And to explain all that has recently been posted and then some is the video I was hoping to post that gets into a lot of Lyndhurst's history:
It's probably not surprising that the video package completely ignores that after William Paulding had The Knoll built (the version of the house seen in the 4th capture in Reply #54) in 1838 it was widely joked about as "Paulding's Folly." I don't actually remember why, but thankfully after George Merritt bought the house and he had the original architect, Alexander Jackson Davis, build the addition, no one was laughing anymore.