Comments by "Andrew Brendan" (@andrewbrendan1579) on "This House" channel.

  1. For many years I've enjoyed stories, both fact and fiction, about New York high society but, somehow, have never heard of the story of Emilie Grigsby. Thank you for introducing me to a new---and real life!---story!
    198
  2. It's good to see how someone used wealth to preserve history and to enrich people's lives.
    117
  3. A great house and with so much potential to be well-used even if not as a family home, torn down after standing for so few years and being occupied for even fewer years. Of the houses featured in "This House", I think the story of the Gates mansion is the worst waste of a house I've seen.
    80
  4. Ken, great to see you for the first time! What a pleasure to visit Kimmswick. I grew up in a 1926 house built for my great-grandparents and occupied by four generations of our family and with items going back as far as the 17th century. (A German devotional book with wooden hinges, printed in about 1614) I've slept in a four-poster bed with ropes for the mattress and pegs holding the bed together. During the video I recognized items familiar to those in my family's home. My family has nearly all died out but, happily, many of the contents of the house went to the Mathers Museum at Indiana University.
    71
  5. I read Monica Randall's book "Winfield -- My Life in the Shadow of the Woolworths". Fascinating book. My favorite chapter was the one in which Ms. Randall told about she had F.W. Wooldworth's handwriting analyzed. It was very interesting to learn that handwriting analysis involves how people's writing deviates from the way they were taught to write, how a personal style of writing is developed. Maybe someone else can add on here but wasn't Barbara Hutton, the many times married heiress, the granddaughter of F.W. Woolworth. That poor (though very wealthy) lady had such a sad life. The money doesn't seem to have done her much good. I'm not surprised to learn of Egyptian elements in the decoration of the mansion. The Woolworth family mausoleum is built to resemble an Egyptian temple. I enjoy the mansions of the past but I would avoid visiting Winfield. I wouldn't want to get involved with the negativity and darkness of the place.
    64
  6. The weight of the hoard was so great and it was piled so high that the hoard was holding up the house. Civil engineers said the house had to be cleared out from the top down. --- The two brothers' bodies were interred in a family mausoleum and then the doors were sealed shut. As in life, the brothers were closed off from the world.
    62
  7. What a loss! Bad enough the house is gone but that the fittings went too. The waste is sickening. Ken, along with others who have already commented, I'm thinking the room with the built in seating may have been used for the gatherings of some kind of lodge or fraternity. I didn't see anything to indicate the Masons thought maybe such indications were intentionally kept out sight of the photographer and the outside world. I noticed that the room had a couple of portraits (indistinct) that may have been of a man and a woman. Ken, I don't know if there's enough material for a video but I'll mention a house that interests me is Rosewell, the 1725 colonial mansion built in Virginia and that is now a ruin. Rosewell was one of the grandest and may the grandest of the homes of the colonal period in the U.S.
    52
  8. What a horrible, tragic story. --- Ken, you and your viewers might be interested in the 1954 novel "My Brother's Keeper" by Marcia Davenport. It's a very well-written story based heavily upon the Collyer brothers. Not only is it an excellent work of fiction, but I think it accurately shows how and why people gradually become hoarders and this was long before there was much research on or knowledge about the subject. There's also a non-fiction book about the Collyer brothers called "Shadow Men". -- I think videos such as this one are not only informative and interesting, but provide a public service because they can motivate people to look at their own lives and to take action to prevent themselves from going in the same direction as the two brothers.
    51
  9. Great video, Ken! When Mrs. Astor referred to women who would come after her in society I wonder if she was making a dig at Alva Vanderbilt. --- Also you and your viewers might be interested in the book "Mrs. Astor's New York -- Money and Social Power" by Eric Homberger. -- I noticed that across the street from Mrs. Astor's original house we can see the marble Stewart mansion: maybe the subject of another "This House" video? --- I found the Astor houses overwhelming. The original house in its original form probably would have worked for me! Fun facts: the John Jacob Astor who was lost on the Titanic invented the bicycle brake and was one of the first science-fiction writers. He wrote a novel about a man who tilted the earth on its axis and was able to create perpetual springtime.
