Designed in 1838 by Alexander Jackson Davis, the house was owned in succession by New York City mayorWilliam Paulding, Jr., merchant George Merritt, and railroad tycoon Jay Gould. Paulding named his house "Knoll", although critics quickly dubbed it "Paulding's Folly" because of its unusual design that includes fanciful turrets and asymmetrical outline. Its limestone exterior was quarried at Sing Sing in present-day Ossining, New York. Merritt, the house's second owner, engaged Davis as his architect, and in 1864–1865 doubled the size of the house, renaming it "Lyndenhurst" after the estate's linden trees. Davis' new north wing included an imposing four-story tower, a new porte-cochere, a new dining room, two bedrooms and servants' quarters. Gould purchased the property in 1880 to use as a country house, shortened its name to "Lyndhurst" and occupied it until his death in 1892. In 1961, Gould's daughter Anna Gould donated it to the National Trust for Historic Preservation. The house is now open to the public.
Architecture
Unlike later mansions along the Hudson River, Lyndhurst's rooms are few and of a more modest scale, and strongly Gothic in character. Hallways are narrow, windows small and sharply arched, and ceilings are fantastically peaked, vaulted, and ornamented. The effect is at once gloomy, somber, and highly romantic; the large, double-height art gallery provides a contrast of light and space. The house sits within a landscape park, designed in the English naturalistic style by Ferdinand Mangold, whom Merritt hired. Mangold drained the surrounding swamps, created lawns, planted specimen trees, and built a conservatory. The park is an outstanding example of 19th-century landscape design with a curving entrance drive that reveals "surprise" views of rolling lawns accented with shrubs and specimen trees. The onion-domed, iron-framed, glass conservatory, when built, was one of the largest privately owned greenhouses in the United States.
ABC's holiday television filmThe Halloween That Almost Wasn't, a.k.a. The Night Dracula Saved the World, was shot here. The scenes were used as the backdrop for both Count Dracula and the Witch's castle. It later aired on the Disney Channel during its Halloween season, until the late 1990s.
From 1992 until the program changed filming locations from New York to Los Angeles in 2009, Lyndhurst served as the exterior of “Wildwind,” the home of Dimitri Marick, in establishing shots on the ABC daytime drama All My Children. Elements of Lyndhurst’s interior architecture influenced the design of the Wildwind sets.
Lyndhurst was the set for the movies House ofDark Shadows and Night of Dark Shadows, both based on the gothic soap operaDark Shadows.
Director Sidney Lumet used Lyndhurst as a film location twice: for Reversal of Fortune and Gloria.
In 2017, the Lifetime series Project Runway filmed an episode at Lyndhurst, challenging the designers to draw inspiration from the exteriors and gardens.
