This is Halfway House which is conveniently located half way between Middleburg and The Plains in the Virginia Hunt Country west of Washington D.C. Halfway House was completed in 1934 to a design by William Bottomley, a Virginia-based architect who is responsible for many of the handsome Georgian-revival houses that grace the State (including Rose Hill and Chilton). Halfway House sits on a 571 acre estate and was built by James and Vira Whitehouse who also had homes in Newport, RI and New York City. James was a stockbroker and Vira was a suffragette and political activist. Today, Halfway House is owned by a former AOL Vice President named John Ayers and is now referred to as High Meadows Farm and is used for raising grass-fed cattle.
Design concept of Halfway House
The Virginia Hunt Country is famous as a country retreat for 1 percenters, horse farms, fox hunting and fine gardens. Just two miles west of Halfway House is another country estate covered in this blog, Wayside Manor (click here for more info). For more about the Virginia Hunt Country, click here.
James and Vera Whitehouse, the builders of Halfway House
George Washington slept here. He really did. Washington was a good friend of the builder of Tulip Hill, Samuel Galloway, and visited often during the 1770s. Tulip Hill is a Georgian-style house (actually built during the Georgian era) near Galesville, Maryland. The 8,000 square foot house sits on an 93 acre waterfront property on the West River.
Tulip Hill got started when Samuel Galloway bought the 260 acre Poplar Knowle property in 1755. He renamed it Tulip Hill for the tulip poplars that grew on the property. Samuel built the gorgeous Georgian-style house for his wife, Ann, but she died before the house was completed in 1762. Unfortunately, the identity of the architect is unknown. Samuel Galloway grew and exported tobacco at Tulip Hill and also traded in slaves imported from Africa and other indentured servants. He was also a major ship owner and owned more than 30 ships and a nearby shipyard. Samuel passed away in 1785 leaving Tulip Hill to his son, John. John Galloway expanded the house by adding the matching wings and connecting hyphens creating the classic five-part Georgian house that exists today.
Samuel Galloway, the builder of Tulip Hill
Tulip Hill stayed in the Galloway family until 1896. It was then sold to Alexis du Pont Parker, a railroad executive from Denver, CO. During the Parker ownership, the house was all but abandoned and became known to local teenagers as a place to party. In 1918, house was purchased by Henry Flather, a Washington D.C. banker and his wife, May, who was very active in building up the Girl Scouts during the early years of the organization. The Flathers are credited with extensively restoring the house and grounds after decades of neglect. Tulip Hill was then purchased in late 1948 by Lewis Andrews, a British military officer who had been a POW during the Second World War, and his wife, Hope. After Lewis’ death in 1990, the estate was bought by Morgan Wayson, a local contractor, and his wife, Janet. The Waysons put Tulip Hill on the market in 2004 for $4.9 million and it was eventually sold by auction in 2011 for $2.5 million. The trail of ownership grows cold after that and there is local speculation about the identity of the owner and what they plan to do with Tulip Hill but it is private property and not open to the public.
This is Migdale Castle outside the bucolic village of Millbrook in Dutchess County, New York. The 35,000 square foot Tudor revival home sits on a 350 acre estate that comprises a pond, orchards, kitchen garden and a separate gatehouse and guest house. Bette Midler is a neighbor. Dutchess County, along with adjacent Litchfield County, Connecticut and the Massachusetts Berkshires, is one of the rare desirable areas in the United States that has managed to avoid a lot of subdivision or development despite being within easy reach of a major city. The area is characterized by small, quaint towns with antique shops and farm-to-table restaurants, leafy estates and small farms and is favored by celebrities and business people from New York that want less noise, less pretension and more space than they could find in places like Greenwich or the Hamptons. Much of the land is encumbered by conservation easements that restrict development and guarantee a serene, green, leafy, artisanal future.
