Monday, July 5, 2010

'Picket Farm'

'Picket Farm', the Albert Ludlow Kramer estate designed by Peabody, Wilson & Brown c. 1918 on the Old Westbury/Jericho border. Kramer, a descendant of four prominent Philadelphia families, was a lawyer and in 1912 was appointed vice president of the Equitable Trust Company of New York. In 1914 he became president of the Electric Properties Company, a holding concern for Westinghouse public utilities. He retired in 1916, building 'Picket Farm' soon after. During his retirement he wrote a number of books with his wife, Alice Bishop Kramer, and was a war work secretary for the Y.M.C.A. during World War I. He died in 1948 at the age of 70. 'Picket Farm' burned down in 1977, click HERE to see where it stood on google earth.


Click below to see 'Picket Farm' intact in a 1966 aerial shot. Pictures from Art World, 1918.

4 comments:

An Aesthete's Lament said...

A handsome house but not especially distinguished. Though I have always had a weakness for porticos. And the fretwork on the roofline adds a note of swankiness.

Anonymous said...

Next door was "Dogwood".

http://wikimapia.org/#lat=40.7867804&lon=-73.551321&z=16&l=0&m=b&show=/3999674/Dogwood-Maple-Run

Read again Monica Randall's book for a nostalgic look back before Picket Farm burned.

Zach has mentioned this book -

http://www.archive.org/details/americanestatesg00ferruoft -

Many LIGC estates plus MANY other grand estates and gardens - all online.

Keeping with my earlier summer-themed trivia question - When you think halter top what LIGC figure should come to mind???

Anonymous said...

New improvements to the site I see. No more cut and paste required.

Turner Pack Rats said...

considering the amount of money they must have made from these condos, i'll bet it had a little help in burning down. looks like it wasn't his father that this Hamlet hated.
another "Tara" bites the dust.
it might not show but i'm a portico fan too and this one has em front and back and a lot of other cute touches like sun rooms and second floor bay windows and that fence around the chimneys really helps to break up the massive verticality. all in all, a nice impressive country house with many interesting touches and too bad its gone.

security word def = "photstio" - Italian for "a Kodak moment"