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

  1. As my mother used to say: "It's a bit much". I find the interiors excessive but the outside is beautifully restrained Beaux Arts creation. I read or heard that the big metal doors at the front of Marble House have no knobs or handles on the outside because there would always be servants on the inside to open the door for visitors; no need for anyone to open the doors from the outside.
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  2. Thank you for this video! I've been intrigued with the Hopkins mansion for years. Something that may now be lost in history is what the colors were for the outside of the house. I wonder if there are any written descriptions or if there might be painting of the house somewhere. I've read that Shirley Jackson who wrote "The Haunting of Hill House" was originally from California and that her great-grandfather (?) was an architect. I wonder if Shirley Jackson's relative had any connection with the design and building of the Hopkins mansion and if the mansion may have provided some of the inspiration for the Crain mansion in the novel.
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  3. Same for me. It would be great to have financial security, but then to do things for the others. I recently learned the phrase "the gift of giving". Even in a small way now it's a joy to do something for others. I know of people who don't have enough money to pay for medicine and rent and groceries at the same time or who need to get out of a bad housing situation. What a pleasure it would be to make their lives better.
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  4. In my book Elliott is male but not a man. He was the antithesis of what a husband should be.
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  5. I'm surprised I've never heard of this family before. Maybe they were less public than some of the other Gilded Age wealthy families. So many beautiful homes here, but the one I like best is the country house seen from the air. A simple, beautiful, grand house and with space to be a working, self-sufficient farm or at least nearly so.
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  6. I'm a book lover and have boxes of unread books in my efficiency apartment, but Evergreen mansion is book-loving on steroids! And good for the people who brought and kept all those books in the house. --- I've seen the front of Evergreen before, hadn't realized how much there is to the house. Wonderful place.
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  7. I like your well-informed, practical comments. I like big houses of the past but I wouldn't have one even if I could afford it: all that money to heat and cool empty, unused space; all the money for maintenance and taxes. If I had that kind of money I would find better things to do with it.
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  8.  @philipgermani1616  Me too! Loved those secret passageways and vampires.
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  9. Wonderful news, Ken! Congratulation on reaching the 100,000 mark. So many remarkable houses it's hard to pick a favorite but I think I'll choose that house that was on a corner and occupied by one of the Vanderbilt daughters. I think that one may still be standing and that it's part of a university or college. Maybe someone else can add a comment.
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  10. Extra thumbs-up, Ken! This is one of your most enjoyable videos. It was good to learn about Mr. Hilton doing so much with his wealth and opportunities and to learn about architect Paul Walker Jr., giving context to and added appreciation for the house. I hope you will make a video about Mr. Williams. I'm a big fan of those 1930's and 40's Hollywood houses with their white-painted brick and stone and with that French style and I LOVE this house! I would be happy to live in the Hilton house. There may not be enough photos and documentation for a whole video, but I've become curious about the house in which Jean Harlow lived for a time and that was called "the whitest house in the world" or something like that. I've seen some 1930's pictures from Architectrual Digest and it was very nice on the inside. The house is still standing and apparently much altered and is surrounded by trees and foliage that make it invisible from the street.
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  11. I may be thinking of another house, but I was thinking the Flood mansion was once owned and used by a Catholic religious order. Whoever all the owners were, what a loss. The destruction of the house is especially sad though I'm glad the owner was able to have some parts removed and saved.
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  12. Thoroughly enjoyed this, Ken. Like others I knew the house had been demolished, never knew another house stood there afterward. Sad that both houses are gone, but it's not surprising in light of the situation and I'll say tha the Statehouse does look good with its expansions. I've read the John Hancock like the high life, having a coat with diamond buttons on it. --- Ken, your video has me thinking of a book I read in school many years ago and that you and your viewers may have read also: "Johnny Tremain" by Esther Forbes, the story of a boy who is learning to be a silversmith in Boston at the time of the American Revolution. Excellent book for young and not-so-young readers.
