Hello, this is Carl Raymond, the host of the Gilded Gentleman History podcast, where every two weeks we journey into worlds light and dark in America's

Gilded Age, France's Belle-Pucque and England's late Victorian and Edwardian eras.

The Gilded Age was a visual age. The elegance and splendor of great fashions from

Parisian houses like Worth, the piercing gleam of the diamonds and silver from Tiffany,

and the architectural grandeur of Richard Morris Hunt, and perhaps the most widely recognized name,

that of Stanford White.

Stanford White, as part of the architectural firm, McKim, Meadden White,

helped to create a new look for America, a style known as the American Renaissance.

Taking inspiration from classic European design and blending it with unmistakably American elements,

there was an energy and an optimism in his work that defined an age of expansion, new technologies,

and seemingly endless possibilities. Opulent private mansions such as the homes for William

Payne Whitney on New York's Fifth Avenue and Tessie

Ulrich's trianon-inspired Rosecliff in Newport served as stage sets for a glittering mingling of a new

elite society. In the private men's clubs such as New York's Metropolitan and the century,

deals were struck and fortunes made and lost in Stanford's classical vision that gave form to the wealth

of America's gilded industrial age.

For this episode, I am deeply grateful to be joined by Stanford White's great-grandson Samuel G. White to

focus on an exploration of the vision and artistry of Stanford White.

Samuel G. White is a noted architect in his own right and a founding partner of PBDW architects.

His work focuses on blending contemporary elements to historic settings to both reinforce

and reinterpret their original contexts. Sam lectures regularly on the work of his great-grandfather

and has authored or co-authored multiple books, including the houses of

...