National Park Service U.S. Department of the Interior

CHAPTER THREE
RESOURCE HISTORY AND DESCRIPTION OF EXISTING CONDITIONS
ARCHITECTURAL RESOURCES, 1895 - PRESENT
The following account begins when the Vanderbilts bought the Hyde Park Estate from
Walter Langdon, Jr.'s heirs They purchased the first segment of their estate in 1895, which
included the main house (Langdon, Sr., era) and Italian gardens (origin unknown), greenhouses
(Hosack and Langdon eras), a Gardener's Cottage, the Tool House and Conservatory (all
Langdon, Jr., era), a Gate House (attributed to the Langdon era), two boat houses (attributed to
Langdon, Jr., era), and a stone coach house (Hosack era). 439 Vanderbilt did not purchase the
adjacent Sexton Tract until 1905. 440 Various farm buildings were located across the Albany Post
Road, which were also part of the Langdon property. The Langdon main house was
constructed in 1847, 441 and it was in this house that the Vanderbilts intended to live.
The majority of papers relating to Frederick and Louise Vanderbilt unfortunately do not
survive. What exactly enticed the Vanderbilts to the Hudson River Valley rather than Long
Island, New Jersey, or other locales is unknown. Many of the requisite components that assured
a proper country place were found in the Hyde Park estate, as was the nearby residence of the
couple's friends, Mr. and Mrs. Ogden Mills, owners of a house in Staatsburg. 442 However viable
these motives were for buying the property in Hyde Park, specific evidence related to
Frederick's choice has not been found in any documentation.
The Vanderbilts had built a house in Newport, Rough Point, designed by Peabody and
Stearns in 1891, but occupied it minimally after 1895. Louise's niece, Rose, and her husband
Thomas Howard summered there until his death, 443 after which Rough Point was sold in
1906. 444 Robert B. MacKay, in referring to the country-estate phenomenon, notes that Newport
"was a place to be seen" and "Long Island was always more a place to be experienced," 445
relative to its wealthy part-time residents' proclivity to sports and recreational activities. He also
notes that "the construction of country houses on Long Island [was] based entirely on sporting
rather than agricultural or ancestral raison d'etre." 446 Conversely, construction of country
estates along the Hudson River Valley was based almost entirely on "agriculture or ancestral
raison d'etre." Apparently Frederick Vanderbilt cared little for "being seen" in Newport since
439 O'Donnell, et.al., 29-80.
440 O'Donnell, et.al., 128.
441 O'Donnell, et.al., 64.
442 O'Donnell, et.al., 114.
443 New York Times, July 7, 1904, 4.
444 Historian's Research Notes File, 1087. Cites Poughkeepsie Sunday Courier, December 9, 1906, 2.
445 MacKay, et.al., 21.
446 MacKay, et.al., 22.
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