Saturday, January 8, 2011

Putting a Face to an Estate 7

Goodhue Livingston (pictured with Mrs. Oren Root). Below, his estate 'Old Trees' designed by himself c. 1911 in Southampton. Click HERE for more on 'Old Trees'.


Henry P. Davison (pictured in 1913). Below, his estate 'Peacock Point' designed by Walker & Gillette c. 1914 in Lattingtown. Click HERE for more on 'Peacock Point'.


7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Peacock Point....one of my favorites.

Love the photos of Goodhue and Oren.....not to mention their names!!!

Gary Lawrance said...

What I like best about the picture is how they are dressed for the beach!

The Down East Dilettante said...

A dozen years ago I sat next to Louisa Kennedy, Goodhue Livingston's granddaughter, at a dinner party. The conversation got around to this house--the usual sort of stuff--how much the family had hated to give it up, that her grandfather considered it one of his best works, and that he had modeled it after an ancestral home. She then referenced which house, and unlikely as it sounds, memory serves me that it was Montgomery Place, way up the Hudson. Of course they don't resemble each other in any way, but who knows.

An Aesthete's Lament said...

Davison's grandson Jimmy Davison was the companion of British decorator Nicky Haslam.

Anonymous said...

D.E.D.,

Might she have meant Clermont, the old house at Germantown, NY, which was burned by the British in 1777 and quickly rebuilt by Margaret Beekman Livingston? I think Clermont is considered the family's "homestead" by many Livingston descendants. And the shape of Old Trees sort of reminds me of that particular Livingston house. But then again, only sort of:)

ChipSF said...

Peacock Point is a gem! I frankly did not expect Henry Davison to look like this at all. I believe I had read that he was considered to be very attractive and I don't see that here.

Down East -
I don't see Montgomery Place in Old Trees either. However, maybe that reference was to the floor plan or the layout, or the appended porches ???

Gary Lawrance said...

Old Trees is very similar in design to the Brewster estate in Muttontown. It was designed by Livingston also.
I often refer to Old Trees as a Georgian Mansion covered in shingles.
http://www.hoffmancenter.org/history/historic.htm