Thursday, November 29, 2012

'The Braes'

 'The Braes', the Herbert L. Pratt estate designed by James Brite of Brite & Bacon c. 1912 in Glen Cove.  Pratt, one of six sons of Charles Pratt, was president of the Standard Oil Company of New York.  Click HERE and HERE for more on 'The Braes' and HERE to see the estate as it looks today.  Since 1947 it has operated as The Webb Institute.  Click HERE to see 'The Braes' on google earth and HERE on bing.





Photos from Architecture, 1914.

2 comments:

The Down East Dilettante said...

How reassured, and missing the irony, Herbert Pratt must have been, as he was driven through those gates and down the drive to his mock Elizabethan mansion, to know that he was rich, conservative, and the master of a house that would do any English earl proud

ccalgirl said...

Way back in the 70's my sister and I used to know some students who went to Webb. We would go hang out in the house, stroll the grounds, look out as you stood in the front door through the body of the house and out the back, a view perfectly situated so that one was looking out over Long Island Sound. Such a beautiful, tranquil place. Sometimes it takes men of great wealth to build manses none of us could, for the rest of us to see and enjoy something made of grandeur. There is an elegant beauty in it I am glad I had the opportuniyt to experience, having grown up in Glen Cove, even though I did not grow up rich.