    48
  10. Wow. Rose Terrace was a glorious place but simply too much of a good thing. So much there that was superlative and beautiful yet, considering how long the house could have lasted, was enjoyed by so few for so short a time and that time was even shorter what with Mrs. Dodge becoming a recluse. How sad that Mrs. Dodge became a recluse not just in her house but in only part of her house. I like to think that if I had such a house and could afford living in it that I would put it to good use a place of hospitality to many people and groups, having the house as something of a community center/place for visitors/temporary housing for those in need along with being a private home.
    46
  11. Thank you, Ken! I was yet another of the kids who watched "Dark Shadows" after school and I think Collinwood Manor/Seaview Terrace was the first house in which I became interested. I drew A LOT as a child and I drew mansions based on Collinwood and before I knew it was a real house. I would say that "Dark Shadows" and Seaview Terrace led me into an interest in houses and architecture and architectural history. I also became interested in the people who lived in such houses. (There's actually a word for the study of the rich: plutology.) Along with being interested in social history I became interested in social class issues and sociology. I've never been to Seaview Terrace or even seen it in real life, but the house, even if indirectly, has been of much importance in my life.
    44
  12. Fascinating and sad how so much money was poorly managed and how the sisters didn't know about the value of the fittings of the house. I'm glad that the two sisters were still able to live what seems to have been a fairly comfortable life after the passing of their second brother. This video is a lesson in being and staying informed about finances and in the need for financial planning.
    37
  13. I've read about Florham in the book "Fortune's Children -- The Fall of the House of Vanderbilt" by Arthur Vanderbilt II and I think what appeals to me about Florham is not any particular room but the lifestyle that was lived there for many years: a year in advance you could know what would happen there and the estate was largely self-sufficient and the Twombly's were not celebrity rich people but a family that lived quietly and without much public attention. In her memoir "Dead End Gene Pool", Vanderbilt descendant Wendy Burden tells about going to Florham after it became a school. Both books are engrossing though the second one is the story of a family of tragedy and makes for heartbreaking reading.
    28
  14. I remember going to the Carnegie library in the small Indiana town where I grew up. Andrew Carnegie seems to have learned that doing things for others is a joyful, rewarding way to live.
    27
  15. Things actually could have been worse. I read Monica Randall's book, "Winfield: Living in the Shadow of the Woolworths". Ms. Randall told about how on Long Island after World War II there were mansions being bulldozed with the CONTENTS STILL IN THEM. On of the treasures lost was a statue by Michelangelo. At least the furniture and other times were taken from the Salomon house.
    24
  16. Terrific video, Ken! What a pleasure to see so many houses. My favorite here is the Heinz mansion. Thank you for all the time and work that goes into this and the others also. As I was watching I was reminded of a novel that you and your viewers might enjoy. It's "The Valley of Decision" by Marcia Davenport, published in 1944. It's about how a young Irish girl becomes a maid in the home of a wealthy Pittsburgh family in the 1870's and of how the story of her family and of the family she works for become connected over the years and up to the early days of World War II. "The Valley of Decision" is an excellent book that is still good reading today. Part of it deals with the winter during which the ice up in the mountains that was holding back the water of the river gave way during a thaw and the water came crashing into the city. Cary Grant was in the movie version of the novel. Marcia Davenport ten years later published "My Brother's Keeper" inspired by the tragic Collyer brothers in New York City who died in their hoard-filled mansion. It's another excellent book that accurately shows how hoarding starts and what it does to people a little at a time and it was written before much serious study was done on the subject.
    24
  17. Ken, when I saw "Pink Palace" in the title of the video I thought you were going to be talking about Jayne Mansfield and Mickey Hargitay's house in Hollywood! It would be quite a house for your channel: carpeted bathroom walls and ceiling; office with red tufted leather (?) on the walls, ceiling AND desk; mirrored headboard over the bed; heart-shaped swimming pool and overall an over-the-top place. I believe the house was demolished in recent years and replaced with a Starbucks or some-such. Something (else) unusual about the house, and if my memori is correct, is that even though it was built before the stock market crash of 1929, I believe Hargitays in the late 1950's were the first full-time residents.
    23
  18. I've enjoyed and admired mansions for decades yet this house is entirely new to me. Remarkable that a house from so long ago is still standing and even more remarkable considering the size of the house. It looks like it could be a state capitol building from the early days of the United States!
    23
  19. Didn't look that way at first, but Anne Flint dodged a major financial bullet when Hearst got control of the estate.
    22
  20. What a pleasure to see these houses existing now to see the beautiful exteriors and interiors in color. I'm glad these wonderful places are still for us to enjoy and thank you, Ken, for making them known to us.
