The Buhl Mansion

422 E. State Street

Sharon, Pennsylvania

This home was built between 1890 and 1896 at an original price of $60,000, equivalent to 2.9 million today.  Mr. Frank H. Buhl (1848-1918) was a prominent industrialist and founder of the Sharon Steel Company which later became part of US Steel. There was a time when 10,000 people lived in Sharon with 2,400 of them working in the Buhl steel mills being paid 10 cents an hour.

Buhl and his wife, Julia Anna Forker Buhl were philanthropists creating the F. H. Buhl Club for the community and the 300 acre F. H. Buhl Farm, a beautiful public park with many amenties. 

 The Romanesque Revival home was designed by noted Youngstown, Ohio architect, Charles H. Owsley.  His firm, Owsley, Bourcherie and Owsley also built St. John's Episcopal church and the F. H. Buhl Club in Sharon and the Mercer County Courthouse. 

The 14-room Richardsonian Romanesque style home was eventually purchased by Mr. and Mrs. James E. Winner who lovingly restored the home by taking on $3.5 million in extensive renovations opening the Buhl Mansion Guesthouse and Spa in 1997.  It has been on the National Register of Historic Places since 1977.  

The Buhl mansion cost $60,000 to construct which would be approximately $2.2 million in 2023.  One hundred and fifty Italian bricklayers were granted U.S. citizenship after finishing the job. A commmendable gesture by Frank H. Buhl.  

What would Frank and Julia Buhl think of those continuing to carry on their legacy?

I personally think they're smiling down.

Taylor Galaska, President of the Sharon Historical Society and guesthouse supervisor at the mansion. 

 

Whitemarsh Hall

Wyndmoor, Pennsylvania

Eva Stotesbury, chatelaine of Whitemarsh Hall

Chatelaine ("female castle keeper").  In medieval times, a chatelaine was responsible for managing the household, overseeing the servants and maintaining order within the estate. 

  A staff of 70 maintained the estate and its inhabitants.  It is estimated tht in the 18 years they lived at Whitemarsh Hall, the Stotesburys had entertained 100,000 individuals at their homes in Palm Beach, Wyndmoor and Bar Harbor. Eva ran the homes the way an executive runs a bank efficiently.  Everything was accounted for and completed.  Nothing was left unmanaged.  "She ran her household with more efficiency than any facory I was ever in" according to her son, John Cromwell who grew up to marry Dodge Motor heiress, Delphone Dodge and later Doris Duke.  Both marriages ended in divorce. 

The world came to the Stotesbury's door and as the 1920s rolled on jubilantly, the parties were varied and frequent.  They loved their lives living it up!  When the Great Crash occurred in 1929, the lifestyle was hardly curtailed.  Mr. Stotesbury built a sixth yacht, "to help the boat builders".  However, in 1932, a local radio personality named Boake Carter suggested that somebody go out to plant a bomb at Whitemarsh Hall.  Edward Stotesbury, then 84 years old, became seriously concerned about "unruly" mobs on his majestic doorstep.  He closed the house that spring and four Thompson submachine guns were installed!  

In 1924, Mr. Stotesbury purchased a 1925 Locomobile Model 48 chassis and had it refitted with a custom town car body and a collapsible roof.

Whitemarsh Hall Entrance Hall and Staircase.

Seen on the stairwell of the main entry hallway is The Flute Lesson Tapestry.  The tapestry was purchased from Duveen Brothers for $90,000.  It was sold or auctioned in 1942.  It is presently at the Cleveland Museum of Art.  The tapestry measures an impressive 12 feet long x 10 1/2 feet high. 

Whitemarsh Hall Dining Room

Whitemarsh Hall was an estate owned by banking executive Edward T. Stotesbury and his wife, Eva set on 400 acres of land.  Designed by the Gilded Age architect, Horace Trumbauer*, it was built in 1921 and demolished in 1980. Before its destruction, the mansion was the third-largest private residence in the United States and it remains the largest American house ever to be demolished on purpose.  The cost of construction was about $10 million which is equivalent to $311 million in 2024. The mansion had 6 floors though some floors were built as sub-basements.  The mansion had an impressive interior encompassing 100,000 square feet.

Main Floor 

Third Floor

This plan accurately depicts the Third Floor during the heyday of the estate (1925-1938) and identifies the occupants of some of the servant's rooms in 1930.  This floor was exclusively a female domain, except for the presence of male grandchildren or great-grandchilden staying in the family guest suites in the southwest quadrant. 