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  13. All those terraces are quite a sight, and as a person who has arthritis the most I could do with them is just enjoy the view from the top level! More seriously it makes me wonder how much of the terraces and gardens and grounds and of the house itself were actually used and enjoyed by the residents. I hope that at least some of the fixture and fittings of the house was removed and re-purposed. In the town where I live we have the Re-Store for just that purpose and I think it may be connected with the Goodwill organization.
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  14. Great video, Ken. I particularly enjoyed the drawings showing the growth of the house. I was at Mount Vernon in 1970 when I was nine year old. Now that I'm way older I would appreciate the experience even more along with the porch facing the Potomac. What a great place to sit in a chair and read a book and enjoy the view. I've read that the cupola on the roof of Mount Vernon is 18 inches off-center, but I can't remember why! I was reading in a book about the dishes and furniture and such that are in the White House (though President Washington and the First Lady never actually occupied the mansion) and was surprised to learn that the Washingtons were criticized in their day for what was then considered a lavish lifestyle while compared to the wealthy of today George and Martha lived well but rather simply.
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  15. Just a tiny part of a beautiful home, but I noticed how at 4:15 we see an interior door with window panes in it, allowing for natural light to extend further into the interior even when the door is closed.
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  16. All of these houses are great. I like the exterior of the first house but the interior of the Arizona house is great. Along with Wrigley Field in Chicago there is also the Wrigley Building by the Chicago River that flows through the downtown area; it's a beautiful building from the past and still in use.
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  17. Disgraceful that the Kahn's had to deal with anti-Semitism. I hope things went better for them on Long Island.
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  18. I was at my local library's bookstore just this afternoon and saw one of my favorite books ever: "Fortune's Children -- The Fall of the House of Vanderbilt" by Arthur T. Vanderbilt. You may already be familiar with this book, but if you're not I highly recommend. I could hardly stop reading it once I started.
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  19. I'll take the Dining Room or the Gold Room; the others are too much for me. I've read quite a bit about the mansions of the U.S. but I don't recall ever hearing about Idle Hour before. Thank you, Ken, for introducing us to this lesser-known Vanderbilt house!
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  20. I enjoy seeing the huge mansions of people such as the Vanderbilts, but it's also nice to see a house that is on a smaller, more human scale. I wonder what the reasoning was for changing the beautiful exterior. I also wonder what the inside looks like. I hope it hasn't been divided and subdivided in apartments with stark white walls and miniscule kitchen areas bathrooms with too many mirrors like I see on videos about N.Y.C. apartments.-- I'd like to read one of Paul Ford's novels. He's an author I'd not heard of before; maybe a forerunner of Louis Auchincloss, another high-society author and who died in 2010.
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  21. Seeing those interiors: Oh, yes. Now I remember why I'm working toward minimalism. The outside in both forms: really not for me. Still, I say good for Mrs. Hearst for creating a house that was her own and for her wonderful philanthropic work.
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  22. Both excellent houses, but my preference is Belcaro. --- And speaking of Pittsburgh and families involved in steel production, I'd like to recommend the 1942 novel "The Valley of Decision" by Marcia Davenport. It starts in 1879 when a young Irish girl becomes a servant in the house of a wealthy Pittsburgh family and is about how her life becomes involved with the lives of the family she works for and also about people in her own family, how she is a bridge between what might be considered two different cultures in the same town. The story goes to the early days of World War II. One part is about when ice-dammed waters in the mountains hit the city. Gregory Peck and Jessica Tandy are in the movie. Great story! As good now as when first written.
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  23. I could make a residence out of just that upstairs hallway!
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  24. If my memory is right the brother who went out had some secret way in and out of the house that no one figured out.
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  25. Thank you, Ken ,for all the information you bring us. Not only had I never heard of this house, I'd never even heard of the owner! I hope that at least some of the fittings and artwork from the mansion were saved before demoltion. Sad that the house is gone but it's great that the grounds are a park rather than a housing development or the location of strip malls.
