Gypsy Heart
Gold Member
This house should be familiar to fans of the 1960s vampire soap opera Dark Shadows, for it appeared in the television series as "The Old House." The mansion, which had been vacant for about seven or eight years by the late 1960s TV shoots, was used for exterior photography (although several images of Jonathan Frid, in his role as Barnabas Collins, inside the mansion are known to exist as well, but were not used on the show). This mansion likely came to the attention of the casting crew owing to the fact that a more famous house, Lyndhurst, stood next door (Lyndhurst served as Collinwood for both movie versions of Dark Shadows).
The South End of Tarrytown, by virtue of its location 25 miles north of Manhattan, contained one of the densest concentrations of estates along the Hudson River. Washington Irving, who penned "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" and other famous tales, settled here in 1835. Irving remodeled an old stone tenant farmhouse into his Romanticized version of an early Dutch mansion. His neighborhood became quite crowded after 1850, when the Hudson River Rail Road enabled merchant millionaires to commute from home to New York City in under an hour; mansions sprouted seemingly overnight on the shore overlooking the Tappan Zee. A great number of homes were built in the 1850s and 1860s, but soon many homes fell into disuse owing to high maintenance costs or because their owners chose newly fashionable locales such as Newport, RI, for the summer retreats. The area went through a bit of a revival in the early 1900s, as more modern mansions replaced the older stone or brick houses; in some cases, older homes were completely remodeled to modern tastes.
One of the first merchants to build here around 1850 was Moses Hicks Grinnell, a one-time United States representative, real estate developer, merchant, and financier. His high society connections extended beyond business; in 1836 Grinnell married Julia Irving, niece of the famous author Washington Irving. It was immediately north of Irving's "Sunnyisde" that Grinnell settled in the early 1850s. For himself, he built a mansion known as "Wolfert's Dell;" about the same time or shortly thereafter, he built a second mansion, similar in appearance to his own, on the northern portion of his 38-acre estate. In the 1850s, Grinnell's niece, Mary Russell Grinnell, resided in the northerly mansion with her husband Henry Holdredge.
The historical path of the two houses diverged and converged in the later part of the 1800s. at times, they were part of one estate, at others separated. On occasion, the northerly house was part of the Lyndhurst estate. In 1907, both houses came into ownership of Russell Hopkins, son of a prominent Atlanta banker, and his wife Vera Siegrist, granddaughter of Dr. Jospeh J. Lawrence, along with Jordan Wheat Lambert, invented Listerine in 1879. The now famous mouthwash, originally intended as a disinfectant for surgical procedures, was named after English physician Sir Joseph Lister who, according to this website, performed the first ever antiseptic surgery in 1865.
The earliest known good depictions of the "Old House" are postcards and newspaper articles from the Hopkins-era. The columned porch was likely added to the house by the Hopkinses or the owners just before them, having been made fashionable to houses in this area about that time. It seems that the Hopkinses made the "Old House" their choice of summer residence (they and other millionaires often kept their primary residence in Manhattan.). They renamed the estate Veruselle (Vera + Russell) while giving the name "The Colonnades" to the northerly mansion and "The Arcades" to Wolfert's Dell, the former Grinnell mansion. The Hopkinses are best remembered in this area for the large menagerie they kept on the estate.
The Hopkinses heirs, who eventually assumed ownership, seemed disinterested in the property. The southerly portion fell into receivership in the early 1940s; the abandoned Wolfert's Dell/The Arcades burned in 1963 and its ruins were demolished in 1978. The Colonnades fared better for a little while longer however. In the 1930s, the property belonged to stockbroker William R. Spratt; often times the northerly mansion has been referred to as "The Spratt House." Eventually Anna Gould, Duchess de Tallyrand, owner of Lyndhurst and daughter of robber baron Jay Gould, acquired the Colonnades portion of what had been the Hopkins estate. Her bodyguard, famous detective Raymond C. Schindler, lived in the columned mansion until his death in 1959. Two years later Anna Gould died; Lyndhurst eventually became a property of the National Trust for Historic Preservation and is now a historic house museum. The Colonnades/Old House sat vacant in the 1960s while the land was eyed for residential development (ultimately not ever constructed). The mansion burned in 1969, leaving only trace foundation remains.
Westchester County now owns the land upon which once stood "the Old House." In due time, the landscape may be restored and opened to the public as a passive-recreation park linking Sunnyside, a property of Historic Hudson Valley, on the south, and Lyndhurst, on the north. The grounds of "The Old House" are not yet open to the public.
