Tea at Trianon: A Neoclassical Hudson Valley Estate

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Saturday, April 24, 2021

A Neoclassical Hudson Valley Estate

From Veranda:

“I learned my lesson the hard way,” says the owner of a Greek Revival home in New York’s Hudson Valley and the extraordinary collection of antiques that fill its rooms. They are primarily 18th- and early-19th-century English pieces he’s been collecting for the last 30 years—well, minus the one that got away. “Early on, there was a piece I really wanted but I hesitated. When I went back, it was gone,” he says.
Now, he trusts his instincts, honed over decades of studying the finer points of carving, timber, proportion, and craftsmanship—details that reveal provenance and time period to the trained eye. “I love imagining the stories behind the antiques, the love letters written at a desk,” he adds. “They don’t make pieces like these anymore, so now I act fast.”
The lesson paid off in spades when it came time to build a home to showcase his collection. The owner and his wife were looking for something larger than the farmhouse they owned in Millbrook, New York. Though it sat atop 100 acres of undulating meadows, it was small, and the pair was seeking an architectural style more suited to their regal antiques, many of which had been in storage, awaiting the right home. (Read more.)