Migdale Castle was completed in 1927 by Margaret “Midge” Carnegie, the daughter and only child of Andrew Carnegie, and her husband, Roswell Miller, The name Migdale was a play on Margaret’s nickname. Andrew Carnegie was the founder of Carnegie Steel (later US Steel). Mr. Carnegie was, by some reckonings, the sixth wealthiest person in history with a fortune worth $372 billion in 2014 dollars (right behind the communist icon Josef Stalin in 5th place). However, most of his fortune was given away in his lifetime to endow libraries and universities and Margaret had to make do with $15 million.
Margaret “Midge” Carnegie and Roswell Miller
Margaret Carnegie served as a director for the Carnegie Corporation, a philanthropic trust set up by her father, that has been funding libraries and educational institutions for over a century. The Corporation’s best known invention is the beloved children’s television show, Sesame Street. Roswell was a civil engineer and real estate sales executive who, before marrying Margaret, had served on submarine chasers during the First World War. She and Roswell lived at Migdale with their four children until 1953. In that year, Midge and Roswell split up and Roswell got Migdale in the divorce. Midge moved to Greenwich, CT where she lived out her years passing away in 1990. Roswell lived at Migdale for 30 years until his death in 1983.
After Roswell passed away, Migdale sat neglected until the year 2000. Enter French/American art dealer Guy Wildenstein and his wife, Kristina Hansson. Guy (pronounced Gee as in geese) and Kristina paid $5.3 million for Migdale and have since poured an additional $20 million into the property on renovations. Guy was a member of the Wildenstein family of art dealers that originated in France in the 1870s. The Wildensteins hold a private art collection containing priceless works from the likes of Van Gogh, Rembrandt and Monet that is reputedly the second most valuable private collection in the world (after the Queen’s Royal Collection which is supposedly worth $8 billion). [Fun fact about Guy Wildenstein: he once held the door open for me as I was going to get keys made at the hardware store in Millbrook.]
Much of the Wildenstein’s art is tucked away in secure “offshore” storage facilities in Switzerland away from the prying eyes of tax authorities. However, in 2001 the French Ministry of Economy and Finance decided to take a crack at it. Tipped off by Guy’s own stepmother, the Ministry accused Guy and his brother, Alec, of hiding artwork inherited from their father’s estate and evading $600 million in taxes. Guy and Alec were also accused of money laundering and were facing prison terms. After two trials that exposed Wildenstein family secrets that they didn’t want exposed (e.g., Bahamian trust accounts, a practice of disinheriting the wives of Wildensteins), Guy and Alec were acquitted of all charges in 2017. Not a ministry to give up easily, Economy and Finance got the French high court to annul the verdict and trial #3 will commence shortly.
Guy Wildenstein
Fresh from exoneration #2 in Paris, Guy and Kristina decided to unload Migdale and listed it for $14 million in 2018. For several years it was under contract to a certain Will Guidara, a Manhattan restaurateur who gave up on city life after the COVID pandemic forced his restaurants to close. Mr. Guidara planned to create a boutique resort at Migdale (calling it Second Mountain) featuring gourmet food, spa treatments, etc. Unfortunately for Mr. Guidara, the local villagers in Millbrook didn’t take kindly to this intrusion on their tranquility. The usual claims of traffic impacts and lack of water, not to mention zoning inconsistency, were the barricades thrown up in front of Mr. Guidara.
March 2025 Update: Unable to secure permits to realize his vision for Migdale, Mr. Guidara threw in the towel and put the property up for auction. In May 2024, Migdale was sold for $9 million to the actor Liam Neeson.
If you want to see more of this lovely property, click here for a melodic YouTube video. The Wildensteins are an interesting family and you can learn more about their art business by clicking here or you can walk by their gallery at 689 Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. If you’ve got 40 or 50 million dollars to invest in art they will even let you in (visits are by appointment only).
