
ken here, welcome to "ThisHouse" Today we are exploring Shadow Brook. Hit that
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In 1838, Anson Phelps Stokes was born into a wealthy, New York Family. His father was
an incredibly successful business man who headed Phelps, Dodge, and Company importing
and exporting goods as well as having extensive mining operations. But this wasn’t new money,
the family had long been wealthy and part of New York’s High Society,
including being members of Mrs. Astor’s 400 later on.
When Anson was of age, he entered his father’s company, eventually taking over the family
business. He married Helen Phelps, the sole heir to her father’s multi million dollar fortune and
the two moved into her Madison Avenue Townhouse in New York City. They wasted no time starting
a family of their own, having 9 children. But the city was no place for a bunch of active children
to run about and play, so they purchased their first country house on Staten Island.
A stately second empire style mansion which had been built in 1862. They made virtually
no changes to the lavish interiors which included a wood paneled library with an
extensive art collection and half heigh bookcases overflowing with novels for the children to enjoy.
While the kids played with each other, Anson set sail on the water, yachting until sunset.
Anson kept himself in shape, taking every opportunity he could to go on yacht,
go on hunts, and play sports with his friends and kids. But as the years passed,
the once sparsely populated countryside of Staten Island became crowded with new
construction never ceasing. The area had all but lost its charm as a getaway from
the hustle and bustle of the city, so Anson and Hellen began searching for a new country house.
They headed up to the Berkshires in Massachusetts and began buying up land starting with an old
country home which was simply named Homestead. Now that their children were starting to grow up,
they needed a house to facilitate social functions such as courting. Homestead was
perfect, it had over 40 rooms including grand classically styled halls and a massive ballroom
with a minstrel gallery. But they quickly outgrew this mansion as their now teenaged
children began to entertain their own friends. Only a few years after purchasing Homestead,
Anson and Hellen hired the architecture firm of McKim, Mead, and White to design
for them what would become the second largest house to ever be built in the United States.
Early on, Hellen and Stanford White got into an argument and she fired him from the job site and
brought in the little known architect H. Neill Wilson to oversee the construction of the house.
The 100 room mansion took a team of 500 workers nearly 2 years to complete. The sprawling Tudor
Revival Style mansion stucco walls broken up by timbers with the stone accents being
carved from rough cuts of marble below a brown tiled roof. The expansive gardens were designed
by Frederick Law Olmstead who had worked on several large projects including the planning
of New York City’s Central Park. He included area’s for the active family to play various
sports and yard games including tennis courts, stables, even a dedicated field for croquet.
Walking inside, the foyer was decorated with oversized furniture below timbered
ceiling inset with ornate plasterwork and large hearth to welcome you with warmth.
The Pompeian Hall, as it was called, was clad in painted panels both on the walls and
the ceilings with figures of humans and horses carved into the frieze surrounding the room in
its entirety. Here you would find the treasures the family had acquired from their trips abroad
including a tiger skin rug and potted exotic plants paired with fine Chinese porcelains.
The morning room continued this theme with white walls and ceilings, as well as intricate fretwork
dividing one corner of the room from a tower. This room was decorated with floral prints on
all the furniture and textiles and the walls were wainscoted with pilasters
reaching towards the frieze from which plaster garland elegantly draped over silk wallpaper.
The main focal point of the parlor was the gothic fireplace with blown out proportions offering
spiraling vines worked into its upper mantle’s relief work. Fluted Ionic columns were used not
just as decoration in this house, but also for much needed support of the expansive ceilings.
The library offered a more rustic approach to décor with unpainted
millwork crafted into gothic arches and paired with the rough texture of
bricks on the fireplace. Diamond pained windows were set below stained glass,
adding to the ambiance provided by the English antiques which filled the room.
Though the house had 3 dining rooms, this one was the largest. The exposed
ceiling beams were supported by large corbels evenly spaced to line up with the pattern of
the wallpaper over half heigh board and batten wall panels. To give you an idea
of just how large this room was, the rug was said to measure 30 by 48 feet.
