- Lyndhurst Mansion in Tarrytown, New York, was owned by three of New York City’s elite families.
- Completed in 1842, the Gothic Revival style mansion is 14,000 square feet.
- Max’s show, “The Gilded Age,” was filmed inside the mansion and on its 67-acre grounds.
Lyndhurst Mansion in Tarrytown, New York, once belonged to three of New York City’s wealthiest and most elite families. It is now a museum and is occasionally used as a filming set for the Max show “The Gilded Age.”
Located about 26 miles outside of New York City, the mansion was built by former New York City Mayor William Paulding Jr. and completed in 1842. It was subsequently purchased by merchant George Merritt and railroad magnate Jay Gould.
Take a peek inside a historic home and see behind the scenes of the Gilded Age movies.
Once a luxurious summer retreat for New York City’s elite families, Lyndhurst Mansion in Tarrytown, New York, is now a museum.
I booked the hour-long Classic Mansion Tour, which costs $25 and takes you through 16 rooms; a full list of tours can be found on the Lyndhurst Mansion website.
Seasons one and two of Max’s show, “The Gilded Age,” were filmed within Lyndhurst Mansion and on its 67-acre grounds.
In The Gilded Age, Lyndhurst appears as the home of the characters Charles and Aurora Fain, played by Ward Horton and Kelli O’Hara.
The mansion’s grounds were also used as Central Park’s sheep pasture in the show.
The carriage house, where the horses were fed and cared for, now serves as the museum’s welcome center.
The carriage house stables, built in the 1860s, have been redesigned as booths.
The gift shop was once the saddlery room, where horse tack and saddles were stored.
The original metal hooks on the walls, which once held horse tack, now serve to display the various clothing, accessories and other merchandise available for sale in the gift shop.
Part of the Carriage House also served as the offices of the New York Globe newspaper during the “Gilded Age.”
The New York Globe was a black newspaper founded by Timothy Thomas Fortune, played by Sullivan Jones in The Gilded Age.
When the show isn’t being filmed, the space serves as a Welcome Center screening room.
Visitors can watch an educational video about Lyndhurst Mansion and its history.
The tour began outside the mansion where our guide told us stories about the three families that owned the mansion: the Pauldings, the Merritts and the Goulds.
In 1836, former New York City Mayor William Paulding and his wife, New York real estate heiress Maria Rhinelander Paulding, purchased land overlooking the Hudson River to build a summer home.
Architect Alexander Jackson Davis designed the house and much of its furnishings. Construction began in 1838 and was completed in 1842.
In 1864, Paulding’s son sold the house to George Merritt and his wife Julia, who had made their fortune as patent holders of rubber springs used in railroad cars. The Merritts re-employed Davis to design an addition to the house, doubling its size.
After George’s death, Julia sold it in 1880 to railroad tycoon and businessman Jay Gould and his wife Helen Day Miller, who were among the richest men of the Gilded Age. Adjusted for inflation, Gould’s net worth was roughly $71.2 billion.
Gould’s daughter Helen Gould subsequently acquired ownership of the property, followed by his youngest daughter Anna Gould, who married a French aristocrat and spent most of her adult life abroad. After her death, she bequeathed the Lyndhurst estate to the National Trust for Historic Preservation, which manages it today.
The name “Lyndhurst” comes from a lime tree planted on the property by the Merritt family.
The lime tree still grows on the grounds.
We then moved to the Porte Cochère, an enclosed gateway where residents board and disembark from their carriages.
The Merritts commissioned Davis to enclose the Paulding-period home’s open porte-cochere with floor-to-ceiling doors and windows and to build a second porte-cochere on the outside.
The gorgeous foyer featured marble floors and four closets.
The closet was a symbol of wealth, indicating that the owner could afford to use valuable room space for storage, the tour guide said.
The walls and ceilings appeared to be marble but were actually hand-painted stucco, another symbol of wealth.
Although the Merritts could afford real marble, it was more expensive to decorate with artificial finishes than with real stone, so marble became a symbol of their wealth.
Drawing rooms, also called parlours, were used for family gatherings and entertainment.
All of the furniture, except for the bay window cupboard, is original to the Paulding family, who first owned the house in 1842.
A portrait of George Washington hung in a corner of the parlor.
The work was painted by the American artist Rembrandt Peale.
For “The Gilded Age,” the room was redecorated to fit scenes from the show, but the same blue patterned carpet still remains.
For “The Gilded Age,” all of the existing furniture was brought in for filming, as it was a precious relic from the original home.
The formal dining room, which was added as part of the Merritt home’s renovation, featured a hexagonal table designed by Davis.
Staff prepared meals in the downstairs kitchen, transported them in dumbwaiters, and plated them in the butler’s pantry next to the room.
The fireplace was made of red grain marble, while its columns were hand-painted with marble patterns on plaster and wood.
Even the walls have been hand-stenciled to look like they’ve been wallpapered with leather.
The dining room offers spectacular views of the Hudson River.
The Governor Mario M. Cuomo Bridge was completed in 2018, so it couldn’t have looked more out of the Gilded Age.
The “Gilded Age” scenes were filmed in the dining room.
The dining room appears in the third episode of season one of “The Gilded Age.”
One of the most luxurious rooms in the mansion was the huge art gallery on the second floor.
Nearly every surface of the walls was covered with precious paintings.
The Paulding family originally used this room as a library.
When the Merritts moved in, they converted the Pauldings’ old dining room into their own study and built a new one as part of the expansion.
A Lyndhurst guide described Gould’s art collection as “one of the best-preserved Gilded Age art collections in the country.”
Gould’s collection included works by French, German and Spanish artists.
The State Bedroom, next to the art gallery, was considered the finest room in the house.
The room had a Tiffany stained glass window.
The hallway bathroom featured pink double sinks imported from Trenton, New Jersey.
The bathroom also features a clawfoot tub and a rain shower.
Gould’s daughter, Anna Gould, renovated her late sister Helen’s childhood room and turned it into a guest room.
Anna Gould continued to sleep in her childhood bedroom when she visited Lyndhurst.
Before electricity became widespread, Lyndhurst’s wealthy residents used speaking tubes in the walls to communicate with their servants.
A tube leads to the butler’s pantry downstairs.
Back downstairs, the property office holds one of the mansion’s most treasured possessions: Gould’s “laptop.”
Gould’s 100-pound Wooton desk (now known as his “laptop”) contained all of his business documents and accompanied him to work each day in New York City.
Gould refused to travel by rail to work because it was owned by his arch rivals, the Vanderbilt family.
Although the railroad ran close to the Lyndhurst house, Gould traveled to work, carrying his desk with him, on the steamship Atalanta down the Hudson River, a journey that took about 45 minutes.
The Vanderbilt family also owned a mansion in Hyde Park, New York, during the Gilded Age.
Once we had finished touring the mansion, our guide invited us to explore the grounds.
The grounds feature walking trails, gardens, and plenty of beautiful picnic spots with views of the Hudson River.
Now I understand why this mansion stood in for Central Park in the Gilded Age.
The tree-lined paths, park benches and lawns made it look just like Central Park.
As we walked along the river, we stopped at a bowling alley built in 1894 for Helen Gould.
According to the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the bowling alley will be rented out for special events and guests will be able to bowl with the lightest ball possible to help preserve the historic space.
Lyndhurst Mansion and its sprawling grounds are worth a visit even if you’ve never seen the “Gilded Age.”
With many notable residents and original furnishings, the home truly retains the grandeur of the Gilded Age.