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  26. All of the homes here are great but, I think I'd go with Hillwood. I like the penthouse on Fifth but, I don't like heights! This is an obscure house but, here goes: I saw an "America's Castles" episode about the Vanderbilt mansion in Hyde Park along the Hudson River. There were one or two photographs of the mansion that first stood on that location. It has been owned by the Astors and the design was based on the White House though a little more ornate. I'd like to know more about that lost Astor house but I suspect there isn't much surviving information.
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  27. Loved it, Ken. A remarkable house and an even more remarkable woman. Great to see someone make their life useful and it was an added treat to see and hear Mrs. Sabin speaking. --- Lately there was a lot of coverage about possibly demolishing the house where Marilyn Monroe lived at the time of her death and of giving the house historic landmark status. Maybe the subject for an upcoming video?
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  28. All of the rooms were in good taste: beautiful and grand but on a human scale. I would call the Homestead a particularly liveable place.
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  29. Since the Edward Stotesbury the original owner was so good with numbers i wonder if he realized the house and estate were impractical and ultimately uneconomical and simply wasn't concerned about what happened after he and his were gone. Or maybe people back then believed the money and prosperity would just contine. It would be interesting to know which applied to the Stotesburys. I was once reading about the mansions of Euclid Avenue in Cleveland, a millionaires' row, and learned that a number of the mansions only stood for a short time: some of the owners had clauses in their will that after their deaths the houses were to be demolished. What a waste. I'm glad I'm working toward minimalism!
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  30. I love it! I'm trying to picture Cash in one of those apartments saying, "...and a sink sprayer. Could you make this work for you?" He would also warn us about any Dunkin' Donuts franchises in the area. Vanderbilts and cash, Vanderbilts and Cash, I think I see a workable arrangement here!
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  31. I can see how some people would be disturbed at part of English houses or entire houses being shipped to America, but doing so has preserved so much that might have been lost and especially after World War II when many old English houses were actually blown up. The loss is appalling. I read about this in the book "No Voice From the Hall -- Early Memories of a Country House Snooper" by John Harris, 1998. Ken , this is a different kind of house and in a much different situation, but would you consider, if possible, making a video about Grey Gardens?
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  32. Another winner, Ken! I enjoyed the picture shown at :13. I recognize it from the dust jacket of the excellent 1948 historical fiction novel "Prairie Avenue" by Arthur Meeker. I don't have a favorite mansion but I'm partial to the Second Empire style and there were some excellent examples of that style in Chicago. If I could live in such a house I'd happily stay there year-round, no need for me to have a multiple houses. And during a Chicago winter I would not only stay in town I would stay indoors for days on end!
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  33. An especially beautiful home and a sickening waste that it was torn down.
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  34. Ken, maybe you or one of your viewers knows more about this and can add a comment, but my recollection is that some kind of change was made to the house or maybe someone moved into a different bedroom because a femae nude statue was put up across the street and the Vanderbilts didn't want to see it! Also wasn't Cornelious Vanderbilt or maybe his wife a Sunday school teacher? ---- Good thing Mrs. Vanderbilt had the good sense to sell and vacate the house before the stock market crash three years later. She might have gotten far, far less for the house and property. ---- For me the house is overwhelming that none of the room appeal to me that much though there might have been some nice sitting rooms that were not documented. The outside was beautiful though.
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  35. Fascinating ---as always! Such a beautiful house yet the setting for so much sadness and tragedy. Ken, you and your viewers might be interested in the fascinating books "This Crazy Thing Called Love: the Golden World and Fatal Marriage of Ann and Billy Woodward" by Susan Braudy, published in 1992. It's a can't-put-it-down book and shows how Ann Woodward's killing of her husband really was a terrible accident. Mr. Woodward's death was a fluke because Ann was using a gun that ordinarily wouldn't have had the power to kill her husband.
