Where the Millionaires Lived

Every city pushes its seams and expands outward, gobbling up land to satisfy its growing population. So it was with New York City in the 1880's. Manhattan is an island with obvious boundaries. So the initial settlements on its southern tip could only move north. The neighborhoods that started as places for the wealthy to live (around the place that's now the Lower East Side) were a bit boggy and so were abandoned for dryer land up north. After the Civil War the wealthy chose the area around 5th Avenue and the Thirties to build their mansions. This is where the rich live in my novel Masquerade. 

I always enjoy basing a house on a real house, and chose the A.T. Stewart mansion that sat on the northwest corner of 5th Avenue and Thirty-fourth. It took over five years to build and when it was finished in 1869 it had cost $1.5 million. In today's money that's about $37.5 million. Pretty much beyond comprehension!

Doesn't it looks like a library? It was the first residential showplace in NYC and was deemed "palatial". This is the foyer and one of the bedrooms. All rooms shown here were figured into scenes in my novel.

Mrs. Stewart also had her own art gallery. She had a huge collection of artwork—that she mostly kept to herself. The art room was 70' x 30' x 50' tall. She and Mr. Stewart had no children yet lived in this 55-room house. He (like my patriarch, Martin Tremaine) earned his fortune by starting a department store: Stewart's Dry Goods. I'll go through details of stores of the time in a separate post.

An interesting thing about the Stewart mansion is that their neighbor to the south was William B. Astor II and his wife, Caroline, or THE Mrs. Astor. She was the head of New York society and her approval or disdain had the power to make or break people. And yet her house was a fairly simple brownstone. Here's a picture of it in 1897. It's the small building on the right. On the left is the original Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. It was built by William Waldorf Astor on the site of his family home after he decided to move to England permanently in 1891. It was built in great part to annoy his Aunt Lina who lived next door. A family feud over who was the head of society and all that.

As early as the 1870's, the encroaching commercialization of the area led the social set to move north to Fifth Avenue and the "Fifties" to build their houses. The bigger the better. The upstart Vanderbilt family created mansions that made the Stewart house look like a guest house. Some of these mansions remain--with new uses, but the Stewart mansion was demolished in 1902. Progress, you know.

And what now sits where the Astor brownstone and the old Waldorf-Astoria sat? The Empire State Building.

If you'd like to read more of my Gilded Age novels, try the sequel to Masquerade, called An Unlikely Suitor,  and A Bridal Quilt, which is in the novella anthology A Patchwork Christmas.  //Nancy Moser

My Chateau of Inspiration

The nice thing about writing fiction is that I have some leeway to use a place that is real as inspiration, without using it per se. That’s the case with the Chateau-sur-Mer in Newport, Rhode Island, the summer playground of the wealthy during the Gilded Age.

When I saw this house in Newport, I fell in love. It stands on a green hill, grand but not haughty, elegant without being cold. Until the Vanderbilts started building their mega-mansions in the 1890’s, it was the palatial mansion in Newport.

It was first built in 1852 then remodeled and added onto, twenty years later. It was built for William Shepard Wetmore who made his fortune in the China trade. Originally it encompassed 35 acres and had a sea-view. But later, some of its land was sold (and the Breakers built upon it), making this “castle on the sea” landlocked. William and his wife once had a party for 3000 in the house!

When William died in 1862, the house passed to his son, George, who eventually became the governor of Rhode Island (1885-1887), and a state senator (1894-1912.) He hired Richard Morris Hunt to transform the house—which Hunt did, starting in 1871. He changed it so much that many people thought the original house had been torn down. Hunt later was the architect on the Vanderbilt’s Breakers and Marble House.

I include Mr. and Mrs. Wetmore at a dinner party in Chapter 13 of my book. A little ironic twist that they are guests in the fictitious Langdon mansion inspired by their very real home.

There are five areas of Chateau-sur-Mer that I used in An Unlikely Suitor. I am very partial to wood trim (you would know that if you saw my house), so the paneling of the grand entry really spoke to me. Plus, the stained glass and skylight are stunning. I had great fun writing a scene where my immigrant seamstress character, Lucy, first walks into the house.

The second room I used was the French parlor—that I called Mrs. Langdon’s morning room. It’s notable because the wood paneling of the rest of the house is present there too, but Edith Wetmore had it painted white. As a lover of wood and its grain I cringed. But it’s a very feminine room in a very masculine house.

Third, was the Butternut Bedroom. I made this the bedroom belonging to my main character, Rowena. She’s very warm and unassuming, and I felt the color of the butternut wood suited her, and was a contrast to the formal, assuming, white morning room preferred by her mother.

The Library was another room that inspired a scene, a confrontation between a poor girl in want of a book to read, the heir, and a butler. I have a library in my house, with lots of wood and shelves, so I love this type of room.

Lastly, the back of the Chateau had a porch facing the sea. I created a scene that had Rowena painting a landscape on the porch, and it was also a place she could go to contemplate the drama in the book. (Note: these wonderful interior photos are from a great book about the mansions of Newport by the Preservation Society of Newport County: Newport Mansions.)

I added a room-sized dressing room for Rowena, and stables and outbuildings, as needed. But the spirit of the Chateau lives on in my fictional Porte au Ciel: Gate to Heaven.

When I visited Newport in 2005, the Chateau-sur-Mer was undergoing a restoration but is now open to the public. It’s on my to-do list. After all, the house and I have become very close.//Nancy

A New Book and a Contest!

It's always exciting to hold a new book in my hands, and my newest has finally arrived!  An Unlikely Suitor is set in the Gilded Age, 1895.  A New York seamstress, along with her sister and mother, help create a summer wardrobe for a rich heiress.  They end up in the summer haven of the rich, Newport, Rhode Island.  A friendship ensues, a bit of danger, and a lot of romance. 

 

I've talked about the book in earlier posts, and have begun sharing some of the insights into Newport and the sewing process that I discovered while doing the research.  I'll share more in future weeks.  Here's a woman who looks like Lucia Scarpelli, my seamstress...  I love finding portraits of people who match the characters in my head.  The fact she'd dressed ala 1895, and is sitting in a place that looks like Newport's Cliff Walk.  Zounds, I couldn't have imagined her any better!

I'm so excited about the book's release that I'm having a contest.  I'm giving away a vintage-inspired wooden box full of goodies (worth over $50), an antique piece of jewelry (that sparkles), and a copy of the novel.  Three winners.  All you have to do is leave a comment to this blog entry and tell me the era of history you most like to read about.  Who knows?  Maybe I'll choose that time in history as a setting in a future novel.  Or you can also enter on my website at www.nancymoser.com or on my Facebook page.  I'll draw the three winners on May 15.

Also, just a note... if you like the book I'd sure appreciate you spreading the word, and leaving a review on one of the online bookstores like Christianbook.com, Amazon.com, or barnesandnoble.com.  If you don't like the book, shhh!   Just kidding.  You're welcome to give your true opinion.

Thank you ever so much for your readership!  Without you, I'm writing to the wind.//Nancy