National Park Service U.S. Department of the Interior

Analysis of Historical Significance and Integrity by Resource Type
Newbold Morris in 1908 by Hoppin and Koen, 1421 and Highlawn House for W.B.O. Field in
1910 by Delano and Aldrich. 1422 While all of the above-mentioned Berkshire houses were
designed by architects in New York City employing Beaux-Arts elements, except for Lowell
who was in Boston, 1423 the Berkshire examples are not as pure or academic in their expression as
the Vanderbilt Mansion.
Along the Hudson River valley, the Vanderbilt Mansion may be the lone representative
of its style, except for the contemporary Astor casino in Rhinebeck. For the most part, the
development of many of the Hudson River valley estate houses was different from those found
on Long Island, in Newport, and in the Berkshires. While most of the houses in other areas
were designed and constructed as new, many of the original Hudson River valley country place
houses evolved from eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century farm houses or heavily
picturesque forms influenced by A.J. Downing, A.J. Davis, and Calvert Vaux in the Gothic
Revival and Italianate styles. 1424 Some have been reworked into updated and more classical
representations, but these reworkings tend to be less high-style, built directly upon what already
existed and had existed prior to the Civil War. 1425 For instance, the Home of Franklin Delano
Roosevelt began as a farm house, was converted (circa 1850) to an Italianate, towered residence,
and then was again reworked and enlarged (1916) into a country place house with wings
constructed of local stone and classical detailing applied to the main body of the house.
Although Hoppin and Koen are the architects of record, FDR made a very large contribution to
the design. 1426 If one tried to classify the style of this house, its most accurate label probably
would be Hudson River Valley Federal Revival, a kind of vernacular interpretation of the
Colonial Revival. Its neighbor, Bellefield, was also updated and enlarged in the early twentieth
century for the Newbold family by McKim, Mead & White using more classical Colonial Revival
detailing. But here the overall design of the finished exterior does not meet the usual standards
of other McKim, Mead & White alterations, and in fact is a less successful design than their
norm. 1427
Stanford White's Mills mansion may be the exception - it is a most successful classical
expression as the result of an encasement of an earlier house, with the addition of wings and an
overall façade treatment in the Neoclassical style. Only a slight suggestion of the earlier main
house and its shorter floor heights can be found from the exterior, hidden behind the immense
columns of the Neo-Grec portico; otherwise it could be mistaken for a completely new design.
1421 Owens, 110, 178, 232, 235.
1422 Owens, 12, 73-4, 126, 232 and 235.
1423 MacKay, 262-63.
1424 McKelden Smith, ed., The Great Estates Region of the Hudson River Valley (Hudson River Valley Press,
1998), 3. Austin O'Brien, Assistant New York State Historic Preservation Officer, telephone conversation,
August 9, 1999. To date this is the only visual source on Hudson River Valley estates. Mr. O'Brien
suggested that the Vanderbilt Mansion was the only survivor of its type in this locale.
1425 Telephone conversation with Ethan Carr, National Park Service, former Scenic Hudson employee,
August 9, 1999.
1426 Peggy A. Albee, Home of Franklin D. Roosevelt, Historic Structure Report (Lowell, MA: Department of
the Interior, National Park Service, Cultural Resources Center, Building Conservation Branch, 1989), 7-82.
1427 The date of this alteration is 1909-11, and correspondence indicates that Newbold dealt with F.J.
Adams of the McKim, Mead & White firm. McKim apparently prepared one drawing (before his death)
and Adams signed "all of the finished drawings." See Charles W. Snell, Historic Structure and Grounds
Report, Bellefield Mansion and Estate (Denver: U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service,
Denver Service Center, 1981), 24-39.
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