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  36. I was thinking the same thing: Chicago was a new town on the prairie, there were no old money families unless they came from elsewhere and I don't think there were. It's odd that the Leiters were shut out. Maybe because they had what might be considered a Jewish name? If you haven't already read it, you might be interested in the book "Mary Curzon: The Story of the the Heiress From Chicago Who Married Lord Curzon, Viceroy of India" by Nigel Nicolson. I read that no American has ever gone higher than Mary Leiter Curzon in English royalty though I wonder if it's more accurate to say "English society" instead. I'm not sure if the Curzons are part of the royal family.
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  37.  @TimeWarp2000  Excellent point. That house was well built. I doubt many houses built in recent decades could support that enormous weight even for a short time if at all.
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  38. I love Shirley Jackson's work! "...and whatever walked there walked alone". I've encountered various stories about the origin of Hill House. I've read that at least some inspiration for Hill House came from a house the Shirley Jackson got just a glimpse of in New York City, a place she found malevolent but could never locate again; maybe it was just how the house looked at a certain time under certain conditions. A California origin seems more likely though, to my surprise, in a books Walker Evans photos I saw a large 19th century house surrounded by hills and the name of the family that lived there was Crain, the same name as the original owners of the mansion in the novel. I also read a magazine article once about an historic home on the East Coast here inthe U.S. (I don't recall the name or location and I gave the article to another Jackson fan) and the house has a couryard with just a regular door and that seems to serve no purpose. That and maybe other features of the house made me wonder if Shirley Jackson got some ideas or inspiration from there for Hill House. In a biography I read of Shirley Jackson there was a photo of the floor plan she made for part of the mansion. I wouldn't be surprised if Hill House is a compostite of differnt houses but I also wouldn't be surprised if most of that inspiration is from the Crocker mansion. Have you ever read Shirley Jackson's story "Charles"?It's as funny as "...Hill House" is spooky! I hope I haven't gone on too long. I love mansions and I love Shirley Jackson's writing!
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  39. A beautiful house built for comfortable, gracious living and not to be overwhelming and way beyond human scale. I like the whole place, that gallery sure looks like a nice place to spend time with a good book or visiting or just looking out the window. Ken, you might be interested in making a video about Hull House in Chicago. It started out as a private home then was part of the Hull House complex started by Jane Adams for serving low-income people and is now a museum. It's a beautiful house with a great story.
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  40. I know just what you mean! That round tower in the right angle of the house might be called its signature feature. Not only was I a huge "Dark Shadows" fan, but I remember watching the very first episode of "Scooby-Doo"!
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  41. Loved it, Ken! I've long been interested in the White House and its history. Thank you for all the time and work that went into this video. It was a pleasure to watch and listen to. Whatever one's politics the White House is a fascinating house. --- I've read that Abigail Adams hung up the washing to dry in one of the unfinished rooms of the mansion. I've also read that Mary Lincoln was doing some decorating during the Civil War and Abraham Lincoln' didn't approve of "...flubdubs for this damned old house". Jacqueline Kennedy did so much for the Executive Mansion, but the work she started continued after she left and was still being done by Pat Nixon. -- Some of the Tiffany interiors look absoutely...well, interesting...but it would have been something to see them in real life or in color photographs. --- BTW I was suprised to see at 7:26 a pair of menorahs of the Jewish faith on the mantelpiece. I wonder the story is behind them.
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  42. Over and over: a beautiful house gone in a few decades when it could have stood and been used for centuries. I'm sure it's another example of the land being more valuable than the house. I hope a lot of the fittings and fixtures were saved though I suppose that's unlikely. I wonder if Mr. Marquand and others who commissioned mansions here in the U.S. knew that the houses were not likely to exist for very long. Marquand is a rather unusual name. I wonder if Henry Marquand is related to the author John P. Marquand the novelist who some time after Henry Marquand's lifetime wrote "The Late George Apley" which is about upper-class Bostonians rather than New Yorkers. John Marquand wrote a number of other novels that I believe are about wealthy people and he wrote stories about the character Mr. Moto who I think was a spy or detective. I know of the author's work, but so far have read only one of his books!
