Gilded Age barons of industry constructed extravagant homes—year-round mansions and summer “cottages”—that were more palaces to their wealth than practical residences. Notable families like the Vanderbilts, Carnegies, and Astors once had houses dotted across New York City and throughout fashionable summer retreats like Newport, Rhode Island. Many of these elaborate structures have since fallen to the ravages of time, with the staggering costs of upkeep rendering their use as private residences all but obsolete. Yet, though some of these private homes have disappeared, our curiosity about them has only increased. Since HBO’s hit show The Gilded Age debuted, interest in visiting the era’s architectural marvels has surged, and in Newport, which is home to one of the country’s largest concentrations of Gilded Age mansions, there’s been a steady rise in visitors touring the town’s mansions specifically because of the show.
Visiting the opulent, and often wildly impracticable, mansions that inspired the fictional lives of The Gilded Age’s characters has its charms, but rather than just taking a tour, why not spend the night? Up and down the East Coast, a handful of Gilded Age mansions are preserved not as museums, but as hotels—inviting curious travellers to do more than just visit and admire the history, but to sleep within the jewel boxes of their walls.
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Castle Hill Inn
Castle Hill Inn is inside a different kind of Gilded Age mansion, one that turns to timber and antiquities over marble and gilding. The home’s original owner, Alexander Agassiz, was a Harvard professor of natural sciences who made his fortune in copper mining. With his newfound wealth, Agassiz built his summer home—Castle Hill—on a relatively isolated parcel of forty acres, a fifteen minute drive away from the pomp and pageantry of the Vanderbilt’s side of town. He used the home as a summer research lab, hosting students in its many rooms and running the lab in what is today the parlor, while also entertaining a who’s who of literary luminaries, including Edith Wharton and Mark Twain.
Today, Castle Hill Inn is one of the most famous places to stay in Newport, not only for its luxurious rooms, afternoon tea, and award-winning restaurant, but also for its sweeping ocean-front lawn and seaside views. Thorton Wilder lived in the turret suite—Agassiz’s former observatory and today the hotel’s most beautiful room—while writing his last book, and Grace Kelly lived in one of the beach cottages during the 1955 filming of “High Society.” Stopping by Castle Hill Inn for a drink and taking a short walk to its still in-use lighthouse remains a summer essential in Newport, but there is nothing quite like staying the night.
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Hotel Chanler
Hotel Chanler is, unlike Castle Hill, right in the thick of Newport’s Gilded Age neighbourhood, and it’s clear from its location that it was built (to use a period expression) to keep up with the Joneses. The opulent mansion was constructed in 1873 as the summer “cottage” of New York Congressman John Winthrop Chanler and his wife Margaret Astor Ward. Chanler hosted an elaborate range of guests at his summer home, including President Theodore Roosevelt and poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. The home, which Chanler called “Cliff Lawn,” was the very first mansion to be built on the Cliff Walk, now a public walkway with views of these historic homes. Over the years, the mansion went from being a private residence to a museum and later a girl’s school. It wasn’t until 2003 that it opened as the twenty-room Chanler Hotel. Today, it’s ornately decorated in various period-specific styles such as Regency, Louis XVI, Renaissance, and English Tudor. This spring, The Chanler opened a more pared down restaurant, Remy’s Loose. Remy’s feels fit for Mr. Chanler and his guests, who we can imagine sprawling out across the chenille, fringed edged slipper chairs, and enjoying the just fussy-enough French menu.
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The Fifth Avenue Hotel
The Fifth Avenue Hotel, which opened its doors in late 2023, has a multi-layered history rooted in the Gilded Age. In 1856, legendary hostess and doyenne of New York society, Charlotte Goodridge, commissioned the construction of a lavish private home and carriage house at the coveted corner of Fifth Avenue and 28th Street. Goodridge filled her mansion with treasures from around the globe and entertained lavishly. But following her death, Goodridge’s home met the same fate as much of the neighborhood and was torn down. However, rather than being replaced by a skyscraper like much of the surrounding area, Goodridge’s mansion was reborn in 1907 as a striking five story neo-Renaissance palazzo design by McKim, Mead & White, the architects behind many of the New York’s most famous early 20th century buildings including The Morgan Library and Museum, the Bowery Savings Bank, and the Metropolitan Club. More recently, a decades-long renovation overseen by Flâneur Hospitality, Martin Brudnizki Design Studio, and architect Perkins Eastman transformed the building into a 153-room hotel, with a restored limestone and brick façade, an added-in glass tower, a ballroom fit for a Goodridge party, and a European inspired restaurant, Café Carmellini. The hotel now has a Gilded Age-inspired look, complete with polished marble floors, grand arched windows, rich color palettes, and art and curiosities from around the world.
