Thursday, March 4, 2010

'Crossroads' in 1925

I got an email from someone named Elizabeth in Bristol, U.K. who was looking for help in identifying this house. Her aunt had been a nanny in the U.S. in 1925 and had accumulated a variety of photos (including one of her with J.D. Rockefeller). She's not sure how these wound up with the rest of the photos (or who the people are in the photos themselves) but the house is William Russell Grace Jr.'s 'Crossroads' designed by James O'Connor c. 1919 in Old Westbury. The house looks in the best condition I've ever seen in these pictures.



4 comments:

The Down East Dilettante said...

What a treat it must have been to get these pictures! And what a perfect image of a gracious country home, and see how the place looked as it matured from the murkier photos in the Architectural magazines.

If the way the place looks now is an example of Feng Shui at work, I want nothing to do with serenity!

Anonymous said...

These are the best pictures I have ever seen of Crossroads. Thanks Elizabeth!

Anonymous said...

What a wonderful find! The Crossroads appears to have been recently painted and the lawn was freshly mowed too... very nice!
-- CDR from San Marino (formerly of NYC)

Turner Pack Rats said...

ah, dilletante - charmed by another colonial. i will admit that the size of this place and the age of it in these pix makes it pretty impressive. but, i say ,take off that southern belle portico and it would look like the dormitory of a good girls finishing school. nice but not much compared to rosemary's farm or applegarth. big tho' and has the tennis court to save its bacon. and i hope its just the old photography that makes the interior look so dingy. some of them have great ceiling details but leave the colonialism to new hamp and mass - they've got it handled. colonial, federal or whatever but rooms in a house this size should be big enough to hold the superbowl in.