THE OLD HOUSE-Does anyone know the backstory of the building?

[Nelson Collins]

What is the pedigree of the Old House photos featuring Frid?  He is dressed in 18th Century attire so I am guessing this would have been in the lead up to 1795 rather than when Barnabas first appeared?

[MagnusTrask]

Speaking of bedrooms in old mansions, I visted Pres Grant's home in Galena, and was struck by how small the bedrooms are by today's standards.  Also, I've visited the old Pabst mansion up in Milwaukee.  In that home, the bedrooms were larger to accommodate the much larger furniture of the later Victorian era. 

It sounds as if your trip had a general alcohol theme to it!

 

[Doug]

The other day I found out the local news is going to do a story of an old abandon house where former U.S. Congressman Bob Sikes used to own in Crestview, FL. The gate to the house is lock and chained and I guess the house is consider a eye sore. Bob Sikes was a popular U.S. Congressman in Northwest Florida back in the 1970's and he died about seven years ago. The house sits on 120 acres of land.

[Miss_Winthrop]

Magnus: we're hearing that they are thinking of bringing back Pabst beer again.  It's an old nostalgic, old Milwaukee theme thing. Milwaukee is experiencing a rivival now. The Pabst mansion is really very interesting and had, if I remember correctly, one of the first modern, marble bathrooms for the time.

At the Grant mansion,  I was struck by how short the beds were.   

[Doug]

If you are talking about Pabst Blue Ribbon Beer, I've seen it at a local Winn-Dixie grocery store down here in Florida. But getting back to the DS mansions, the old house that was used in the movie HODS, does anybody know it is still standing?

[Midnite]

But getting back to the DS mansions, the old house that was used in the movie HODS, does anybody know it is still standing?

Oh yes.  Here's a photo taken in 2004 (on the way to the Tarrytown Fest), though from a distance because it's private property, now subdivided rather than one large estate home:

[KMR]

I always thought it sorta funny that the Old House in HODS was rather larger than than Collinwood (if you go by the size of the locations used)...

On my first trip to Tarrytown in 1990, I drove around until I found Beechwood.  It was then called Beechwood Estates, and the main house had already been divided up into (4?) units.  They hadn't yet built the new buildings that are down at the end of the front lawn.

I know a woman here in Chicago whose old college roommate's parents have one of the units in Beechwood.  She's stayed there on visits a few times.  When I said I've always wanted to see inside the place (even though I believe the main entrance has been modified drastically), she told me she'd give me the phone number of her friend's parents.  She said they're wonderful people and love having people visit them, but I just could not bring myself to impose on total strangers like that.

Anyway, when I was there in 1990, I spotted a caretaker and chatted with him a couple of minutes.  He was unaware that the house had been used in a movie 20 years earlier.  (Besides HODS, it was also used in an Ivory-Merchant movie called SAVAGES which I've yet to see.)  I asked the man if it was okay to walk around and take pictures of the exterior and the grounds, and he said to go ahead, just as long as I didn't walk off with the place! 

[Nelson Collins]

, now subdivided rather than one large estate home:

BOO!  HISS!  There is a gorgeous mansion in Midtown Memphis that for nearly all its history stood on an entire block.  The house has always been inhabited and kept in pretty good shape, but unfortunately.  A few years ago, the owner of the property, subdivided the lot andnow this beautiful home looks hemmed in and crowded next to four large modern homes. Simply hideous, even if there were attempts made for the homes to look similar in style to the other older homes around it. 

[Pansity]

As to the fire that destroyed Spratt house, local urban legend, which I've seen repeated in DS fandom, is that it was squatters and cigarettes.  And the property is far enough off the beaten path and was probably old and dry enough that the fire department couldn't save it.

I've been to upper State of New York twice within the last three years and I was told the State has a law that if anybody owns a old house or building that is condemn and falling apart, they have a choice of either restore or demolish it. It is not like that down here in the South.

I'm  not familiar one way or the other with the law you speak of, but it sounds reasonable for a condemned and unsafe building.  Problem is that Spratt House was no different than many of the other empty BUT STRUCTURALLY SOUND mansions of that era here in Westchester County.  They were neither abandoned (property taxes were paid) nor condemned, just unoccupied and decaying.  Some have found uses since then as banquet halls or schools or have been adopted (like Lyndhurst) by either the Hudson River Conservancy or the National Trust.

Though, on a Semi OT note, the current fiscal crisis is causing problems for many such historic treasures.  Yesterday's CBS Sunday Morning didn't have a reappearance of the orange plaid jacket, but it DID have an article on many historic landmarks, such as Mark Twain's house in Hartford CT, Lincoln's Birthplace in Kentucky and Fort Ticonderoga.  These and many more like them are in serious  fundraising mode right now in order to keep from being closed down for lack of operating funds.

Jeannie