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anging services including the design and making of furniture and furnishings, textile and
wallpaper designs, architectural decoration, and others. Important members of the firm
included William Bigelow, Charles Atwood, and William Baumgarten. The prime period of
Herter Brothers is considered to be the 1870s and early 1880s when Christian Herter was the
driving creative force. Their most important commission was the William H. Vanderbilt House
at 640 Fifth Avenue. 1477 They also worked for Jay Gould, Collis P. Huntington, and J. Pierpont
Morgan in New York City, in addition to commissions from Darius Ogden Mills and Mark
Hopkins as far away as California. Several Herter interiors, including the William H. Vanderbilt
house, the Morgan House, and the Jacob Ruppert house were published in Artistic Houses in
1883-84. 1478 Gustav Herter and Herter Brothers worked in most of the revival styles that
typified the last half of the nineteenth century. They also executed extraordinarily fine furniture
and interior decoration in more progressive styles derived from the English Eastlake or Modern
Gothic and the Anglo-Japanese styles. After the death of Christian Herter in 1883, William
Baumgarten ran the firm. In the 1890s, there was a messy and unfortunate power struggle with
other members of the firm. By the time that Herter Brothers executed work at Hyde Park they
were a much-depleted firm, both artistically and financially. 1479 It was managed by William
Nichols until 1906.
1477 The William H. Vanderbilt House was meticulously documented by Edward Strahan [Earl Shinn],
Mr. Vanderbilt's House and Collection, 2 volumes (Boston, New York and Philadelphia, 1883-4).
1478 Artistic Houses, Being a Series of Interior Views of the Most Beautiful and Celebrated Homes in the United
States with a Description of the Art Treasures Contained Therein, New York, 1883-84.
1479 For an outline of late Herter Brothers, see Wade Alan Lawrence, "Herter Brothers and the Furniture
of the Minnesota State Capitol, 1903-1905," Master's Thesis, The University of Delaware, 1987. Herter
Brothers' late financial records with many references pertinent to the documentation of Hyde Park are
preserved at Winterthur Library.
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