    21
  21. The whole place is great but I especially liked the staircase area with that huge stained glass window.
    21
  22. What a place! And another one completely new to me! The house and grounds are extra interesting with their connection to motion pictures. The way the grounds have been documented in movies reminds me of how the interiors and even exteriors of the ocean liner Ile de France were recorded for posterity in the movie "The Last Voyage" which was filmed aboard the liner. The intention was for entertainment, but movies have been useful in preserving history even if it was unintentional. I'm glad that some of the mansion featured here is still in existence.
    18
  23. I grew up in small-town, have never lived in a city and have never gotten accustomed to tall buildings. If there are any third-floor penthouses, I'm interested! -- I read a biography of Marjorie Merriweather Post and I recall how when Marjorie was a young girl her foot got caught in a railroad track and a train was approaching. Another girl who was Marjorie's friend pulled her loose and saved her life. In appreciation of her friend's courage Marjorie made sure that her friend was never in any financial need throughout her entire life.
    18
  24. I noticed that Ronaele, designed by an architect named Trumbauer, bears a strong resemblance to the mansion used for the TV mini-series version of Stephen King's novel "My Life at Rose Red -- The Diary of Ellen Rimbauer". Probably just coincidence but we have two houses that bear a strong resemblance to one another and two similar names are connected with the houses: Trumbauer and Rimbauer. I wonder how much Stephen King may have known about Ronaele when he wrote about Rose Red.
    18
  25. The Jerome house at 2:17, large as it is, makes me think of a smaller version of the Clark mansion in Manhattan where the reclusive heiress Huguette Clark spent part of her childhood. All the best to those who bringing this neighborhood up from crime and decay! This may be a little off-topic but I'm reminded of Harriet Arnow's novel "The Dollmaker" which is about a rural Kentucky family that moves to Detroit during World War II so the father can take advantage of the job and financial opportunity and about how the members of a country family react to being in a far different place and culture from what they've known. In real-life some of my own relatives went from Kentucky to Detroit during the war.
    17
  26. A terrific house. It's grand and big, but not gaudy or tacky ---and it's still standing. I'll take the tower sitting room off of Mr. Hecker's bedroom. That would be my little library and I would have a writing table there also.
    17
  27. A fascinating story and well illstrated with valuable pictures. For me the apartment is a little too much like a mausoleum. Some of those interiors are so "busy" and so big that it doesn't seem like a home. Still a lot of people lived there and I hope they enjoyed their time there. Ken, this comment is going back a little to your recent video "The Mysterious Astor Orphans and the Mansion They Called Home". I just started reading the memoir "Astor Orphan" by Alexandra Aldrich, a descendant of the Astors who grew up in the Rokesbury mansion during the time when it had fallen into disrepair . I've only read a little of the book so far, but it's a fascinating account of the house and the family in it. There's a strong similarity to what happened with the Beales at Grey Gardens but "The Astor Orphan" is still a separate, unique story as told by someone who grew up in famous and historical American house.
    16
  28. What a remarkable story. Daisy Suckley was a wise woman who was willing to work to earn money. She saw that she would probably live an unusually long life and made arrangements for it. I would probably have sold the estate and gotten a little place in town. Whatever Daisy's motives she saw to it that a wonderful house has been preserved for many to enjoy.
    15
  29. Another winner, Ken! I love old, grand, mysterious houses. It's not a ghost story but the terrifying 1946 movie "The Spiral Staircase" starring Dorothy McGuire mostly takes place in a Victorian house at night. This movie deals with what we now call a serial killer and is remarkable for its accuracy in a time when little was known about such criminals and their behavior. If anything "The Spiral Staircase" is even more frightening and disturbing now than when first released. I also like the Crain mansion's Victorian interiors from "The Haunting" along with those of the Bramford apartment building in "Rosemary's Baby", based on the Dakota building in New York.
    15
  30. Maybe this is more of the myth, but I've heard that Sarah Winchester invented sinks with built-in washboards and that it was her idea to have kitchen counters with curved, raised fronts to keep things from spilling to the floor.
    14
  31. I wouldn't be surprised if some treasures were in that house --- and ruined because of the contamination from the cats and rodents. I woudn't be surprised if there was mold in the Collyer house also. Such waste...of people and of useful and valuable things.
