Sure. I. Made good evening. Thank you for joining us for tonights program. We are so thrilled to have you here with us tonight. My name is Stephanie Barnett and im the associate director of Public Programs and Community Outreach here at the Greenwich Historical society. And we are so thrilled to have you with us and pleased to present tonights program on gilded age architecture, which is going to precede the highly anticipated series coming to your screen in october, which im sure you may already know. Before we dive into tonights program, ill just review a few housekeeping details. First of all, we like to welcome American History television from cspan, who will be recording tonights program, which is very exciting and we are also are going to finish with the wine and cheese reception back down in the lobby where you came in. So that will be around 7 00. Youll also have the opportunity to buy mr. Dodds book and have it signed by him. While youre enjoying your beverages. And finally, as i mentioned, this will be recorded. So we will make sure that you all receive the link after the program. And now it is my sincere pleasure to introduce our speaker for the night, mr. Phillip james dodd. Born and raised in the united kingdom. Philip james dodd is an alumnus of the prestigious prince of Wales Institute of architecture in london. He moved to america more than 20 years ago, and after training with some of the most recognized classical architecture firms in the country, he founded his own company, Philip James DoddBespoke Residential Design llc in 2015. His designs can be found in new york, greenwich, palm beach and as far away as bangalore, india. In 2022, he was a recipient of the elizabeth l and Janet Schuller architectural award and was named as one of the top 50 coastal architects by ocean home magazine. He has a masters in architecture from the university of notre dame and an undergraduate degree in architecture from the Manchester School of architecture. He is a fellow of the institute of classical architecture and art and serves as a commissioner on the town of Greenwich HistoricDistrict Commission and now it is my pleasure to welcome to the stage mr. Philip james dunn. Thank you very much, stephanie, and thank you for everyone here at the Greenwich Historical society for inviting me to come and talk with you this evening. Tonight, were going to be looking at some of the material from my book, an american renaissance, beaux arts architecture in new york city. And for those of you who came in, you saw it. Its a big, huge book formed in 12 pages. And in those 420 pages, we spanned from 1875 to 1928. And we tell the story of not just 20 buildings, but the stories of those people that designed and commissioned them. And before i forget and i always do on the front cover of the book is the interior of grants tomb, which was completed in 1897, when this was finished for a whole generation. This was the second most visited attraction in new york city, behind only the statue of liberty and everybody forgotten about it. Now, people really just remember it from groucho marx, and he was buried in grants tomb. But by only featuring 20 buildings, were able to really showcase them in detail. So buildings like the frick and the University Club, which will get a little snippet tonight in the book, have got over 30 dedicated pages with new photography. And so with that in mind, just a couple of people i would like to thank on the left is john wallen. My collaborator on this project, who took all the wonderful photographs that youre going to be doing and worrying about. And then next to him is Julian Fellowes, lord fellowes, who wrote the forward to the book, and when i started work on this, i realized i needed somebody famous to write the forward because nobody knows who i am. And he just finished downton abbey. And there was a rumor going around that hed be working on an american version of downton. So i was able to reach out to him. Maybe ill tell you that story later on over an alcoholic beverage and he agreed to to to write the foreword to my book. And after that, it was just very serendipitous that it would take me five years to finish the book and it would take him five years to finish what would become the gilded age on hbo. And as stephanie said, for those of you who are fans of the show season two is coming out on sunday, october 29th, at 9 p. M. So in the coveted hbo 9 p. M. Sunday slot. So im a im a big believer that the success of a tv series or a book or even the design of a house comes down to good storytelling. And so this evening, im going to tell the stories of four of the buildings, but a featured inside the book and all of these stories start here with this elegant and sophisticated french chateau, which was built for william kissin vanderbilt and his wife, alva vanderbilt, who would later become alva belmont. And this building was called the petite chateau. It was built in 1882 in a style that would become known as vanderbilt gothic. And this is the house that this house literally transformed architecture and america and i often get asked what is is the biggest architectural loss in this country . And astounded answer to that is penn station. But you could make an argument that actually this is right up there with it for just how influential this building was. And while the architecture and the architect are different, the story of the petite chateau is the inspiration behind the story of the russell house in the tv series where carrie s portrayal of beth russell is very much based upon all the vanderbilts and this is one of the things that julian does very well in the tvs series. All of the principal characters are fictitious, and yet theyre based on real life people. But then he intersperses them with actual historic figures like donna