This is The Mount, the well-known home of Pulitzer Prize winning author, Edith Wharton. The house is located just south of Lenox, Massachusetts in the Berkshire Mountains. This area was familiar to gilded age plutocratic families as a more laid back, less pretentious alternative to Newport, Rhode Island. It was this type of setting that attracted Edith and her husband, Teddy, at the turn of the century when they sold their Newport home, Land’s End, and bought 113 acres near Lenox in 1901. In addition to being the author of classic novels such as The Age of Innocence and Ethan Frome, Edith was also an authority on interior decorating and landscape architecture (her book, The Decoration of Houses, is still in print and available on Amazon). The Whartons engaged Edith’s friend and architect, Ogden Codman Jr., to design their new house. Unfortunately, Ogden refused to offer “friend prices” for his services so he was let go. Instead, The Mount was designed by Francis L. V. Hoppin of New York. Edith could either be a difficult client or a very helpful client depending on your perspective and the final look of The Mount reflects much of her input. The finished 17,000 square foot house is a fusion of chateauesque, Palladian and New England architectural styles and was completed in 1902. The grounds were designed by Edith and her niece, the noted landscape architect Beatrix Farrand, in a collaboration that produced the stunning gardens that still exist today. Farrand’s other commissions include the White House grounds and Dumbarton Oaks in Washington D.C. The planning and execution of the gardens left Edith to ponder “Decidedly, I am a better landscape gardener than novelist.” History would show that she was excellent at both.
Entrance front
Edith was no stranger to classical architecture having travelled to Europe extensively. In fact, by the time she was in her late 40s she had traversed the Atlantic Ocean more than 60 times, quite an accomplishment in the days before air travel. She was born into wealth in 1862, her family being among the founders of Chemical Bank, one of the largest banks in the world by the time it merged with Chase Manhattan Bank in 1996 eventually forming today’s JPMorgan Chase Bank. Edith was a reluctant debutante at a time when well-born girls were expected to marry early and well and then just socialize for the rest of their lives rather than become educated and have a profession. The precocious Edith was a voracious reader and writer and her novels are chronicles of the upper class milieu in which she grew up. When Edith did marry, it was to Edward ‘Teddy’ Wharton from Boston. Unfortunately, Teddy suffered from chronic depression and alcoholism and the Whartons drifted apart soon after completing The Mount. In fact, given how much The Mount is associated with Edith Wharton it’s remarkable that she only lived there for seven years. In 1909, Edith left The Mount and Teddy and embarked for France. Other than a trip home in 1923, she lived out her years in France and never saw The Mount again. She passed away in 1937.
After the Whartons left The Mount in 1909, the house was leased out to Albert Shattuck, a New Orleans banker, and his wife Mary. The Shattucks had moved to New York and wanted a summer place in the Berkshires. It was the Shattucks who really got to use The Mount as a home. After renting for a couple of years, the Shattucks bought the house in 1911 for $180,000 and spent their summers there for the next 13 years. Albert passed away in 1924 and Mary followed in 1935. The Shattucks are remembered for a famous robbery at their Manhattan townhouse in 1922. A former servant got together with a few cutthroats, broke into the house, stole $90,000 in valuables and locked the Shattucks and eight servants into a small wine cellar. Suffocating from lack of air, Albert eventually picked the lock with a pen knife and got everyone out. The robbers were eventually nabbed in France after a shootout.
After Mary Shattuck died in 1935, The Mount sat empty for three years before being sold at auction to the former Managing Editor of the New York Times, Carr Van Anda, and his wife, Louise. The tenure of the Van Andas at The Mount was mostly marked by disputes with the local assessor’s office about the value of the property. The Van Andas eventually lost that argument and after Louise passed away in 1942, Carr sold The Mount to the Oxford-educated school mistress, Aileen M. Farrell, who used the house as a dormitory for her private school, the Foxhollow School. By the early 1970s the maintenance costs of The Mount were chewing up the school’s tuition income and in 1976 Foxhollow closed. The house was then sold to developer Donald Altshuler for $655,000 who aimed to convert the house into a conference center/restaurant surrounded by new condos. The town of Lenox successfully fought him off and in 1980 the house was sold for $290,000 to the newly formed Edith Wharton Restoration Corporation. In the meantime, the house had been leased by a newly formed theater company called Shakespeare and Company for use in training actors and presenting Shakespeare productions in the summer. The theater company continued to lease the property from the restoration organization (which was trying to drum up the funds to restore the decaying house) in an uneasy relationship that lasted until 2001. That year the theater company moved out and restoration work was started in earnest. Notable actors who passed through The Mount during the Shakespeare & Co. years include Bill Murray, Andie MacDowell, Keanu Reeves, Richard Dreyfuss and Clueless girl, Alicia Silverstone.
