Hello, I'm Carl Raymond, the host of the Gilded Gentleman History podcast.

As a special bonus treat, I wanted to share with you one of my favorite Gilded Age episodes from the Bowery Boys Archive.

Alva Vanderbilt was picky.

There's no surprise in that, and she was particularly picky about the architect that designed not only her French Renaissance Petit Chateau dominating Fifth Avenue, but also her sumptuous imitation of Versailles,

marble house in Newport, Rhode Island. For Alva, there was no choice. For her demanding desires,

the Paris-trained Richard Morris Hunt was the only choice. The story of Richard Morris Hunt

is an extraordinary one.

It's been said it was he that gave not only New York but spots elsewhere the look of the

Gilded Age.

From prominent and prestigious New England beginnings, Hunt translated the European

Beaux-Ard aesthetic for American shores.

His commissions included the facade of the Metropolitan Museum

of Art and the base of the Statue of Liberty. He also created great mansions for Alva and

Caroline Astor as well, and perhaps the grandest mansion of them all during the Gilded Age,

and that was saying something, was the extravagant and expansive Biltmore in Asheville, North Carolina

for another of the Vanderbilt clan, George, Alba's brother-in-law.

While many enthusiasts of the Gilded Age today discussed the achievements of the later

trail-blazing firm of McKim Meadden White, and its star architect Stanford White,

it was the vision and the eye of Richard Morris Hunt, who in many ways set the stage.

In this episode, Tom and Greg delved deeply into the story and the world of Richard Morris Hunt,

and I could not be more pleased to share it with you here today.

It will give you new eyes as you look back to that very gilded age.

...