    12
  32. That familiar and awful scenario: design and built a magnificent home that could last for centuries then in less than a century, sometimes much less, tear it down. A terrific house inside and out. I like how the exterior has something of a Collinwood Manor- Dark Shadows quality.
    12
  33. Great video, Ken -- as always! I hope there will be a follow-up with still more Manhattan mansions. Wonderful houses, but all of them are too much for me (especially as arthritis makes walking a bit of a challenge!) though I find the interiors of the Frick mansion more my style: they're simpler and more restrained than many others. If I was to have a home in Manhattan I"d like to have an apartment in the Dakota. Also, Ken, I've recommended the fiction and non-fiction books of Louis Auchincloss for people interested in the wealthy of New York. As I watched today's video I was reminded of a novel by another author and that is also about the wealthy of New York City and that I'd like to recommend: "The Lady Who Loved New York" by R. L. Gordon, published in 1977.
    12
  34. Truly a remarkable house, one designed and built according to a philosophy...and I'm so glad this one was saved. Thank you, Ken for the history and tour. --- Fun fact: actress Anne Baxter was the granddaughter of Frank Lloyd Wright. Ken, I saw you and Dalton in the recent "Hoarders" episode and I want to thank you even more for the huge amount of work you did for your friend Bob both inside his house for cleaning and clearing, and outside of his house serving as advocates and case workers, doing so much on his behalf. If that isn't true friendship and genuine concern for a fellow human being in need of help then I don't know what is. Many blessings to you and Dalton!
    12
  35. How have I never heard of the beautiful home? This one is especially fine. Those outside staircases go on and on. You could get a lot of exercise just making one trip down and back!
    12
  36. Lynnewood Hall makes me think of the ocean liner S.S. United States that has been laid up since late 1969. In the 1980's the liner's interiors and fittings were sold at auction and the vessel is now a shell and continues to be that way. So far it looks like Lynnewood is sharing and will share the same situation. The mansion is just too big. It looks more like a government building than a house. I hate to see the loss of a beautiful home but there are people, not buildings, with more urgent, immediate needs. I'd rather pay for someone to have dental and medical care; to have a new roof put on their normal-sized house; help someone with their first and last month's rent so they won't be homeless; get a car for someone to get to and from a job rather than spend the money on an architectural colossus that would surely be a money pit. Lynnewood's time has come and gone.
    11
  37. The amount of money spent on this house by the first Astor owners is staggering even for the wealthy of that era. Then later owners have spent millions and millions more. I wonder how many houses have had so much money spent on them.
    11
  38. Your comment reminded me of a hilarious comedy sketch from "The Carol Burnett Show" back in the 70's, a spoof of Joan Crawford movies called "Torchy Lady". Carol as Joan says (this is my best recollection) to her downtrodden maid (Vickie Lawrence), "Problems? You think you have problems? Do you know what it's like to walk into a restaurant and have everybody stare at you? Do you know what it's like to have a house so big you wander around day after day...just trying to find a bathroom? Do you know what it's like to have your pool heater malfunction? DO YOU? (Sobbing) These are the problems I live with every day so you just be glad that you're plain and untalented and poor!" One of the funniest scenes ever and it may be on You Tube.
    11
  39. What a remarkable house with a remarkable location and shape. Beautiful place. I think I'll pick the Gold Room as my favorite. Seriously, I wonder if the Gold Room provided some inspiration for the room of the same name in the Stanley Kubrick's movie version of "The Shining". Some believe that the movie has references to America being on the Gold Standard. In that famous ending that shows a picture taken at the 1921 Fourth of July ball at the Overlook Hotel, some of the people in the photograph have since been identified as prominent people of the era and who might have been guests at the Belmonts' home such as one of President Wilson's daughters. How sad and silly that there was a feud or competition between Mrs. Belmont and Mrs. Roosevelt. I hope people have moved beyond that sort of thing, but even though architectural and clothing styles have changed, human nature apparently hasn't!