A two-mile driveway took one back to the estate through the 300 acre tract.  When the gates opened, Mrs. Stotesbury's beloved pipe organ played automatically throughout the house.  On nights and afternoons with guests arriving it played constantly. The property had its own dairy, greenhouses, barns, horses, poultry houses and even its own generator and telephone network with its own operators. 

The distance from the mansion to the Whitemarsh Hall Main Gates on Willow Grove Avenue was approximately one mile.  One mile of a now vanished vista of unmatched perfection.  This is construction photo #5054, taken on October 18, 1919.  Photo by William R. Hellerman for the George A. Fuller Construction Co. 

The mansion was larger than the White House.  When it was demolished a development of modern townhouses called Stotesbury Estates was built on the large piece of property.  

The massive limetone pillars which were part of the mansion's front portico were left as a tribute. 

Small remnants of the huge gardens still exist including a fountain, several statues, stairs and pieces of low fence and walls. The twin pillars of the estate's main gates which was one mile from the back of Whitemarsh Hall are still standing today.  A separate gate house used as the rear service entrance also exists as a private home.

A statue remaining from the Whitemarsh estate.

A remaining columned pillar of the main entrance to Whitemarsh Hall.

Whitemarsh Hall was sold to Pennsylvania Salt Manufacturing Company (Pennsalt) in October 1943.  They moved into the facility in April 1944 after the Metropolitan Museum of Art (NYC) vacated it, having removed the artworks stored there for two years for safekeeping.  After Pennsalt left in 1964, Sidney Dvorak of Willow Associates were there from 1964-1969 then Kaiserman& Neff from 1969-1979.  The final owner was Jay Cross, Contractor & Constructions Co. of Upper Darby who hired Geppert Brothers for demolition in 1980.

Sincere and numerous attempts were made to save Whitemarsh Hall, but these attempts were thwarted by Springfield Township officials and commissioners.  This was a complex and complicated time with details that led to the demolition of a time-honored treasure that was once Whitemarsh Hall.  

Horace Trumbauer

(1868-1938)

Circa 1901

*Horace Trumbauer was a prominent American architect of the Gilded Age, known for designing residential manors for the wealthy.  Later in his career he also designed hotels, office buildings and much of the campus at Duke University in Chapel Hill, NC.

 

Playa Riente

"Laughing Beach"

947 North Ocean Boulevard

Despite the Dodge's millions, towards the end of WWI Detroit's upper crust had still not given the Dodges an entry into society and so Anna persuaded her husband to buy them an estate in Palm Beach where she was determined to be with the less stuffy though bonafide east coast aristocracy.  Anna was overjoyed in 1920 when her strategic social-climbing paid off and her only daughter, Delphine married James H. R. Cromwell, son of the "Queen of Palm Beach, Eva Stotesbury.  That joy quickly turned sour after her husband died.  Just six years later in 1926 Anna found herself to be three times wealthier than her husband had ever been and she disposed of their old home in favor of the largest mansion in Palm Beach which came with the added perk of a new husband.

Playa Riente in Palm Beach was completed in 1923 for Joshua Seney Cosden (1881-1940) and his second wife, Eleanor "Nell" Neves (1887-1963).  Sitting on 27-oceanfront acres their 73-room mansion set them back $1.8 million was the largest in Palm Beach and arguably the most opulent of those designed by the famous Addison Mizner.  It was noted not only for the scale and detail of its magnificent Moorish architecture, but also for a series of stunning murals by Jose M. Sert.  After just three shorts years, the oil millionaire's newly minted fortune ran dry and he sold to auto heiress, Anna Dodge (1871-1970). 

 She didn't just take the house, she took the realtor, too, marrying "Hugh Dillman" McGaughy, 14-years her junior that same year.  Anna had met Dillman three years before while touring Venice in Italy.  Dillman had only appeared in one film, "An Amateur Widow" (1919), but a cynical mind might say that it set in motion something along the lines of a career plan.  In the film, his character ends up marrying a very wealthy widow.  In real life on May 8, 1926 he married Mrs. Dodge, whose investments gave her an income of $1.5 million a year.  On the marriage certificate, the blushing bride gave her age as 49, but in fact she was 55.  He was 41.

The handsome and charming civic leader, Dillman was The Everglades Club's president whose wealthy wife owned an iconic island manse where the couple's soirees were the talk of the town though not everyone understood what gave Dillman deep satisfaction being a farmer or perhaps "gentleman farmer" is a more apropos description. 

