Vanderbilt Houses. Architecture. Interior. The Decorator and Furnisher, Volume 12 .1888

Este artículo complementa los datos sobre las casas de Vanderbilt que fueron fotografiadas por Albert Levy y documenta que fueron los Herther brothers los que dirigieron la decoracion de las Twin Houses, realizando directamente alguno de sus muebles. 

Las revistas americanas de arquitectura esconden, entre sus páginas, datos de las casas más importantes de su tiempo, con detalle no sólo de los artistas que las hicieron si no también de muebles, pintura etc.

Al mismo tiempo, como en este caso, suelen ser una fuente fiable, digamos mejor bastante fiable, de datos pues están escritas en el mismo tiempo de la noticia. 

Es una pena cuando en muchos de estas casas sus interiores esconden tesoros artísticos de Europa comprados a precio de ganga por el desprecio a la propia historia que tuvieron los europeos, por supuesto españoles incluidos, sobre nuestros monumentos que , cuando no los dejaban caer, los vendían tanto la iglesia como los particulares. 

The Vanderbilt Houses

Published May 1, 1888

The Vanderbilt Houses" is an article from The Decorator and Furnisher, Volume 12. View more articles from The Decorator and Furnisher.

Here we should note that it is but one of five magnificent houses recently

built by Mr. Vanderbilt'and his two sons on Fifth Avenue, between Fifty-first

and Fifty-seventh Streets. The last two^are widely diverse in style and plan. That of Mr. W. K. Vanderbilt was' designed by Mr. R. M. Hunt, brother of the late William M. Hunt, the well known painter. The material, a light gray limestone, would be more agreeable if of a warmer tint; but it has a fine grain and is easily carved. The style is of the Transitional, or Later Gothic, and without imitating suggests the yet extant buildings of that period. The architect's object has been two-fold.: -to achieve a. pyramidal effect by making his lines converge to the central gable on the Fifth Avenue side; and while lavishly employing decorative sculpture on his walls, so. as to mass his ornamentation as to produce a number of wide unbroken spaces, thereby gaining in breadth and concentra tion of effect.

The residence Of Mr, Cornelius Vanderbilt was designed by  Mr. George Post, and was suggested by the seventeenth century French chateau, with an harmonious interfusion of ideas adapted from- the Flemish and Jacobean schools. The material employed is red brick, with facings of gray limestone. The combination of color thus secured is warm and agreeable?by no means an un important feature; in a climate like that of New Yorkr' The stonework and carving are elaborate in parte; but as the lines accentuated' on Either-side by-"a,, Jargergatble" or,: dormer .window, : not altogether  be in harmony w^h the other forms?are simple, the design must studied to be fully -appreciated. The interior adornments, by Messrs. Colroan & Tiffany, are after the more recent fashion of decorative art,

The residence of Mr. William ST Vanderbilt, the father, with , the  adjoining .house built for his daughters, are, however, the most important of the group, both in respect of dimensions and of general design.. The plan of these houses was made by Mr. Vanderbilt himself. The decoration, including the furnishing, was done by the Messrs. Herter Brothers, of New York, and the construction was superintended by Mr. Snooks. The material. employed is the rich brown freestone so common in the elegant. mansions of New York.

The library table is one of the finest pieces of cabinet-work ever turned out in America. It was designed and carved in the establishment of the Messrs. Herter, and is of black walnut, highly polished, and inlaid with mother of-pearl. The ceiling is a most interesting feature, and serves to relieve the heaviness of the array of monotinted woods. It is of wood carved in rustic fashion in crossbars, gilded with dead gold.