National Park Service U.S. Department of the Interior

Resource History and Description of Existing Conditions
This particular issue of American Electrician included a description of the lighting and
power plant at the Hearst Hacienda in Sunol, California. The advantage of the electrical plant,
in addition to being "the most modern," was that the walls of the hacienda's rooms were
covered with valuable tapestries that would be destroyed by the use of gas lighting. As an
alternative to a noisy steam engine plant, the electrical plant maintained the "calm peace of the
country." Installed in 1896, the Hearst plant relied on a twin-cylinder gasoline engine and a
chloride cell accumulator battery. The batteries were arranged around the four walls of the
battery room. A revolving crane sat in the center of the room to facilitate removal of any single
cell for examination. 1126 As at the Vanderbilt estate, Hearst operated a water pump off his
electrical plant, although his was to pump water for irrigation purposes.
The evidence suggests that country estates of stature had turned to electricity by the
mid-1890s and those without access to a central station did not find it difficult to build a
generating facility. Closer to home in Staatsburg, the Poughkeepsie Sunday Courier reported that
the Mills Mansion was to have "a complete electric light plant," powered by a pumping engine at
the [Hudson] river. 1127 The superintendent of the work was W.H. Aldrich, a name somewhat
similar to "Alrich," who was the roofer on the Vanderbilt Power House. 1128 A more descriptive
article in 1895 described the Mills estate as having a gas-generator in addition to the electric
power plant:
There is a gas-making machine in the sub-cellar, which produces high grade illuminating gas
from gasoline. An electric lighting plant is located at the river, which supplies a current
strong enough for five hundred lights. It is run by an engine of 70 horse power. The electric
apparatus, exclusive of wiring, etc., cost $7,000. 1129
The Mills Mansion was said to have over 500 lights, with 350 of them incandescent
lamps. 1130 It was not uncommon for people, especially in the 1890s when the two lighting
systems were yet sorting themselves out, to have both gas and electric lighting at the same time,
despite the electrical journals' disparaging remarks about gas. Even with the two systems at
Mills, both failed one October night and the house was left in total darkness, an event that made
the local paper. 1131
The 1890s Twombly Estate, Florham, at Madison, New Jersey, also designed by McKim,
Mead & White with Norcross Brothers serving as general contractors, received power for
lighting the mansion, park, training stables, and greenhouses from a central station in Madison.
According to an 1897 article in the Engineering Record, this part of the estate had an estimated
1,700 lights. The barns, however, had a separate power house equipped with a horizontal
tubular boiler, a vertical engine, a pump, and a dynamo. This generating system was meant to
carry 120 lights and two 2-horsepower motors. 1132
1126
W. F. C. Hasson, "Isolated Lighting and Power Plant at Hearst Hacienda, Sunol, Cal.," American
Electrician 8 (November 1896): 227.
1127
Historian's Research Notes File, 204. Source: Braman's Scrap Book, Vol. 5, 9.
1128
Historian's Research Notes File, 269. Source: Poughkeepsie Sunday Courier, October 10, 1897.
1129
Typescript of article from Poughkeepsie Courier (1895) from Mills Mansion archives
1130
Poughkeepsie Sunday Courier, May 17, 1896. Mills archive.
1131
Poughkeepsie Sunday Courier, October 11, 1896. Mills archive.
1132
"The Twombly Estate," The Engineering Record (February 6, 1897): 207-9.
200