Hugh Dillman McCaughy

(1885-1956)

Circa 1921

Hugh and Anna eventually divorced though for just over twenty years, Hugh enjoyed an annual allowance in excess of $100,000 and a trust fund worth $6 million.  Despite separating in 1940 and divorcing in 1947, Anna always gave him credit as being the one who "taught me how to have fun with my money".  After their divorce, Hugh continued to run his real estate business in Palm Beach and eventually retired to the former Samuel Prescott Bush mansion "Marble Cliff" in Columbus, Ohio. After Dillman's death, the house became the Sisters' Residence at St. Raphael's, as it remains today. 

Anna and Hugh were separated in 1940 and divorced in 1947 though Anna never failed to credit Hugh for her metamorphosis from a tight-fisted mechanic's wife to someone whose staff and family alike would dub "The Queen" and the owner of one of the most important collections of French 18th Century art and antique.

At Playa Riente, Hugh and Anna presided over countless parties that saw Anna start what would become her trademark piece d resistance for all her parties both in Palm Beach and at her magnificent home in Detroit:  a swan carved from ice filled to overflowing with the finest Beluga Caviar.  It was at this home that she celebrated her most important social triumph, when she and Hugh hosted the newly married Duke and Duchess of Windsor.  Anna's yacht, SS Delphine, glittered at the end of the pier.  The gardens glowed with a soft light from hundreds of Chinese lanterns and two full orchestras played until the last guest left the party. 

And the fountains literally flowed with champagne! 

By 1952, Anna conceded that it was impossible to run Playa Riente without "a suitable staff of servants".  The last happy event to take place was in 1953, the fifth and final marriage of Anna's 52-year old son, Horace Jr.  

 In 1954, Anna held a 3-day auction of the contents of the house which drew a record crowd of 2,500.  In 1957, after losing a five-year legal battle to have the town's zoning laws changed to allow Playa Riente to be used as a club or a school, Anna razed what had been the crown jewel of Palm Beach and sold off the land in lots for development. 

With Playa Riente meaning "Laughing Beach", one wonders who got the last laugh?

 

Casa Bendita

"blessed house"

..set on a ridge facing the Atlantic ocean..

This home was designed in 1922 for US Steel heir, John S. Phipps and his wife Margarita Grace.  It set on a 28-acre property that ran from the ocean to the intracoastal waterway.  Carefully designed for indoor-outdoor life, capturing the breezes, providing cool shade and sunny terraces with romantic vistas, exempified architect, Addison Mizner at his best.  

The house, a Spanish fantasy by the sea could not have been more different from the splendors of the Phipps's famous Georgian country estate at Old Westbury on Long Island.  

Westbury House

71 Old Westbury Road

Old Westbury, New York

Westbury House situated on 200 acres is part of Old Westbury Gardens, the former estate of businessman John Shaffer Phipps.  The dwelling was built by George A. Crawley in the Carolean Revival style of architecture.  

John Phipps died in 1958 and in 1961 his children ordered Casa Bendita to be razed and the property to be subdivided. 

With the estate was the Casa Bendita Gazebo built in 1921 which has been demolished though it was rebuilt by Preservation Foundation of Palm Beach and is now located in  Bradley Park.  The original gazebo was one of the last links to the fabled John S. Phipps estate.  

The new Casa Benita Gazebo 

in memory of the gazebo on the John S. Phipps' Palm Beach estate.

Bradley Park

Palm Beach, Florida 

 

Legendary architect Addison Mizner created the "Palm Beach look" and much of Florida's architectural style today. 

Addison Cairns Mizner

(1872-1933

Addison Mizner was born in Benicia, California and died in Palm Beach, Florida.

He was an American architect whose Mediterranean Revival and Spanish Colonial Revival style interpretations changed the character of South Florida, where the style is continued by architects and land developers.  During the 1920s Mizner was perhaps the best-known living American architect.  Palm Beach, Florida, which he "transformed" was his home and most of his designed homes are there.  He believed architecture should also include interior and garden design.

Addison Mizner's vision in the 1920s was instrumental in shaping another Florida city, Boca Raton.  He shaped it into a grand resort city inspired by the mediterranean and Moorish styles.  Although his grand development project was halted by the Florida land boom collapse and a hurricane, his architectural influence remains evident in structures like the Boca Raton Resort & Club and the city's Mediterranean Revival architecture. 

Addison Mizner was known as a "society architect" designing lavish estates and buildings for the wealthy in Palm Beach before turning his attention to Boca Raton. He popularized a style blending a Spanish, Italian and Central American architectural elements which became the defiining aesthetic for both Palm Beach and Boca Raton. 

