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Wyndcliffe
Jan. 4th, 2022 10:32 amI remunerated into the early afternoon and then decided I couldn’t stand it for one more second, so I resolved to make my yearly pilgrimage to Wyndcliffe, the ruinous mansion that once belonged to Edith Wharton’s aunt.
You can only really see Wyndcliffe in the wintertime. In other seasons, the trees are too thick. It’s off S. Mills Road, that scenic, twisty little lane that runs along the river to Rhinebeck.
Still standing!
Someone else’s photo, though. My photos of Wyndcliffe never seem to come out.
Wyndcliffe imbued Edith Wharton with a lifelong loathing for gothic architecture.
It also inspired the idiom “keeping up with the Joneses”: Edith Wharton’s aunt, the one for whom Wyndcliffe was built, was called Elizabeth Schermerhorn Jones, and Wyndcliffe’s construction inspired the creation of ever more ghastly Gothic villas all up and down the Hudson Valley, culminating in the erection of the truly hideous Wilderstein, some three miles north. William B. Astor, the robber baron’s son, described the phenomenon as “keeping up with the Joneses” when he contracted to have a mansion built in Rhinebeck village proper. The Astors, you see, were new money in those days while the Jones were very old money indeed.
Today, the Rhinebeck Astor mansion is a home for autistic children. Wilderstein flourishes because it belonged to one of FDR’s girlfriends whose lawyers were smart enough to set up a preservation fund. But the Ozymandias factor is in full display with Wyndcliffe, which stands in ruins.
###
It had been a cold, forbidding day with a thick cloud cover, vestiges of the snowpocalypse to the south which took out D.C.
But then, around 4:15pm while I was driving home, the sky cleared and we had a sunset that was so spectacular, I had to pull over to the side of the road to take Art Photos™:
This morning the sky is a peerless blue, but it is super cold out, like less than 10°. More remuneration is on the menu. Also, TaxBwana training! Thankfully, by Zoom, so I can turn off the video and read. It is a useless training, but you have to show up on their body count.
You can only really see Wyndcliffe in the wintertime. In other seasons, the trees are too thick. It’s off S. Mills Road, that scenic, twisty little lane that runs along the river to Rhinebeck.
Still standing!
Someone else’s photo, though. My photos of Wyndcliffe never seem to come out.
Wyndcliffe imbued Edith Wharton with a lifelong loathing for gothic architecture.
It also inspired the idiom “keeping up with the Joneses”: Edith Wharton’s aunt, the one for whom Wyndcliffe was built, was called Elizabeth Schermerhorn Jones, and Wyndcliffe’s construction inspired the creation of ever more ghastly Gothic villas all up and down the Hudson Valley, culminating in the erection of the truly hideous Wilderstein, some three miles north. William B. Astor, the robber baron’s son, described the phenomenon as “keeping up with the Joneses” when he contracted to have a mansion built in Rhinebeck village proper. The Astors, you see, were new money in those days while the Jones were very old money indeed.
Today, the Rhinebeck Astor mansion is a home for autistic children. Wilderstein flourishes because it belonged to one of FDR’s girlfriends whose lawyers were smart enough to set up a preservation fund. But the Ozymandias factor is in full display with Wyndcliffe, which stands in ruins.
###
It had been a cold, forbidding day with a thick cloud cover, vestiges of the snowpocalypse to the south which took out D.C.
But then, around 4:15pm while I was driving home, the sky cleared and we had a sunset that was so spectacular, I had to pull over to the side of the road to take Art Photos™:
This morning the sky is a peerless blue, but it is super cold out, like less than 10°. More remuneration is on the menu. Also, TaxBwana training! Thankfully, by Zoom, so I can turn off the video and read. It is a useless training, but you have to show up on their body count.
