Thursday, August 7, 2014

'Beacon Towers'

'Beacon Towers', originally the Mrs. O.H.P. Belmont estate designed by Richard Howland Hunt c. 1917 in Sands Point and pictured here in 1931 under subsequent owner William Randolph Hearst.  Click HERE and HERE for more on 'Beacon Towers'.  Photo from the Museum of the City of New York.

5 comments:

Magnuspetrie said...

It is an astonishing house from any angle, but it must have positively taken a viewer's breath away when approached from the Sound.

I wonder about the engineering of the whole thing- the foundation must have been a wonder in and of itself to keep the massive structure from shifting in the sandy soil.

Magnuspetrie said...

The Hearst additions and alterations, by the way, to my mind at least, detract from the sleek almost Deco-esque feel of the origional. The Hearsts may have needed more bedrooms, but the result was no improvement to the overall composition.

Anonymous said...

Definitely a fantasy waterfront sand castle to beat all others and certainly it had to be jaw dropping to view from the water. Spectacular in every sense of the word. archibuff

Tyngsboro said...

I'll go on record to say that I rather like Hearst's goosed-up version of Beacon Towers !

J.F. Crowne said...

I agree with Tyngsboro. I prefer the Hearst version; much more dramatic. I like that term, "goosed-up," as well. Had Mrs. Vanderbilt-Belmont
more ducats at her disposal, with her penchant for building [and re-building], she might have gone in that direction at a later date; or even originally.