Mizner envisioned Boca Raton as a luxurious resort city with canals, gondolas, a grand hotel and elegant homes connected by a Royal Highway. In 1925, Mizner and his brother Wilson established the Mizner Development Corporation with substantial financial backing. He bought ast acreage to create a playground for the wealthy, beginning construction on the Cloister Inn which would evolve into the Boca Raton Resort & Club. Key constructions included the Administration Building (now City Hall).

Boca Raton, an unincorporated small farming town that was established in 1896 became the site of Mizner's most famous development project. 

Notable works were The Everglades Club and President John F Kennedy's "La Querida" in Palm Beach.   

The Everglades Club

356 Worth Avenue

Palm Beach, Florida 

The Everglades Club is an exclusive, historic private club designed by Addison Mizner founded in 1919. It was Mizner's first Florida commission.  Originally planned as a hospital called the Touchstone Convalescent Club it was used to serve wounded soldiers during WWI.  The original complex included the main building, eight villas, tennis courts, a yacht basin and a golf course. It was later transformed into a social and athletic club by Paris Singer, the heir to the Singer Sewing Machine Company fortune.  The Club is known for its Mediterranean-inspired architecture, its golf and tennis facilities. The Club quickly became a central institution for Palm Beach society, hosting high-profile members and events. 

The Everglades Club is an exclusive club that is drenched in secrecy.  Cell phones are prohibited and members are rarely publicly identified.  The Everglades Club has been the pre-eminent social club in Palm Beach since the early 1900s with rumored members including presidents, politicians and titans of industry. The estimated initiation cost is $100,000+ including annual dues. 

The Everglades Club was designated a landmark in 1980. 

La Querida

1095 North Ocean Boulevard

Palm Beach, Florida

Circa 1965

Completed in 1923, the former Kennedy estate was built in the Mediterranean Revival style by well-known architect Addison Mizner at a cost of $50,000.  The home is most notable for serving as the "Winter White House" during the presidency of John F. Kennedy.  As of 2015, La Querida ("the dear one") contains over 15,000 sq. ft. of living space, including eleven bedrooms, twelve bathrooms and three half-bathrooms.  La Querida has been owned by a few other notable individuals since the Kennedy family sold the property in 1995 including businessman John K. Castle and real estate investor, Jane Goldman.  The currents owners are Carl (founder of Panattoni Development Company) and Mary Jane Panattoni who purchased the home in June 2020 for $70 million. 

El Mirasol

348 North Ocean Boulevard

Palm Beach, Florida 

Circa 1920

"Where parties bloomed like sunflowers".

Addison Mizner designed the 40-room El Mirasol ("The Sunflower") completed in 1919 for investment banker Edward Townsend Stotesbury, head of the town's most notable family of the time.  Stotesbury's second wife, Lucretia (Eva) Roberts Cromwell (1865-1946) was the one who convinced her husband to hire Mizner.  She added on to the mansion several times to accommodate 1,200 guests.  The estate required about 40 butlers, chambermaids, parlormaids, cooks, gardeners and housemen to keep the estate running on a full-time basis.  

Edward Townsend Stotesbury

(1849-1938)

The estate extended from the intracoastal waterway to the ocean on 42 acres. The grounds included a guest house, a 40-car garage, a Moorish-style tea house on the lake side, an auditorium, a tropical-bird aviary and a private zoo with monkeys, a "chicken run" which provided "daily fresh eggs and broilers" plus groves of citrus trees.

Sadly, El Mirasol was sold to developers and demolished in 1959 as it was the first historically grand Mediterranean Revival mansion to be built in Palm Beach though its large size and grounds were no longer viable for modern use. 

After the El Mirasol mansion was demolished in 1959, the large estate was divided and replatted for several homes called El Mirasol Estates. A tiled entrance arch and a fountain are the only remaining physical reminders of the mansion's original grandeur. 

The picnic sequence in the W. C. Fields silent film It's the Old Army Game (1926) was shot on the lawn of the mansion.  El Mirasol will always represent a significant part of Palm Beach's Gilded Age history. 

*Eva was the first mother-in-law of Doris Duke, "the richest little girl in the world".  When Stotesbury died in 1938, his $100 million fortune had dwindled to just $4 million, but Eva's astute ability to manage money allowed her to retain all of their homes, though many of their staff had to be laid off.  In  1922, Eva's daughter, Louise Cromwell, married General Douglas MacArthur in El Mirasol's living room.  Later, her son, James Henry Roberts Cromwell (1896-1990) became Doris Duke's first husband. 