While guests certainly had enough space to spread out, no house of this magnitude would
be complete without a ballroom. Its rich wood panels were carved by master wood workers to
feature seamless transitions between each panel. The ceiling was truly unique to Shadow Brook with
a dizzying array of geometry built in layers and lit by electric lights in its medallions.
The house continued on with artisan millwork at every nook and cranny. The second floor
was reserved for guests with over 20 guest suites and the third floor was set aside
for the family with each of the 9 children’s bedrooms boasting their own private bathrooms,
something which was rare for the time period regardless of social class.
Now that the house was finished, the Stokes could entertain as often as they liked,
hosting huge parties for Christmas and New Years. They offered their
younger guests sleigh rides while the men competitively ice fished in the frozen
ponds. But Anson and Hellen’s paradise didn’t last long. In the summer of 1899,
Anson was riding his horse around the property, one of his favorite activities,
when something spooked the horse out in the woods. He threw Anson from his saddle, which sent
Anson crashing into trees. His leg was so badly mangled that it had to be amputated shortly after.
With Anson unable to enjoy playing golf, riding horses, or any other sports for that matter,
he and Hellen decided to place the house up for rent and move back to the city. Shadow Brooke was
leased out for a few years before being purchased by Henry W Merrill who used the estate as a hotel,
with 100 guest suites scattered about its upper floors. The hotel flopped, so after being open
for only 2 years, Merrill sold Shadow Brook to Spencer Shotter who enjoyed the house until 1909
when he was tried for violating anti-trust laws. He ended up winning his case, but in doing so,
had spent nearly his entire fortune on his legal defense. In desperate need of money,
Spencer leased Shadow Brook to Maggie Vanderbilt for 15,000 dollars per month,
or the modern day equivalent of about 442,000 dollars per month.
Mean while, US Steel magnate, Andrew Carnegie’s health was failing. His doctor’s had advised him
not to travel to his beloved castle in Scotland, but rather to stay near the city, up in the
mountains where he could get fresh air. That’s when he decided to rent the Brick House which
Anson and Hellen had built in Fairfield County, Connecticut when they left Shadow Brook. It was a
grand estate with perfectly manicured gardens. Inside, grand halls were classically styled,
leading large rooms finished out with wood paneled walls. When Carnegie’s daughter came to visit him
here, she mentioned that the same family who had built this house had also built a beautiful home
remotely situated in the Berkshires. Carnegie decided to look further into this dreamy property
which his daughter had described. He found that Spencer Shotter no longer owned the property,
even though he was collecting rent on it, in fact, the bank had foreclosed on him. So
Carnegie purchased Shadow Brook from the bank and moved in to spend his final seasons in one of the
nation’s largest homes. He lived here comfortably until his passing in 1919 when his widow put the
house up for sale. She sold it for a bargain price to the Jesuits of the Province of New England who
used it as a seminary until 1956 when the house spontaneously exploded, taking 5 lives. Upon
investigating the tragedy, it was found that the large reserves of oil stored in barrels had caught
fire when a broiler malfunctioned. The explosion and following inferno left the house in ruins,
with no practical way of restoring or rebuilding it. So it was lost forever.
Of the Stokes Family’s other homes, The Brick House went on to be used by their politically
active adult children as a meeting place for the Communist Party of America before it was
gifted to the Convent of the Sacred Heart to be used as an all girl’s school. Tragically,
when the school shut down in 1966, most of the house was
demolished with only 2 of its wings being reconfigured into single family houses.
Homestead ended up catching fire the same year the Stokes moved
out of Shadow Brook. Because the house was all wood construction,
the only thing remaining after the blaze were the brick chimneys, the rest was a total loss.
On Staten Island, When the Stokes moved out, Anson had developed a handful of houses on the
property’s grounds to create a small neighborhood. He sold the main house to another member of
Mrs. Astor’s 400, John G Wendel, who let the house fall into a state of disrepair. By 1928,
John had abandoned the property and it was torn down out of a concern for public safety.
But thankfully, one of their homes did survive. Their town house at Madison and
37th in Manhattan went on to become the Morgan Library with much of its façade remaining intact.
Having seen so many elegant houses of different architectural styles once
owned by the Stokes Family, which one did you find the most appealing? Did you have
a favorite? Let me know down below in the comments section. And while your there,
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