Glenmere Mansion
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The Glenmere mansion is a luxury hotel and spa overlooking
Glenmere Lake Glenmere Lake is a colonial mill pond or reservoir located in Orange County, New York, United States. It is New York State's largest habitatNew York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
in
Orange County, New York Orange County is a county located in the U.S. state of New York. As of the 2020 census, the population was 401,310. The county seat is Goshen. This county was first created in 1683 and reorganized with its present boundaries in 1798. Orange ...
. It was built in 1911 as the residence of real estate developer
Robert Wilson Goelet Robert Wilson Goelet (January 9, 1880 – February 6, 1966) was an American social leader, banker, and real estate developer who built Glenmere mansion. Early life Goelet was born in 1880. He was the son of Mary Wilson Goelet (1855–1929), a lea ...
(not to be confused with his first cousin,
Robert Walton Goelet Robert Walton Goelet (March 19, 1880 – May 2, 1941) was a financier and real estate developer in New York City. He was one of the largest property owners in the city by the time of his death. Early life Robert Walton Goelet, nicknamed Bertie ...
) on the grounds of his sprawling estate in Sugar Loaf, a hamlet of the town of
Chester Chester is a cathedral city and the county town of Cheshire, England. It is located on the River Dee, close to the English–Welsh border. With a population of 79,645 in 2011,"2011 Census results: People and Population Profile: Chester Loca ...
.


History

Robert Wilson Goelet Robert Wilson Goelet (January 9, 1880 – February 6, 1966) was an American social leader, banker, and real estate developer who built Glenmere mansion. Early life Goelet was born in 1880. He was the son of Mary Wilson Goelet (1855–1929), a lea ...
(1880–1966), the only son of
Ogden Goelet Ogden Goelet (June 11, 1851 New York City – August 27, 1897 Cowes, Isle of Wight) was an American heir, businessman and yachtsman from New York City during the Gilded Age. With his wife, he built Ochre Court in Newport, Rhode Island, his so ...
, commissioned the architects
Carrère and Hastings Carrère and Hastings, the firm of John Merven Carrère ( ; November 9, 1858 – March 1, 1911) and Thomas Hastings (architect), Thomas Hastings (March 11, 1860 – October 22, 1929), was one of the outstanding American Beaux-Arts architecture, Be ...
to design a country villa in 1911. It was designed in a Tuscan style because Goelet's wife, the former Miss Elsie Whelen of Philadelphia, had always wanted to live in an Italian villa. The house features a central courtyard with an Italian marble fountain, and ochre-colored stucco walls.
Beatrix Farrand Beatrix Cadwalader Farrand (née Jones; June 19, 1872 – February 28, 1959) was an American landscape gardener and landscape architect. Her career included commissions to design about 110 gardens for private residences, estates and country ho ...
was hired to landscape the grounds, and
Samuel Yellin Samuel Yellin (1884–1940), was an American master blacksmith, and metal designer. Career Samuel Yellin was born to a Jewish family in Mohyliv-Podilskyi, Ukraine in the Russian Empire in 1884. At the age of eleven, he was apprenticed to a ...
did the ironwork for the house. In addition to their horses, Goelet and his wife were breeders of Highland Terriers and Great Danes, and they maintained extensive kennels. Soon, the estate and its storied hunting grounds became a regular haunt of
Babe Ruth George Herman "Babe" Ruth Jr. (February 6, 1895 – August 16, 1948) was an American professional baseball player whose career in Major League Baseball (MLB) spanned 22 seasons, from 1914 through 1935. Nicknamed "the Bambino" and "the Su ...
, and the
Duke Duke is a male title either of a monarch ruling over a duchy, or of a member of royalty, or nobility. As rulers, dukes are ranked below emperors, kings, grand princes, grand dukes, and sovereign princes. As royalty or nobility, they are ran ...
and
Duchess of Windsor Wallis, Duchess of Windsor (born Bessie Wallis Warfield, later Simpson; June 19, 1896 – April 24, 1986), was an American socialite and wife of the former King Edward VIII. Their intention to marry and her status as a divorcée caused a ...
. Goelet hosted numerous sporting-set events at the estate, including equine ice-racing. The younger of Goelet's two sons, Peter, began radio station WGNY on the grounds of the mansion in 1930. Glenmere was sold to Abraham Prusoff during World War II. He transformed the private mansion into a resort hotel with upscale amenities, including a golf course, ski run, and tennis courts. By the 1960s, Prusoff found it increasingly difficult to keep the resort's finances in order. In the next decade, the mansion and estate were seized by Orange County as a tax lien. In 1985, the mansion and estate were purchased at a tax auction by real estate magnate Rickey Mandel.


Current use

The mansion changed hands again in 2007, becoming a luxury 19-room hotel, restaurant, and spa, after undergoing an extensive and costly renovation. In 2008, the restoration project was temporarily halted over concern for the endangered
Northern cricket frog The northern cricket frog (''Acris crepitans'') is a species of small hylid frog native to the United States and northeastern Mexico. These frogs are majorly in grey, green, and brown color with blotching patterns. Despite being members of the t ...
. In 2010, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation again halted the construction when it became apparent that the developers were operating without the required permits and endangering the Northern cricket frog and plant life in the area. The mansion's developers were fined and cited by the New York Department of Environmental Conservation for violations of having improper paperwork with regard to the impact of construction on the endangered Northern cricket frog. Studies found no frog habitats on the property, and the mansion was made into a luxury hotel whose amenities include a luxury penthouse costing $3,400 a night.


References


External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Glenmere Mansion Houses in Orange County, New York Goelet family Residential buildings completed in 1911 Carrère and Hastings buildings