murphys portrayal of Caroline Astor and then nathan lane, also portrays ward mccallister and he uses a lot of Actual Stories that actually occur. And so the story in the tv show of how Bertrand Russell is able to persuade mrs. Astor to attend the ball is actually a true story. But with Arthur Vanderbilt and the petite chateau and the architect who designed the petite chateau was this gentleman, Richard Maurice hunt, who is referred to as the dean of american architecture. He is the First American to study at the called a beaux arts in paris. I a second person is h. H. Richardson, who people would know in boston who designed Trinity Church up there. The third is Charles Mckim, who was a senior partner, mckim and white and then after that, the floodgates just open and almost every architects a consequence from that generation attends. You call the beaux arts, but a couple of exceptions. Stanford white did not. George posted not. Daniel burnham did not. But they did all make sure that their sons attended and when they were in paris, they learned not one style of architecture, but they learned about the architecture of ancient greece and rome, as well as the italian and french renaissance. And then they traveled around europe and they got introduced to medieval architecture, especially in england and in france. And then when they came back to the states, the amalgamated, all of these styles together in what we call american beaux arts, architecture, and Richard Maurice hunt is now best remembered for the houses he designed for the grand children of cornelius vanderbilt, the breakers in newport, which was designed for king william vanderbilt, the second marble house also in out in newport, which was designed for william kissin vanderbilt. And he had that designed as a birthday present for alva vanderbilt. So when they got divorced, a lot of people think that she actually got marble house as part of a divorce settlement, but it had already been gifted to her as a birthday present. And he also designed the Biltmore Estate in asheville, north carolina, for George Washington. Vanderbilt, the second and in new york city, only three of his buildings remain. They used to line the streets of new york and the only three, but still remain the pedestal to the statue of liberty. The vanderbilt family mausoleum, which is on staten island. And then the entrance to the metropolit museum, which is called wing d. And i say wing davi was completed in 1902 and obviously faces onto fifth avenue. But i say winged because most buildings in the gilded age, when they got too small, they just knocked them down. They built something bigger, they knocked it down. They built something even bigger. They didnt do that at the met, at the met, they kept on adding wings. And so it really kind of becomes this living, breathing, kind of architectural history of america over the last hundred and 50 years. And anybody whos been to the met, dont ask me how we took this photograph because 24 hours a day was a hot dog stand right at the bottom of the steps. I wish you managed to somehow get rid of and if you walk in to the building and you go up the steps, you walk through the the entrance, you go all the way to the back of the building, into the layman gallery, which the lehman gallery gallery is winco is was added in the seventies by kevin roach. But if you turn around, this is what you see, this is the original structure. This is wing a and this faced on to central park. So the original entrance to the met faced onto the park. And the reason for that was because this was designed by calvin fox and calvin volks was the architects of central park. Everyone remembers frederick law. Olmstead but olmstead was his junior partner. Volks was the senior partner and volks had trained under Andrew Jackson downing and it was very much a proponent of this picture, victorian style of, of architecture that was prescribed by john ruskin in the stones of venice. And so in a very short period of time we go from this picturesque gothic to the grand monumental classicism of winged and so thats how much architecture was shifting in this time period. D a lot of people actually think this is the original entrance, this is and this is wi b and this was added b theodore weston, who was really just a civil engineer. This is really the only building that he ever did. And this faces south towards where the city was. Its now part of the petrie sculpture gallery, which is wing y again, which was added in the nineties by kevin roach. I hope youre keeping track of all these wings. Theyll therell be a test afterwards. And this is an archival shot of that. And so thats the old image. And just to get your bearings on the far left, you can see cleopatras needle, the obelisk that was installed when central park was completed in 1880. And another archival image. This is when davis is the original entrance. This is before the wings. The flanking wings were later added and just to get an idea of of scale, you can see those those carriages at the front. And also look at the steps that they had, that original steps of the building, which were treacherously steep and they were replaced much later on in the background, you get to see the other wings that were added and you come in to the great hall of the metropolitan museum. Its 166 feet long, 48 feet wide. Its three stories tall and you have to remember, when this was built, there was not a space like this in new york city. This completely transformed how people kind of experience grand spaces, which we kind of take for granted now. But this was the first time there was structurally able to do this. And its somewhat based upon the professor carroll caracalla in in rome. Its all clad in limestone and we come to take this photographs and a lot of the buildings we went back to on several