The Romance and Tragedy of a Widely Known Business Man of New YorkRussell, William Ingraham
General
The Romance and Tragedy of a Widely Known Business Man of New York
Russell, William Ingraham
Businessmen -- New York (State) -- New York -- Biography; Russell, William Ingraham
"Sunnyside" had become too small for us.
Our life had been so happy there we could not bear to think
of leaving it. I had an architect look the house over and prepare
plans for an extensive addition.
This was done, though he strongly disadvised it. I could not but
admit the force of his argument that it was foolish, regarded from
an investment point of view, to expend on the place the amount
I contemplated. Far better to sell and build a new house was his
opinion.
Then we talked of moving the house to another plot and building on
the old site. To this there were two objections. The site was not
suitable for the style of house I wanted and there was too little
land, with no opportunity to add to it as the land on either side
was already occupied.
The matter was settled by the appearance of a buyer for "Sunnyside,"
at a price that paid me a fair profit, and I made the sale subject
to possession being given when the new house was completed.
[Illustration: "REDSTONE"]
Within a stone's throw of "Sunnyside" was a plot of land, a little
less than two acres in extent that we had always admired. I bought
the land for five thousand dollars and the architect commenced at
once on the plans.
We thought that the new house was to be our home for the rest of
our days and naturally the greatest interest was taken in every
detail. The first plans submitted were satisfactory, after a few
minor changes, and ground was broken on July 2d, 1881. How we
watched the progress.
From the time the first shovelful of earth was taken out for the
excavations until the last work was finished, not a day passed that
we did not go over it all.
"Redstone," taking its name from the red sandstone of which it was
built, was, and is to-day, a fine example of the architecture then
so much in vogue for country houses.
The Matthews House on Riverside Drive, New York City, so much
admired, was designed by the same architect and modelled after it.
Standing on a hill its three massive outside chimneys support a
roof of graceful outlines and generous proportions. From the three
second-story balconies one gets views near and distant of a beautiful
country. The fourteen-feet wide piazza on the first floor, extending
across the front and around the tower, with its stone porte cochere
and entrance arch is most inviting. With grounds tastefully laid
out, driveways with their white-stone paved gutters, cut-stone
steps to the terraces, great trees, and handsome shrubs the place
was a delight to the eye, and at the time, of which I write there
was nothing to compare with it in that section.
Through a massive doorway one enters a hall of baronial character,
thirty-three feet long, eighteen feet wide, and twenty-one feet
high, finished in oak with open beam ceiling and above the high
wainscot a rough wall in Pompeian red.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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