Monday, November 5, 2012

'Spring Hill' After Hurricane Sandy

Some of the tree damage from Hurricane Sandy suffered at 'Spring Hill', formerly the Henry Carnegie Phipps estate in Old Westbury.  The estate lost dozens of trees in the storm (I stopped counting around 50) with about half being toppled over and the others being chewed up and spit out by the winds.  In some sections whole stands of trees were blown out and while many big, old trees came down none of the large Beech trees planted by the Olmsted Brothers were destroyed (or even suffered much damage).  Click HERE and HERE for more on 'Spring Hill'.

Between Hurricanes Irene and Sandy the entrance allee has been reduced to this.  HERE is what it looked like in 2008.

Moving up the hill at about 250 feet above sea level.  For some perspective, the tree in the photo above left about a 7 foot in diameter hole in the ground.  The construction trailer below had branches come crashing down on it causing the windows to blow out and the roof to collapse.


These two trees were at least 60 feet tall.


The wall didn't appear to suffer tremendously from the tree crashing onto it and seemed not that much worse off than it had been before Sandy's arrival.


7 comments:

HalfPuddingHalfSauce said...

Are houses being built on the property now? Any damage to them?

Zach L. said...

Yes and I don't know but I don't think so.

I'm sure you've looked at wikimapia...you can see what is being built on there.

HalfPuddingHalfSauce said...

No I hadn't looked lately.

HalfPuddingHalfSauce said...

I can't make out the initials in the scroll-work of the gate?

Zach L. said...

Always looked like HCP to me.

The front gate at OWG says JSP.

Anonymous said...

Yes, a mess overall. Had I not toured Grand Central Terminal's innermost bowels recently I confess I may have doubted the veracity of your conclusion regarding the state of the wall, storm damage or not. Much of the terminal's understructure too is largely hollow, held in place with metal support, same as pictured in your IMG_5501.jpg of that section showing total disintegratition above the center arch.

Lynn said...

The wrought iron work on Spring Hill gate and other places of the era is pure elegance in iron, nearly impossible to duplicate today.