Edith Wharton, the builder of The Mount
This Edith Wharton Restoration Corporation has been restoring The Mount ever since. Today, The Mount is open to the public year round for tours, musical performances and literary events and the house has been restored with period furnishings and decor from the time of Ms. Wharton’s residency. Another notable country estate is located just south of The Mount. High Lawn house, a Vanderbilt mansion which is still occupied by Vanderbilts, is covered by this blog here. For more information on The Mount and how to visit, click here.
Library scene at The MountEntrance frontInterior scene
This is Khotyn Castle (or fortress) near the town of Khotyn, Ukraine. There has been a fort or castle here since the 10th century and, like the surrounding region, it has been tossed around between empires and conquerors every few decades. What eventually became Ukraine is a large land area that has been variously part of the Wallachian Kingdom (present day Romania), the Ottoman Empire (now Turkey), Kievan Rus (based in present-day Kyiv), the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Kingdom of Poland, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Russian Empire and the USSR finally gaining independence in 1991 upon the dissolution of the USSR. Despite what Vladimir the Conqueror claims, the present-day country of Ukraine, as a whole, has never really had a consistent historical connection with any current day nation. Western Ukraine has been part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (later the Kingdom of Poland) most consistently. Eastern Ukraine has been influenced mostly by the Russian Empire. The City of Kyiv sort of sits in the middle.
Khotyn Castle sat at the crossroads of several trade routes between the Black Sea, Russia, Poland (in its various permutations), the Balkan states and Scandinavia. For this reason, Khotyn Castle has been fought over multiple times. In a notorious siege in 1673, the future King of Poland, Jan Sobieski, led an army against the Ottomans to capture Khotyn and put it firmly in the hands of the Poles. General Sobieski’s description of the battle at the castle will sound familiar to anyone who is following the news from present day Ukraine:
More than 60 guns were thundering non-stop, the sky was in flames and smothered in smoke, the earth was quaking, the walls were groaning, the rocks were splitting into pieces. That which my eyes captured throughout the day was indescribable. It is impossible to convey the persistence and courage, or rather despair, with which both parties were fighting”
General Jan Sobieski looks back at the artist right before charging in to take Khotyn Castle from the Turks
Like Ukraine and its capital Kyiv for the moment, Khotyn Castle withstood the siege (and others that came afterwards). Today, the castle is a museum (one of the “7 wondrous castles of Ukraine”) and more information can be found here.
This is Rose Hill, an 11,000 square foot Georgian-revival house on a 410 acre estate in Greenwood, Virginia a few miles west of Charlottesville. The house was designed by William Bottomley who is credited with many Georgian masterpieces in the Old Dominion especially in the Richmond area (for other Bottomley homes in this blog click here for Half Way House or here for Chilton). The house was completed in 1930 for Susanne Williams Massie, the widow of a Richmond banker. In the early decades of the 20th century, some of Richmond’s elite established summer homes in the Greenwood area and Rose Hill is surrounded by several of these homes, most of which still exist. The area continues to be a rural enclave of historic estates, horses and gardens. One of these estates, Tiverton, which is just west of Rose Hill, is covered in this blog (click here).
