National Park Service U.S. Department of the Interior

Resource History and Description of Existing Conditions
he did not frequent his house there, and the continuous sporting activities on Long Island may
not have appealed to him. It also seems that he sought out the more sedate lifestyle of the
country squire in the Hudson River Valley.
Frederick's first trip to Hyde Park may have occurred in 1894 at the invitation of his
friend Ogden Mills who owned a house in Staatsburg as well as a cottage in Newport and a
townhouse in New York City. 447 The Vanderbilts bought the Hyde Park Langdon property in
May 1895, and selected the firm of McKim, Mead & White to make alterations to the extant
Langdon house (see ill. 15.) 448 perched upon a promontory with a magnificent view of the
Hudson River. McKim, Mead & White were the celebrated architects of the era, constructing
many public buildings and houses for wealthy clientele. McKim was the partner-in-charge of
this particular project.
Charles Follen McKim had studied at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts with Boston architects
Robert Peabody and Francis Chandler in the late 1860s 449 and returned to America to work in
the office of H.H. Richardson. Stanford White replaced McKim in Richardson's office in 1872
when McKim left to form his own practice. 450 William Rutherford Mead officially joined
McKim in 1874. 451 McKim later traveled with White on a sketching tour throughout New
England in 1878 in order to record early American architecture. 452 White subsequently joined
McKim's partnership with Mead in New York upon his return from an extended European trip
in 1879. 453 Once the three established their partnership, their practice slowly gained success.
The early McKim, Mead & White work experimented in the architectural vocabulary
called Shingle Style. Although the firm became well-known for and proficient in expressing
Shingle Style motifs, it evolved to more classical expression in its plans and decoration as early as
1885. This experimentation can be found in their growing number of urban commissions as
well as their suburban and more rural projects.
By 1895 McKim, Mead & White had shifted to yet more academic designs, looking to
Italy, France, and England for inspiration. 454 At this time, the firm was working on an alteration
and enlargement of the Ogden Mills mansion, only a few miles north of Hyde Park, 455 designed
in the Neoclassical style. Stanford White was the partner-in-charge of the Mills work. 456 When
447
The Mills house in Newport had been designed by William Walker, perhaps as early as 1866. From
Antoinette F. Downing and Vincent J. Scully, Jr., The Architectural Heritage of Newport Rhode Island, 2d
ed. (New York: Bramhall House, 1967), plate 172. Their New York townhouse was designed by Richard
Morris Hunt and constructed between 1885 and 1887. From Paul R. Baker, Richard Morris Hunt
(Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, First Paperback Edition, 1986), 295.
448
O'Donnell, et.al., 114.
449
Margaret Henderson Floyd, Architecture after Richardson (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press,
1994), 38.
450
Henry Hope Reed and H. Stafford Bryant, Jr., eds., Monograph of the Work of McKim, Mead & White,
1879-1915 - Student's Edition (Stamford, CT: Architectural Book Publishing Co., 1981), XXII.
451
Roth, 40.
452
Floyd, 9 and 47.
453
Floyd, 47.
454
Roth, 356.
455
Pamphlet, "Mills Mansion State Historic Site," Office of Parks Recreation and Historic Preservation,
State of New York, October 1995.
456
White, 174.
88