Along with the fashion's food and furniture, when one thinks of the Gilded Age, somehow or other

one's thoughts always center on those grand mansions.

Perhaps after a visit to Newport, it's easy to dream about life in these palaces of America's

late 19 centuries rich and powerful, or to think about those

not so rich and powerful who actually did the work on them and in them.

The entirely made up new American society that was emerging in those gilded years at the end

of the 19th century was fueled not only by free flowing wealth for the 1%,

but a laser-focused desire on their part to instantly create an imitation of Europe's centuries-old aristocratic world.

In order to achieve this goal, families such as the Aster's Vanderbiltz and Morgans not only employed

the best architects America was developing at the time, but countless unnamed artisans and

craft workers to whom we owe tremendous respect and admiration. In addition, these architects were

sourcing great quantities of architectural fragments,

including fireplaces, ceilings, fountains, and staircases from the crumbling palaces,

palazzi, and country houses all across Europe to give those mansions, well, the European look.

A gilded-aged mansion was often a combination of a new American style of architecture

imitating Renaissance France or Italy, along with actual furniture, interior decorations, tapestries, and sculpture

from the palaces that were being copied.

In this show, we are taking an inside look at one unique Vanderbilt mansion,

constructed between 1896 and 1890 in the desirable enclave of Hyde Park

in New York's beautiful Hudson Valley.

It was the country home of Commodore Vanderbilt's grandson Frederick and his wife Louise.

As we visit the mansion with its curator, we'll see just how a grand Gilded Age mansion was actually built.

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