*(For those not familiar with the area, the location of the house indeed is within the limits of the village of Tarrytown. Many early twentieth-century postcards of Lyndhurst, Sunnyside, and other homes in the area identify the locale as "Irvington," the next village to the south, but this neighborhood was included in the Village of Tarrytown upon its incorporation in 1870.)
http://www.hudsonvalleyruins.org/yasinsac/spratt/spratt.html
The South End of Tarrytown, by virtue of its location 25 miles north of Manhattan, contained one of the densest concentrations of estates along the Hudson River. Washington Irving, who penned "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" and other famous tales, settled here in 1835. Irving remodeled an old stone tenant farmhouse into his Romanticized version of an early Dutch mansion. His neighborhood became quite crowded after 1850, when the Hudson River Rail Road enabled merchant millionaires to commute from home to New York City in under an hour; mansions sprouted seemingly overnight on the shore overlooking the Tappan Zee. A great number of homes were built in the 1850s and 1860s, but soon many homes fell into disuse owing to high maintenance costs or because their owners chose newly fashionable locales such as Newport, RI, for the summer retreats. The area went through a bit of a revival in the early 1900s, as more modern mansions replaced the older stone or brick houses; in some cases, older homes were completely remodeled to modern tastes.
One of the first merchants to build here around 1850 was Moses Hicks Grinnell, a one-time United States representative, real estate developer, merchant, and financier. His high society connections extended beyond business; in 1836 Grinnell married Julia Irving, niece of the famous author Washington Irving. It was immediately north of Irving's "Sunnyisde" that Grinnell settled in the early 1850s. For himself, he built a mansion known as "Wolfert's Dell;" about the same time or shortly thereafter, he built a second mansion, similar in appearance to his own, on the northern portion of his 38-acre estate. In the 1850s, Grinnell's niece, Mary Russell Grinnell, resided in the northerly mansion with her husband Henry Holdredge.
The historical path of the two houses diverged and converged in the later part of the 1800s. at times, they were part of one estate, at others separated. On occasion, the northerly house was part of the Lyndhurst estate. In 1907, both houses came into ownership of Russell Hopkins, son of a prominent Atlanta banker, and his wife Vera Siegrist, granddaughter of Dr. Jospeh J. Lawrence, along with Jordan Wheat Lambert, invented Listerine in 1879. The now famous mouthwash, originally intended as a disinfectant for surgical procedures, was named after English physician Sir Joseph Lister who, according to this website, performed the first ever antiseptic surgery in 1865.
The earliest known good depictions of the "Old House" are postcards and newspaper articles from the Hopkins-era. The columned porch was likely added to the house by the Hopkinses or the owners just before them, having been made fashionable to houses in this area about that time. It seems that the Hopkinses made the "Old House" their choice of summer residence (they and other millionaires often kept their primary residence in Manhattan.). They renamed the estate Veruselle (Vera + Russell) while giving the name "The Colonnades" to the northerly mansion and "The Arcades" to Wolfert's Dell, the former Grinnell mansion. The Hopkinses are best remembered in this area for the large menagerie they kept on the estate.
The Hopkinses heirs, who eventually assumed ownership, seemed disinterested in the property. The southerly portion fell into receivership in the early 1940s; the abandoned Wolfert's Dell/The Arcades burned in 1963 and its ruins were demolished in 1978. The Colonnades fared better for a little while longer however. In the 1930s, the property belonged to stockbroker William R. Spratt; often times the northerly mansion has been referred to as "The Spratt House." Eventually Anna Gould, Duchess de Tallyrand, owner of Lyndhurst and daughter of robber baron Jay Gould, acquired the Colonnades portion of what had been the Hopkins estate. Her bodyguard, famous detective Raymond C. Schindler, lived in the columned mansion until his death in 1959. Two years later Anna Gould died; Lyndhurst eventually became a property of the National Trust for Historic Preservation and is now a historic house museum. The Colonnades/Old House sat vacant in the 1960s while the land was eyed for residential development (ultimately not ever constructed). The mansion burned in 1969, leaving only trace foundation remains.
Westchester County now owns the land upon which once stood "the Old House." In due time, the landscape may be restored and opened to the public as a passive-recreation park linking Sunnyside, a property of Historic Hudson Valley, on the south, and Lyndhurst, on the north. The grounds of "The Old House" are not yet open to the public.
*(For those not familiar with the area, the location of the house indeed is within the limits of the village of Tarrytown. Many early twentieth-century postcards of Lyndhurst, Sunnyside, and other homes in the area identify the locale as "Irvington," the next village to the south, but this neighborhood was included in the Village of Tarrytown upon its incorporation in 1870.)
http://www.hudsonvalleyruins.org/yasinsac/spratt/spratt.html