Hotel Bardo
Opened just last year, Hotel Bardo is arguably one of the most buzzed-about new hotels in the South. But the Bardo’s history extends much further back. It was built in 1888 as a private home for Lewis Kayton, a businessman from Baltimore who settled in Savannah. Kayton tapped architects Alfred Eichberg and Hyman Witcover to create his brick and terracotta mansion right on the city’s central Forsyth Park. In the nearly 140 years of its existence, the Romanesque Revival building has served as a private home, a funeral home, and an inn before becoming Hotel Bardo. The original Lewis Kayton home now functions as the hotel’s coastal Italian restaurant, Saint Bibiana. Though it remains true to its original bones, the space also feels decidedly modern, thanks to its playful touches and large-scale, panoramic paintings. A rear addition houses 149 guest rooms that feel very contemporary with their rattan accents and hues of pink, nude, and green. A large pool, glass roofed terrace, and a brand-new spa, which feels more like a wellness retreat, further bring the home into the present day.
Greyfield Inn
Built in 1900 as a summer retreat for Margaret Ricketson, the niece of steel industrialist, philanthropist, and Gilded Age titan Andrew Carnegie, Greyfield was a private home for decades before being turned into a hotel in 1964. Today, it’s the only hotel on the eighteen-mile-long Cumberland Island, and remains a highly coveted escape thanks to its 200-acre property filled with live oaks, marshland, and surroundings complete with wild horses and pristine white sand beaches. The Carnegie family still owns the property, making the luxurious hotel still feel a bit like a private home. Family portraits still hang on the walls, and the fourteen guest rooms are filled with antiques and Carnegie family heirlooms including Tiffany lamps, Chippendale furniture, and horsehair chairs. Plus, the Inn’s library is stocked with classic and first editions owned by the Carnegies.
Glenmere Mansion
New York City real estate tycoon Robert Goelet looked toward the Hudson Valley town of Chester to build his vast country escape. The result was Glenmere, a hilltop mansion designed by leading Gilded Age architects Carrere and Hastings. Completed in 1911, the home drew heavily on the European style popular in that period, and Glenmere’s architects filled the home with pieces sourced from across France and Italy, including marble columns, fountains, hand carved mantlepieces, and a surplus of furniture. For the grounds, Goelet tapped Beatrix Farrand, largely considered to be America’s first female landscape architect, who created a sunken Italianate Garden that led to the house’s own lake, Glenmere Lake. Murals by artist Alden Twachtman adorned the center courtyard of the home and Italian-style iron balustrades and window grilles were specially designed and created by master blacksmith, Samuel Yellin. Goelet enjoyed his retreat for nearly 25 years, but after his death it went through many chapters, transforming into a hotel and then back into a private home. Glenmere was purchased in 2010 by Alan Stenberg and Daniel DeSimone, and underwent a multi-year renovation to turn it, once again, into a hotel. Palm Beach interior designer Scott Snyder breathed some new life into the property, and although today’s look feels more contemporary than historic, many of the rooms take their names from icons of the past, like the Vanderbilt Suite and the Goelet Suite. With just fifteen rooms and 150 acres, the hotel feels like a true private hideaway. And Glenmere’s sprawling spa makes use of enough marble to make even a Vanderbilt jealous.
The Ivy Hotel
Preserved in its Gilded Age style, the Ivy Hotel in Baltimore's historic Mount Vernon neighborhood is an ode to the past. Built in 1889 for John Gilman, a prosperous banker and industrialist, the home was designed by architect Charles Carson, who was also behind other Baltimore landmarks like the Grand Masonic Venue and the Methodist Church. Carson designed a home that spoke to the opulent style of the time, with a staggering 23 fireplaces, elaborately carved wood wainscoting, leaded glass windows, stained glass accents, a turret, skylights, wall murals, and a grand central staircase climbing three stories. Gilman unfortunately passed away before his home was completed, but his widow lived in the home for several years before selling. A series of deep-pocketed owners called the building home until it was donated to the Baltimore Parks and Recreation Department and later used by the mayor in the 1980s to house visiting dignitaries. After a total rehabilitation, the John Gilman house opened as a hotel in 2015. Interior designer Joszi Meskan was tapped to bring the property to life, reimagining it as the home of a well-traveled woman of the world, filled with exquisite treasures and sumptuous attention to detail with nine suites, eight guest rooms, a library, and conservatory. Today, the Ivy is Baltimore’s most luxurious boutique hotel with just the eighteen-rooms, and one of the best restaurants in the city: Magdalena.
This article was first seen on ELLE Decor.