    11
  40. Something about the house makes me think this was a happy place.
    11
  41. I noticed that the portrait on a stand that appears at 2:10 appears again later in the new library at 3:05 in the new library. I wonder who the man in the portrait is: maybe an ancestor, maybe an admired author? Speaking of authors, Ken, you and your viewers might be interested in the 1949 historical novel "Prairie Avenue" by Arthur Meeker. It's told by a man who is orphaned in childhood and is sent to live with wealthy relatives in Chicago. There is an aunt who is rather mysterious and who might be considered the main character and around whom much of the story revolves. The story goes from the 1880's to 1918, a great read. The fictional characters in the Meeker novel would have known the Pullmans. One of my ancestors was one of the founders of the still functioning Church of the Immaculate Conception on the south side in the 1880's but, my family would likely have been entering the Pullman house from the servants' entrance!
    10
  42. The Old House at Collinwood was on the Lyndhurst estate in New York. Sadly that house was destroyed in a fire.
    10
  43. Edward Kenworth Carlilse: a businessman and he was a real bit of business himself.
    9
  44. I agree. Dozens of people could have lived in that house or stayed there as hotel guests. Were the house standing now I can see it being re-purposed in one of those ways. Too it could have been a venue for weddings and receptions and conferences.
    9
  45. Ken, what a great choice of photos: in a video about an F. Scott Fitzgerald story, at 1:32 the young lady dancing is Colleen Moore, the mega-star of silent films. She starred in the movie version of "Flaming Youth" and Fitzgerald wrote: "I was the spark that lit up flaming youth, and Colleen Moore was the torch." Miss Moore went on to do critically acclaimed work in sound motion pictures, including co-starring with Spencer Tracy, then chose to retire in 1934. She lived a long, good life until her passing in 1988. In reading earlier comments here it sounds like Beacon Towers is likely the closest to the fictional house but I expect that part of the Gatsby house is still a composite of real houses and the author's imagination. Not a house but for a long time I've been curious about the S.S. Poseidon in Paul Gallico's 1969 novel about people trapped in a capsized luxury liner and in the 1972 movie. The Queen Mary has a lot in common with the fictional novel (a Queen Mary model was used for the first movie version) but I wonder if the Poseidon had parts of other liners. The Queen doesn't have a grand staircase descending into the dining room but the fictional Poseidon and other real-life liners did. It would be fun to know more!
    9
  46. Maybe it's me but I've found that Lyndhurst has a special, positive atmosphere. What a pleasure to learn that a house has been so well loved and used. I used to be involved with the American Red Cross and was extra pleased to learn about how items from Lyndhurst were used to assist the Red Cross. Another house and estate that has been put to excellent use the mansion and ground of Yaddo, the home of philanthropists Spencer and Katrina Trask, that would be turned into a retreat for writers and artists. I don't know if there is much information and many photographs but maybe Yaddo could be the subject for an episode of "This House".
    9
  47. Ken, I'm reeling from this one. What an extraordinary history of the house and of the family. Some of the interiors remind me of those in the A.T. Stewart mansion in Manhattan. (Maybe you could make a video of that house also.) I'm an ocean liner enthusiast and I have a book called "Ravenscrag" which has some information about the Allan steamship line. I haven't read the book yet but after seeing your video I can tell I'm in for quite a real-life story. The Allan Line may not have been as big as Cunard or White Star or Canadian-Pacific but they had a pair of beautiful liners called the Alsatian and the Calgarian. The Calgarian was lost in World War I and the Alsatian later went to the Canadian-Pacific Line to become the Empress of France.
    9
  48. Beautiful place and I think I'll pick the library as my favorite room. -- I wasn't born there, but I like to think of myself as an honorary thrifty New Englander: Had I lived in and run the Poor mansion I would have used a good portion of the gardens for growing food for the estate and would have had some cows and chickens as well.
    9
  49. Ken, this was fascinating. I enjoyed the story of the house and Miss Davies. Viewers who would like to know a little more about t he Davies-Hearst story I think will enjoy a section of Louise Brooks' book "Lulu in Hollywood". The section called "Marion Davies' Neice" is mostly about Pepe Lederer but also give some information about the life shared by Marion Davies and William Randolph Hearst at San Simeon. It's been a while since I read it but I think one of the recollections of Miss Brooks takes place in the beach house.
    8
  50. All the houses shown here are great in their way. I'll pick the Standord house as my favorite. I can see why General Colton didn't have a problem with the sun-blocking wall. Looking at the various photos we can see that the Colton house was getting lots of sunlight anyway. Is it possible there was another house on the other side of the wall seen at 1:10? Would that have been the actual site of the unwilling neighbor?
    8