Friday, September 28, 2012
The Westbury House Interiors Part 2
The second installment of interiors to The Westbury House, the J. Watson Webb estate in Old Westbury. Click HERE for more on the Webb estate and HERE for the first series of interiors. Photos courtesy of Old Grey Dog.
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Old Westbury
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9 comments:
This home just exhudes comfort and warmth. Reminds me of a few of the homes used in many a screw-ball comedy of the 30's and 40's.
I'd hate to be the maid that has dusting duties.
The first image is that of Electra Havemeyer Webb's bedroom, followed by her husband's, J. Watson Webb, Sr. All the rest of the bedrooms were guest rooms. When any family members came they occupied any of the available rooms remaining. During the mid-1920s the children were away at school except vacations and holidays, and when home during the Westbury or Shelburne seasons took whatever bedrooms were available. Sons Sam and Watson, Jr. usually occupied the big sleeping porch shown in the third image. Yes, there were radiators in every room, and porch, if heat was needed.
Anonymous' comment, about housemaids above, reminded me of a question I asked a senior woman on a recent tour of The Breakers. A family touring at the same time were making comments, on the upper loggia, about what they had seen in the big rooms of the main floor below. I got to talking to them and asked their pre-teen children if they would like to have lived there ~ the response was affirmative and enthusiastic! When I asked the older woman, apparantly the grandmother, she replied, "Oh NO - I wouldn't want to wash all these windows!" Obviously she did not see herself in the roll of 'Mrs. Vanderbilt' !!!
This gets better and better! Thanks for the "tour" Old Grey Dog, and thanks to Zach for the great Blog. I'm lovin' it!
Warm and cozy it might be, but I find these interiors quite stressfull - the low ceilings, competing patterns and textures, all the stuff and furniture piled on top of furniture. No surface left sparse. Very claustrophobic. I want to go back outside now. That said, it is an interesting documentary on the changing tastes of the time and the precurser to eventual shifts that left the big palaces unwanted.
Glen, I tend to agree on all points--give me Sleeper's version anytime---but I've loved seeing them in these posts nevertheless, and enjoy seeing Mrs. Webb's pleasure in humble objects at play---especially given the context of her having eventually turned those impulses into a wonderful museum of art and curiousities ( a tradition her children continued when they moved several of the grand rooms from the Webb's New York apartment and placed them within a Greek Revival facade on the Shelburne grounds. I love seeing people's passions taken to the ultimate, be it Col. deLamar's giant and riotous vulgarity at Glen Cove or this haphazard version of coziness on steroids created by Mrs. Webb. Both tell us much about people, aspirations, and their times.
Hello Zach, A wonderful post on the Webbs and their lovely home. Sadly many fine pieces of their collection from the Shelburne Museum was sold by the board many years ago, causing the resignation of their son J. Watson Webb, Jr. who pointedly left no money to the museum in his will. 'Anonymous' noted that this home was reminiscent of many screwball comedies in the thirties, certainly let's add 'Philadelphia Story' to that list as well as 'Bringing Up Baby.' Well, as for Mr. Webb, Jr. he had a wonderful though brief career in Hollywood as a film editor, working on 'The Razor's Edge' and 'A Letter to Three Wives,' among two of my favorites.
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0915997/
Thanks Zach - Robert
Anonymous 5:59...those were the exact films I was thinking about, also with "Topper", "Merrily We Live", and "Mr. Blandings Builds a Dream House", there are a few others that can't come to mind right now.
disappoinying and cluttered
On passing on my way to the gardens, I always asumed that this property was part of a Bostwick estate. Now I see fields that once housed horses being readied for development. The barn/house is now up for sale.
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