#wyndclyffe

[zombilenium]

Wyndclyffe Mansion,

Rhinecliff, Rhinebeck, Dutchess County, New York, United States

[k-i-l-l-e-r-b-e-e-6-9]

Wyndclyffe, View south front porch looking southwest via Library of Congress

[helena-bottom-farter]

Wyndclyffe Mansion

Located at 25 Wynclyffe Court, a private road off Mill Road, in Rhinebeck, New York, Wyndclyffe is in a National Historic Landmark District. Built in 1853 and abandoned since 1950. This place is thought to have inspired the term "Keeping up with the Joneses".

This mansion was purchased by the wealthy socialite Elizabeth Jones in 1853 as a summer house. A cousin to the Astors and aunt to Edith Wharton, Jones occupied a space in the upper echelons of New York high society. In 1853 she had built for herself this gothic mansion in the sleepy hamlet of Rhinecliff, a hundred miles up the Hudson River. The mansion was eluded to in both of Wharton's novels, “A Backward Glance” and “Hudson River Bracketed.”

The 24 bedroom gothic mansion had towers and gables and arched windows. It was so grand that it prompted a ‘building boom’ as all neighbors started upgrading their houses, and the saying “Keeping up with the Joneses” was born.

Elizabeth Jones never married, and after her death, the mansion’s later owners fell foul of the Great Depression, until in 1950, the house was abandoned for good.

Update ~ May, 2023: Town Board members have approved the stabilization plan for the Wyndclyffe mansion in an effort to move forward with the restoration of the 170-year-old deteriorating relic of pre-Civil War extravagance.

[varanusniloticus]

Wyndclyffe Mansion, New York.

[ianhunterart]

Once in a while, I set absolutely no expectations of myself and I find doing that really difficult.  Here is an impressionistic painting of Wyndclyffe and a 1955 Buick Special; a house I wish I owned, and a car that I actually own.

[ianhunterart]

・Wyndclyffe Castle・(Wyndclyffe No. ii)

[angelicland]

"The wreck and not the story of the wreck" Adrienne Rich.