Addison Mizner built the Palm Beach estate known as El Solano. It was called El Solano or "the east wind" after the hot, oppressive wind which blows off the Mediterranean sea in eastern Spain, but also for Solano County, California, Mizner's birthplace.  It is known today as an historic landmark, originally built in 1923 for Joshua Cosden, an oil magnate  and later owned by John Lennon and Yoko Ono in 1980. The estate was granted landmark protection in 1980, preserving its architectural significance.  

Mizner's personal residence and architectural studio was Villa Mizner.  It was located within the Via Mizner, a charming shopping lane Mizner designed. 

Via Mizner is an historic site and is located at 337-339 Worth Avenue.  On April 1, 1993 it was aded to the National Register of Historic Places. Via Mizner houses twenty well-known shops and businesses as well as a small number of residential apartments.  The most famed address is 1 Via Mizner, the architect's own majestic five-story, tower-like residence called Villa Mizner.  Mizner designed the top floor as a single room which he used as his office.  Sixteen windows span the four sides of his office-floor and overlook the entrie island of Palm Beach.  Mizner's pet monkey, Johnny Brown, is buried at the foot of the home's 35-by-40 living room. Via Mizner remains today exactly as Addison Mizner envisioned it to be. 

 

Casa Amado

455 North County Road

Palm Beach, Florida 

Amado means "beloved"

The home was featured in the November 2014 issue of the Architectural Digest.

Addison Mizner built Casa Amado for Charles Alexander Munn, a social arbiter known as "Mr. Palm Beach".  The 23,000-square-foot property remained in the Munn family until 2000.  In 1919, Charles built Casa Amado where he lived with his wife, Mary and their four children and twenty servants.  His brother built a home next door which made these homes the second and third homes designed by Mizner.  Charles was a founder of the Everglades Club and among the first officers and owners of the Gulf Stream club.  He also helped to found the Seminole Club and the Poinciana Club of Palm Beach. 

Charles, his siblings and children intermarried with some of the oldest, wealthiest and most socially connected American families of the twentieth century such as Wanamaker,  Pulitzer and Kellogg.  

Charles Alexander Munn, Sr.

Munn was tagged by others as "Mr. Palm Beach", "The Grand Seigneur" of Palm Beach and "The Last Gentleman".  He consistently appeared on best-dressed lists and is credited with popularizing the official uniform of the social set:  blue blazer, ascot and flannel trousers.  When Munn died many family papers and photographs including the guest register from Amado's legendary parties were donated to the Historical Society of Palm Beach County where Charles was a member of the Advisory Board.

Pucker Up

Amado's storied guestbook is the ultimate kiss and tell page turner!

A 1941 spread of names from the Amado guestbook records not only the signatures of its visiting guests, but also their preferred shade of lipstick! At the top left corner is the name, Millicent Hearst (1882-1974).  She was the wife of media tycoon, William Randolph Hearst.  Millicent Veronica Willson Hearst was a vaudeville performer in New York City whom Hearst admired and married in 1903. They were married from 1903-1951.  

Specifically, a 1937 New York Times article notes that Charles a. Munn hosted a dinner party in Palm Beach where his guests included "Mr. and Mrs. William Randolph Hearst".

Mary and Charles divorced in 1930, but he continued the house parties without her and Amado's 80-page guestbook endures as a treasure.  Inscribed by 20th-century tycoons, aristocrats and fourth wives with boldface signatures and cupid's bow lipstick imprints, it is the ultimate kiss-and-tell page turner of guestbooks. 

Pages of signatures including those of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor (top left column) from a visit in April 1941.

Rose Kennedy's lip print (bottom left corner).

  🎉  inside the party palace 🎉 

Mizner proclaimed the Spanish Revival style in the region in the 1920s.  Palm Springs may have midcentury modern, but Palm Beach has Mizner Mediterranean.  The charismatic Addison Mizner was one of the most famous architects in America in the 1920s.  Though he was not formally educatedin architecture, Mizner trained under Willis Jefferson Polk, the San Francisco designer who oversaw the construction of the Panama-Pacific International Exposition and the 1915 World's Fair before moving to New York where he mingled with the wealthy.  

The apex of Mizner's career wouldn't begin until 1918 when he visited the town of Palm Beach for his health at the suggestion of his friend, Paris Singer.  Until his arrival, the buildings of South Florida were simply pastel versions of wooden structures found in the North.  Not one to fit into the mold, Mizner started designing buildings in the Spanish style, based on nis experiences in Spain and in Latin America.