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  43. I find the interiors of Eagle Rock to be the overall best in the mansions we've seen. I noticed that the stairway decorations by the pipe organ had a musical, harp-like feature in the metal work.
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  44. All the houses are great in their own way, but the one I like best is the dis-asssembled plantation house. Though not rebuilt I'm glad to see that materials used so well.
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  45. Wonderful presentation, Ken! I appreciate learning about the people who designed and built the remarkable houses you feature. I hope you'll come visit we Hoosiers here in Indiana. Down along the Ohio River and across from Kentucky we have the Lanier House in Madison, Indiana. It's a restored mansion overlooking the river and to the side of the central hall is a curving staircase set in a space that could be used as a missile silo! It's a LONG way from top to bottom. Madison went through a long period of having much of its downtown closed up because of economic conditions related to the steepness of the ground on which the railroad tracks were located and now parts of the town are a museum. Along with the Lanier house there is the Shrewsbury house and other places to visit that had become unintentional time capsules.
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  46. Well, that was a surprise. Ken, i work at Indiana University where David Starr Jordan was once President of the University. Because of his beliefs about race and eugenics and because of cancel culture, a street named after Jordan has been re-named. The Biology building is Jordan Hall and some people want it re-named. A creek that flows through the campus for many years has been known as the Jordan River (though that may have nothing to to with the former President as it's a Biblical reference) has been re-named the Campus River, again as part of cancel culture. I think this is an example of people of one era putting their standards and beliefs onto the people of an other era. Anyway, I hadn't realized the former University President was quite THAT much of a character.
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  47. I remember being in Cleveland when I was in elementary school in the beginning of the 1970's, just after the incident in which the river caught on fire. Cleveland was a joke in that time, mocked even on television programs, but even as a fifth and sixth grader I noticed curbs made of marble and how in Terminal Tower, a beautiful building, the escalators were partly made of wood, maybe from when the building first opened in 1928, showing that quality lasts. I'm glad things have gotten better for Cleveland.
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  48. I saw a picture of this house in a children's books I was reading many years ago. I was maybe six years old and the house bothered me, it was so strange. I still find the house unappealing, to put it mildly, partly because I have a bad early memory of it even from a photo, but some of those interiors are great.
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  49. I had the experience some years back of having to be professionally involved with someone who turned out to be a pathological liar. I found out that for him, conning people and lying was just natural and was simply who and what he was and probably still is. This man didn't seem to have any trouble going through life deceiving or trying to deceive people. Maybe he even believed his lies while he was lying. I don't understand it--- or want to understand it.
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  50. Thank you, Ken! I've been intrigued with this house for a long time. To me the Stewart mansion has something of a "Great Expectations/Miss Havisham quality to it. I've read that though the Stewarts had a house that could hold many people for entertaining the couple did little or no entertaining, maybe have one or a few people over now and then. That huge house that could have had so much activity and so many guests yet just two people who were owners and probably a few servants lived in it. Ken, you may be familiar with the Dove book "Fifth Avenue, 1911, From Start to Finish in Historic Block-by-Block Photographs", edited by Christopher Grey. It shows the whole length of both side of Fifth Avenue in photographs. On page 39 is a large free-standing, maybe Italian-style house and the caption says, "Miss Mary A. Wendel/No. 442". The house is five stories high if you count the attic and six stories if there was a basement. Speaking of Miss Havisham, I don't know how long Miss Wendel lived in the house that had been her father's, whether she went out much or had people over, but I read that she died in 1934 without ever having had running water or electricity installed. I wouldn't be surprised if the house was a time capsule of the 1800's but how far back I don't know. I doubt there are enough photos or enough information for a This House video but what a story there must have been at 442 Fifth Avenue!
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