Susanne passed away in 1952 and the home was purchased a few years later by Henry Bradley Martin. Mr. Martin was the grandson of Henry Phipps, a partner of Andrew Carnegie in the Carnegie Steel Corporation (later U.S. Steel). The Phipps family built several homes in the leafy suburb of Old Westbury, N.Y. on Long Island including what is arguably one of the most attractive homes in North America, Westbury House, now known as Old Westbury Gardens. The Phipps family took their steel money and put it into an investment firm called Bessemer Trust which pioneered the concept of a “family office”, a privately owned investment firm that serves the needs of a single wealthy family by investing, disbursing funds, minimizing tax liabilities, arranging private planes, getting the merc serviced, etc.
Westbury House AKA Old Westbury Gardens, a Phipps family home located in the town of Old Westbury on Long Island, NY
Henry was educated at Oxford University and served in North Africa during the Second World War as part the Office of Strategic Services (O.S.S.) the forerunner of the C.I.A. Henry was also a noted book collector who used Rose Hill to house his extensive collection which included the only privately owned copy of the original Declaration of Independence and an extensive collection of books on ornithology (i.e., the study of birds). Henry passed away in 1988 and left Rose Hill to his daughter, Alice Martin Takach. Alice and her husband, Stephen, use Rose Hill as a summer home. Rose Hill is a private home and is not open to the public.
Reflecting pond and the entrance front of the house
This is the Bloedel Reserve, a 150 acre country estate and botanical garden on Bainbridge Island, Washington State. Separated from Seattle by Puget Sound and only accessible by the State ferry, Bainbridge Island has been able to retain its woodsy, bucolic vibe despite being within visual range of downtown Seattle. Historically, it was a favorite place for the city’s elite to build weekend houses or retirement pads. The Bloedel Reserve was originally a country retreat known as Collinswood for Angela Collins, the widow of Seattle’s fourth mayor. Ms. Collins built the 10,000 square foot Scandinavian-style manor house, designed by J. Lister Holmes, in 1931. In 1951, the estate was purchased by Prentice and Virginia Bloedel, both members of prominent northwest timber families. Prentice was an executive for many years with his family’s wood products company, MacMillan Bloedel Limited (since merged with Weyerhaeuser). When the Bloedels bought the estate, the surrounding land had been repeatedly logged and was in poor condition. The Bloedels dedicated the better part of their remaining lives to rehabilitating the land and creating a botanical garden that blended a woodland garden with elements of Japanese garden design. The San Francisco landscape architect, Thomas Church, had a major role in the overall design but Prentice himself was also a big creative influence. Thomas Church’s other commissions included designs for Stanford University and UC Berkeley. To realize the vision, the Bloedels doubled the acreage, created ponds, a reflecting pool, a Japanese garden and tea house, a waterfall, a moss garden and a rhododendron glen. The Bloedels called the property Agate Point Farm after a nearby geographic feature.
One of the reflecting ponds on the grounds
In 1970, the Bloedels gifted the property to the University of Washington but continued to live at Agate Point Farm until 1984 when they moved to their house in Seattle. In 1974, the property was renamed The Bloedel Reserve. In 1986, ownership was transferred to the Arbor Fund and two years later the property was opened to the public. Virginia Bloedel passed away in 1989 and Prentice Bloedel in 1996. Their former country estate is now regarded as one of the most innovative and beautiful woodland gardens in the world.
Entrance front
The Bloedels were also significant art collectors and patrons of the Seattle Art Museum. In 1997, it was discovered that a Matisse that had hung at the estate and at the Museum had been stolen by the Nazi regime in France in 1940. After a period of negotiation, the painting was restored to the heirs of the original owner in 1999. The Bloedel’s daughter, Virginia Wright, was also a major patron of the arts in Seattle. Her husband, Bagley Wright, was famous for being the developer of the Space Needle, Seattle’s answer to the Eiffel Tower.
Virginia and Prentice Bloedel, second owners of the estate and the creators of the gardens
The Bloedel Reserve is now open to the public and the residence is a house museum that is little changed from when the Bloedels lived there. Click here for more information on the Reserve or here for a short YouTube video showing the property.
