Lyndhurst: Robber baron Jay Gould's palatial estate originally built by ex-NYC mayor

The magnificent GIlded Age Lyndhurst mansion ​is pictured from the front (facing Broadway) with its back to the Hudson River, ca. 2000. (Wikimedia Commons)

Massive and beautiful Lyndhurst stands testament to the luxury and excess of Gilded Age America. It was first called home by a prominent New York politician, was enlarged by a manufacturing titan and fine-tuned to become the country retreat of a famed Gilded Age railroad magnate.

Today’s 67-acre castle and estate at 635 South Broadway in Tarrytown began in 1838 as the "Knoll," country home to former New York City mayor and former U.S. Rep. William Paulding Jr. and later his son Philip R. Paulding. It was purchased by George Merritt after Philip Paulding's death in 1864, and finally bought and held by robber baron Jay Gould and his daughters from 1880 to 1961.

The property west of Broadway to the Hudson River has been a consistent 67 acres since its inception. The estate eventually encompassed well over 200 acres by 1910. A map of Tarrytown south of Sheldon Avenue and east of South Broadway from that time shows a 48-acre parcel extending directly east across Broadway from Lyndhurst to the Tarrytown line and beyond to the east with at least that much acreage again on Town of Greenburgh land. Another 92-acre family property ran north from Sheldon Avenue to White Plains Road and west to Meadow Street. That area extended east into unincorporated Greenburgh.

Paulding was a native of the area, born on what was Philipsburg Manor in today’s Tarrytown in 1770. His sister Julia married author Washington Irving’s brother and future Congressman William Irving Jr.

Paulding was a cousin of Revolutionary War hero John Paulding, one of the three yeoman farmers and American militia members who captured British Army Major John André at the site of what is now Tarrytown’s Patriots Park. When the trio searched André, they found papers unmasking Continental Army Gen. Benedict Arnold’s traitorous plan to surrender West Point to the British. The men turned André over to Continental Army officers who hanged him in Tappan, New York as a spy.

This aerial photograph, ca. 1932, shows the Lyndhurst carriage house/garage complex (foreground center) with the stables hidden by the tree line to the right of the carriage house during the ownership of Helen Miller Gould Shepard. Gould Shepard’s sister, Anna, the Duchess of Talleyrand, assumed ownership after Helen’s death in 1938 and kept it until her own death in 1961. (Library of Congress)

William Paulding was a brigadier general in the New York State militia and a veteran of the War of 1812. He served in Congress from 1811-13 and was New York’s mayor from 1824-1826. He was also Adjutant General of the State of New York, the state’s highest ranking National Guard officer.

Merritt, owner and president of the New England Car Spring Co. from 1853 to 1868, made his fortune as the holder of the patent for a lucrative railroad car spring. He doubled the mansion’s size under the direction of original architect Alexander Jackson Davis in 1864-65. Merritt also hired German master gardener Ferdinand Mangold to landscape the estate in the English naturalistic style. 

Mangold drained the wetlands on the property, creating lawns, planting trees and building one of the nation’s largest conservatories for the growing of tropical plants and flowers.

Mangold’s landscaping remains today, highlighting Victorian design elements, its lawns, trees and shrubs offering a variety of pleasant views. The Mangold-designed driveway twists and turns to unique views and rolls past the conservatory and surrounding parcels of garden that featured vegetables and flowers in the heyday of the estate.

It was Merritt who changed the estate’s name, calling it “Lyndenhurst” for the linden trees that dotted the landscape.

Merritt died in 1873 and his family sold the estate in 1880 to railroad magnate and financier Jason “Jay” Gould. The original so-called “Wizard of Wall Street,” used the estate as his summer retreat and shortened the name to “Lyndhurst.”

This copy of a vintage photo shot looking north from Irvington and west towards the Hudson River, shows the Lyndhurst estate as it appeared in its infancy, ca. 1860. Pictured is the gatehouse lodge at today’s 635 South Broadway. To the far left is the main house. Note the limited presence of trees. The landscaping was still being developed and trees had not had time to mature. The stone wall lining the west side of South Broadway is already in place. (Library of Congress)

Gould was the son of a farmer who became a bookkeeper and began speculating in depressed properties — real estate and railroad stock — and made a fortune. He protected his interests through involvement in politics, particularly Tammany Hall, the William Magear “Boss” Tweed-led Democratic Party machine that ran New York City at the time.

Gould pushed his influence-seeking too far in 1869 when he attempted to corner the gold market with help from the husband of President Ulysses S. Grant’s sister. The attempt failed and caused a national scandal that made Gould a villain in the eyes of many at the time. It’s a legacy that survives today.

Lyndhurst’s 390-foot long steel-framed, glass conservatory was the first in the U.S., commissioned by Gould after fire claimed the original Merritt greenhouse on the estate in 1880. The new greenhouse complex was built on the precise footprint of the old wooden one by Irvington resident Frederick A. Lord, founder of Irvington’s Lord & Burnham Co. It was the largest privately owned conservatory in the nation at completion and housed a wide array of lush rare tropical plants, flowers -- including a fabulous orchid collection -- and trees. Its plants were so lush and exotic that Gould banned them from his study, fearing they would take his mind off work.

