The Langdon Estate Gatehouse is a historic home located in

Hyde Park, New York Hyde Park is a town in Dutchess County, New York, United States, bordering the Hudson River north of Poughkeepsie. Within the town are the hamlets of Hyde Park, East Park, Staatsburg, and Haviland. Hyde Park is known as the hometown of Frankl ...

. It was built in 1876 and is a -story, two-bay dwelling in the Renaissance Revival style. It has a rectangular main block with a kitchen wing covered by steeply pitched, slate-covered, hipped roofs with round-head dormers. The house's elegant ceiling molding, oak hardwood floors, high ceilings and wooden mantles reflect the wealth of the estate. The home was built as the gatehouse for the Langdon Estate which was the home of Walter Langdon and Dorothea Astor Langdon, the daughter of wealthy New York City businessman

John Jacob Astor John Jacob Astor (born Johann Jakob Astor; July 17, 1763 – March 29, 1848) was a German-American businessman, merchant, real estate mogul, and investor who made his fortune mainly in a fur trade monopoly, by smuggling opium into China, and ...

. Walter Langdon built the gatehouse as a wedding gift for Emily Astor Kane, his favorite niece. Emily Astor Kane married Augustus Jay, the great-grandson of the nation's first Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court,

John Jay John Jay (December 12, 1745 – May 17, 1829) was an American statesman, patriot, diplomat, abolitionist, signatory of the Treaty of Paris, and a Founding Father of the United States. He served as the second governor of New York and the first ...

, and the newlyweds moved into the home. Notably, Augustus Jay served as Secretary of the American embassy in Paris from 1885 to 1893. When Walter Langdon, Jr. died, the entire Langdon Estate was purchased by

Frederick W. Vanderbilt Frederick William Vanderbilt (February 2, 1856 – June 29, 1938) was a member of the American Vanderbilt family. He was a director of the New York Central Railroad for 61 years, and also a director of the Pittsburgh and Lake Erie Railroad and o ...

. ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' reported the estate acquisition in an article on August 29, 1895, in which the reporter described the estate as "the finest place on the Hudson between New York and Albany." As part of Vanderbilt's extensive redesign of the grounds, he commissioned the construction of a new stone gatehouse. Vanderbilt ordered the Langdon Estate Gatehouse to be moved 50 yards south to the edge of the estate grounds where it now sits at 4419 Albany Post Road. The Gatehouse and property around the Vanderbilt Estate was eventually sold to private individuals and the remaining 211 acres of the Vanderbilt Estate were donated by the Vanderbilt family to the U.S. government and is now preserved by the National Park Service as the

Vanderbilt Mansion National Historic Site Vanderbilt Mansion National Historic Site is a historic house museum in Hyde Park, New York. It became a National Historic Landmark in 1940. It is owned and operated by the National Park Service. The property, historically known as Hyde Park, wa ...

. The Gatehouse was added to the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

''See also:'' in 1993. The Gatehouse was historically restored in late 2015 and early 2016. The project was overseen by Handcrafted Builders of Rhinebeck. They applied a "built-by-hand" approach to the project - restoring even the smallest of details inside and outside the home. Langdon Estate Gatehouse

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