Entrance to the Japanese Garden
Reflecting pool. The final resting place of both Prentice and Virginia Bloedel is at the far end of the pool.
Northeast facade of the house overlooking Puget Sound
This is the Omega estate (AKA the Payne Estate) on the west bank of the Hudson River near Esopus, New York. The Beaux Arts style house was designed by Thomas Hastings of the New York architecture firm, Carrere & Hastings. The 42,000 square foot house was completed in 1911 and is sited on a 60 acre estate. The estate that eventually became Omega had three previous owners including John Jacob Astor III of the prominent Astor family and Omega was built on the site of an earlier house named Waldorf. Omega was the creation of Standard Oil executive Oliver Hazard Payne (1839-1917).
John D. Rockefeller, the founder of Standard Oil, had this tactic whereby he would calculate the value of a rival’s oil refinery assuming he had undercut their pricing and taken their market share and then Rockefeller would make the rival refiner an offer to buy their assets based on that assumed value. If the rival refused the offer, Rockefeller and the Standard Oil would simply undercut their prices, take their market share and drive them out of business. While this may seem similar to the choice that Latin American drug lords offer rivals and other troublemakers (“plata o plomo?” meaning “which do you want? silver or lead?”) it is actually quite humane given the rough and tumble business tactics that prevailed at the time. More often than not, the rival would take the offer and then be given a position within Standard Oil commensurate with their business acumen and degree of ruthlessness. Some of these one-time rivals became obscenely rich in their own right by joining the Standard Oil trust. Oliver Hazard Payne was one such rival who ended up doing just fine.
Oliver Hazard Payne was born into a politically prominent Ohio family and attended Phillips Academy Andover and Yale University. His mother was a relative of Navy admiral Oliver Hazard Perry who is famous for coining the phrase “Don’t give up the ship!” When the Civil War started, Oliver enlisted in the Army rather than avoiding conscription by paying someone to take his place as most wealthy young men were allowed to do. He was promoted to Colonel and commanded the 124th Ohio Infantry Regiment and served until the end of the war during which he was seriously wounded at the Battle of Chickamauga. After the war, Mr. Payne entered business starting up a refinery in Cleveland competing with Rockefeller’s Standard Oil. After selling out to Standard in 1872, Mr. Payne served as treasurer of the company and was also a company lobbyist. Back in those days, state and federal government in the United States was a hotbed of corruption, far worse than it is today. Bribery and kickbacks on behalf of gilded age corporate interests was pervasive and Mr. Payne was twice indicted on bribery charges but was not convicted. By the time he died in 1917 he was worth $190 million (several billion in today’s money).
Oliver Hazard Payne, the builder of Omega
Payne never married nor had any children and he left Omega to his nephew, Harry Payne Bingham. Mr. Bingham’s life was typical of second-generation gilded age industrial families (e.g., Corporate directorships, trusteeships, Park Avenue, NY Yacht Club, Palm Beach, Piping Rock Club, “scientific” yachting expeditions, Knickerbocker Club). Mr. Bingham got to use Omega for 16 years, a longer period of time than his uncle Oliver (who died only six years after its completion). After trying to sell Omega for several years, Mr. Bingham donated the property in 1933 to the New York Protestant Episcopal Mission Society which operated a convalescent home at the property. By 1937 the home had failed and in 1942 the estate was sold to Marist Brothers, a private liberal arts college and religious order in nearby Poughkeepsie for use as a high school for prospective brothers.
In 1986, the estate was purchased by businessman, Raymond Rich. Mr. Rich grew up in Iowa and started his working career in the engine room of a tramp freighter in 1930. After college he served in the Second World War in the pacific as a Marine. A born salesman and natural leader he was a professional CEO for most of his career and headed up several corporations. Mr. Rich loved nice homes and in addition to owning and extensively renovating Omega, he also owned castles in Scotland, Austria and France. He passed away in 2009 and left Omega, by now referred to as the Payne Estate, back to Marist College for use as the Raymond A. Rich Institute for Leadership Development.