This picture postcard c. 1920 (above), shows the Lyndhurst Conservatory built of steel and glass by the Irvington company Lord & Burnham under the stewardship of Robber Baron Jay Gould. At the time the photo was taken, the estate was owned by Gould's daughter, Helen Miller Gould Shepard. Meanwhile, the photo below shows the Moorish-influenced earliest greenhouse built on the estate by George Merritt c. 1865 of wood and glass. Merritt's greenhouse burned and the Gould greenhouse was built on its original footprint. (Merritt photo courtesy Lyndhurst.org)

In 1894, two years after her father’s death, Helen Miller Gould built a recreation pavilion featuring what are now the two oldest regulation-sized bowling lanes in the world. The wood-framed, shingled building is sited by the Hudson River, well away from the main house. In its day, built by a woman, the building made supreme sense, since bowling was one of the only sports commonly played by men and women together.

Just east of the conservatory, stands the ruin of a building holding the estate’s natatorium, an indoor swimming facility built by Helen Gould in 1895 but left to deteriorate after her death. It has been stabilized since, but hoped-for restoration has yet to take place. In its heyday it resembled a Roman baths, featuring an all-glass roof that bathed the pool in sunlight and a columned gallery surrounding the pool that featured tropical palms.

The Atalanta was a 228-foot steam yacht built by Philadelphia’s William Cramp & Sons for Jay Gould in 1883 at a cost of $500,000 — $13.9 million today. The yacht was used to ferry the Goulds from their private pier on the Hudson River at Lyndhurst to Manhattan and it came equipped with "mahogany, Persian carpets, a satin couch, rosewood cabinets, and damask hangings,” according to the New York Daily Tribune newspaper at the time. It had an ice machine, a full-time crew of 55, and silver-plated toilet seats. It was sold by the Gould family to the Venezuelan navy in 1900 for use as a gunboat and renamed “Restaurador” (Restorer). After a brief run as a German naval vessel and use in a blockade of Venezuela, it was returned to Venezuela in 1904 and remained in the service in the Venezuelan navy until 1950. (Wikimedia Commons)

At the westernmost part of the estate are the remains of an iron bridge over the railroad tracks that parallel the river and once led to the Goulds’ private pier from which the family could board their luxurious private steam yacht Atalanta, which cost $13.9 million in today’s money. The yacht could be used to commute to Manhattan where Jay Gould worked. It was also used for open ocean travel, likely to Europe, and along the Atlantic seaboard to the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico. The New York Times in 1884 mentioned a trip by the ship from Manhattan to New Orleans.

Atalanta — the name of the Greek goddess of speed — was also the name Jay Gould chose for his private railroad car. That car featured a luxurious interior with four staterooms, lounge, dining room, kitchen, butler's pantry and bathroom. It still exists, on display today as a museum curiosity in Jefferson, Texas.

Helen Miller Gould (center in white) is pictured in the glass-enclosed ground floor veranda overlooking the Hudson River at Lyndhurst ca. 1910. (Westchester County Historical Society)

After Gould died of tuberculosis at 56 in 1892, the estate remained in the possession of his daughters, Helen and Anna. Helen Miller Gould — after her 1913 marriage to Finley Johnson Shepard at age 45 she became Helen Gould Shepard — kept the estate until her death in 1938. Younger sister Anna Gould — later the Duchess of Talleyrand, kept the property in the family until her death in late 1961. In her will, Anna donated the remaining 67-acre estate to the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1966 and is now open to the public as a museum.

Helen Miller Gould’s Lyndhurst is shown on this 1910 map. The building closest to the river is the in yellow is the bowling alley, above which is the estate’s mansion in black. To the left in yellow is the conservatory and immediately above that the natatorium in blue. To the right of the mansion are the stables and carriage house complex in red and yellow. The small buildings at the driveway entrances at Broadway are twin gatehouses. (1910 George Washington Brumley map, David Rumsey Historical Map Collection)

AUTHOR'S NOTES: At the time of this post, Lyndhurst was undergoing a multi-phase restoration involving the landscape — both hardscape and plantings —- and outbuildings. Hudson Valley magazine detailed the plans in its October 23, 2020 edition. Click here to read the full story. ...

... Click here for links to the official virtual tours of the Lyndhurst mansion, grounds, swimming pool and bowling alleys, as well as an aerial look at the estate and its environs. ...

... The Library of Congress has some outstanding historic photo collections including this one of 10 of the outbuildings at the Lyndhurst estate. Click here to view them. ...

... In addition to Lyndhurst, Helen Gould Shepard inherited a mansion at 579 Fifth Avenue from her father in which she wintered annually. Click here for a look at that mansion, which survived into the early 1950s. ...

... Very interesting read about Jay Gould published on July 30, 2022 ... Worth checking out. Click here.