occasions, but with the met, they let us in once and we had to get to 6 00 in the morning and we had to be done by the time they opened at ten. And so we go in to the the staff entrance on the north side and we we used to go into buildings with this. Would we got name badges, theres metal detectors, theres all sorts of security. And we come in and be like, oh, youre the people here to photograph you. And yeah, they went, okay, and you come and im like, if they never seen the thomas crown affair and i just realized how many photos, how many cameras must have been on us. And we, we come up to take this shot. And up until this point, weve made a point of having no people in any of the images. And we realized we couldnt take it because without any people, there was no sense of scale. And so we waited. We went and photographed elsewhere, and we came back just when it opened at 8 00 for a few private tours, so we could get a few people in there to give it a sense of scale. And the wonderful kind of saucer shaped dome structure. It was done by gus trevino. Whenever you see a vaulted space in new york city, you can pretty much guess is by gus divino and then it was clad and actually a lot of it actually had a lot more ornament on this that was stripped back in the 1950s. And then you climb up the Grand Staircase again. This is all by Richard Morris hunt and Grand Staircase led to voxs original wing, the second floor of his original wing, which houses the museums collection of european old masters and at the top of the staircase is the triumph of marios party below and back outside these of a new steps that kevin roach added and you get to see the wings either side which Charles Mckim leader at later added. So the whole facade of fifth avenue spans over a thousand feet and four city blocks. Its absolutely huge. But on the outside of the building, this is what, you know, most people kind of remember. And so, believe it or not, theres over 31 pieces of sculpture on the building and all done by karl bitar, who did a lot of work with Richard Morris hunt. And there was meant to be this great aligarh called sculptures of ancient medieval renaissance and modern art, which was supposed to go over these columns, but hunt died about seven years before the met was finished, and it was taken over by his son, Richard Howell and hunt and citing that they had no money left, the metropolitan museum decided that they wouldnt do the sculpture and on junior being i guess a little bit passive aggressive, decided that he would hoist these unattractive piles of stone up there in a way to persuade the met. But it was so unattractive they would have to do this sculpture and 150 years later, those temporary bits of stone are still up there. So you can see it didnt really work, but hunt was so well regarded that when he passed away, this memors built for him. Its on fifth avenue. It backs onto central park. Its between 75 and 71st street. And if you want to go into ecture and you want monuments, architecture is not the profession. This is the only monument in america to a architect. And the sculpture is by daniel chester, french and the architecture is by bruce price. And bruce price. Bruce price is better known as the father of emily post, who wrote the book on social etiquette. And so from one grand beaux Arts Building to a other and joined the gilded age. The center of the economy was driving railroads and in particular, one family, the vanderbilt family and its its, you know, withstood here in the vanderbilt education center. So its kind of nice to be talking about the vanderbilt family. Well, if i was just going to talk about Grand Central and just talk about the vanderbilt, that would be the whole evening tonight. So were going to fast forward through a lot of that and. By 1890, the Family Business is being run by william chisholm, vanderbilt. He of the petite chateau and then the vanderbilt controlled all of the railroads to the north of new york city, the harlem, the hudson, the new haven lines. Thats why metro north gets the names of its lines. The old train lines. And they built the original. Their original station was called Grand Central depot. And it was built in 1871 by john snook in the second empire style, same location on fort street and 1898, which is when this was taken. It was given a facelift by bradford gilbert, and it was renamed Grand Central station. But this was still hardly the way to enter into this great city, which was trying to rival the great cities of the world of london and paris and rome and what is that joke about . You know, you you you wait for a bus and then to come along at the same time. And thats what happened. Here we go from having no train stations to getting to we first we get penn station in 1910 and then three years later, we get what would become Grand Central terminal in 1913. And if you just look at the very top corner, the top right hand corner, youll see the eagle up there and that eagle was reused. Its cast iron. Theres quite a few of them actually on the original, on the, on the prior building and they reuse it not just on this building, but a lot of sculpture. When buildings were taken down, they reused a sculpture and they used a lot of these eagles elsewhere. If youre entering into Grand Central in the corner of 42nd street and vanderbilt avenue and look up, youll see the eagle and that salvaged from one of the previous iterations. Now the design of Grand Central terminal. So we went from depot to station to terminal is was a collaboration between two architectural firms and the first of those was called arden stem. They were from saint paul, minnesota, and they specialized in designing train stations and it was their Organizational Skills that were responsible for the elevated roadway that allows park avenue to wrap around