Raymond Rich and friend at Omega
For more information on Omega and the institute, click here and here. YouTube has a video showing scenes from the estate taken during the dedication of the Institute and can be seen here. Omega is almost directly across the Hudson River from another significant country estate covered in this blog, Hyde Park (click here for more).
Maywood is a 50 acre estate outside Bridgewater, Connecticut in Litchfield County. The Georgian/neo-classical style home on the property was designed by the firm of Ferguson and Shamamian and completed in 2000 and is owned by Peter and Leni May. Peter has degrees from the University of Chicago and is a private equity investor along with partner, Nelson Peltz. Their firm, Triarc, has either had major share holdings in or been involved in restructurings of Snapple, Wendy’s, Pepsi Co., Family Dollar and several other major corporations. Maywood is also a working organic farm producing eggs, wines, produce, honey and maple syrup which can be bought at the Bridgewater Village Store. The house and gardens are not open to the public although the gardens are opened up one day per year with the proceeds benefitting the Garden Conservancy. For more information about Maywood, click here. A YouTube video showing the beautiful grounds can be viewed here.
Entrance frontGarden sceneGarden frontgarden sceneInterior sceneGarden front
This house is Tiverton, a 19,000 square foot neoclassical mansion sitting on 460 acres in the hamlet of Greenwood, about 15 miles west of Charlottesville, Virginia. The property that would become Tiverton was purchased by Marie Ortman Boeing Owsley in 1900. Marie was originally from Austria and lived at Tiverton with her second husband, Dr. Frederic Dillard Owsley, a Chicago physician. The house was built by Frederic and completed in 1912. The identity of the architect is unknown. For some reason(s), between 1903 and 1919, Tiverton was sold, willed or transferred between members of the family multiple times. During this time period it was twice owned by Marie’s son from an earlier marriage, William Boeing, who would later go on to start Boeing Aircraft in Seattle.
Marie Ortman Boeing Owsley, the first owner of Tiverton
Marie died in 1910 and in 1919 the estate was bought outright by Frederic who by this time had also established a dairy operation at Tiverton. When it came to women, Frederic definitely had a type and that type was Austrian. In 1913, Frederic married another Austrian, Mariska Golgotzen, the Baroness Eltz from Vienna, Austria. The Eltz noble family originated in Germany in the 12th century and still has their seat at Burg Eltz, a castle on the Moselle River in Germany. In 1932, Tiverton was destroyed by fire leaving just the shell of the building. Frederic passed away the following year leaving the estate and burned out hulk to Mariska. The Baroness rebuilt Tiverton house to a similar design in 1935 using architect Carl Linder of Richmond. The formal gardens were redesigned by Virginia landscape architect Charles Gillette, who is renown for several gardens in the Old Dominion including a couple of country houses covered in this blog, Lochiel (click here) and Verulam (click here). One design element that the Baroness insisted on was a party room in the house complete with bar, dance floor and slot machines. The Baroness sold Tiverton in 1960 to Mike Hughey, a Florida businessman who owned gas stations. Mr. Hughey used it sparingly for the next 48 years and it slowly fell into disrepair, decay and weeds.
In 2008, Tiverton found a savior in Coran Capshaw. Mr. Capshaw had owned a bar in Charlottesville in the 1990s and signed up an unknown, local jam band to play in the pub. These unknown musicians called themselves the “Dave Matthews Band” and Mr. Capshaw has been managing them to worldwide fame ever since. He also owns a company that manages the careers and work of other musicians and artists such as Tim McGraw and Phish. He has also been involved in several property developments and renovations and owns several restaurants in Charlottesville. By the time he bought Tiverton, the house and grounds were in very poor condition but Mr. Capshaw embarked on extensive renovations (the second time for the house) and has brought the property back to life. The estate next door, Rose Hill, is also a looker and is covered in this blog (click here for more). Tiverton is a private home and is not open to the public.
Burg Eltz, the ancestral seat of the Eltz noble family
North American Country Estates 