"Villa Carola" in Sands Point was designed c. 1916 in the Italian Renaissance Revival style by H. Van Buren Magonigle on originally 210 acres of land for Isaac Guggenheim who was an industrialist and financier. Guggenheim worked as a member of the Guggenheim Brothers mining holding company and director of American Smelting and Refining Co., National Park Bank, Plaza Bank, International Banking Corp., Lincoln Trust Co., and the Port Washington National Bank. He also worked as president of the Mexican Union Railway. He was a member of the Lotos Club, Criterion Club, and Temple Emanu-El of Manhattan. The Guggenheim Brothers had their office on the 35th floor of 120 Broadway in Manhattan. Guggenheim also had a townhouse at 763 Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. The estate was named after Guggenheim's wife, Carrie.
Courtesy of Lionel Pincus & Princess Firyal Map Division, The New York Public Library (1923)
"Villa Carola" was built on what was formerly part of the vast farmland of Samuel Sands who was a member of the prosperous Sands family which was one of the earliest residents in Cow Neck. When the first settlers arrived at Cow Bay in the early 1600's, most of Cow Neck was a public grazing area separated by a three-mile fence from Manhasset Harbor to Roslyn Inlet that kept cattle contained. The English colonists found they could easily make a communal pasture for their cattle by fencing off the neck, or southern, end of the peninsula, roughly where Great Neck is now; hence it became known as Cow Neck Peninsula. Later, pasture rights were divided, and individual families laid claim to the land. The “gate righters” who took claim to that land coined their name from that fence. The Sands family lived off the land and used part of the homestead as a combined burial site for family members and their slaves. As brother of John Sands I, Samuel transferred his portion of the family's land in 1711 to Richbell Mott who was a member of the prominent Quaker family which had immigrated from England and settled in Hempstead in 1655. Mott, in turn, sold all of his land to his brother, Adam Mott II, in 1715. After Mott died, the Hempstead Harbor property was divided up between his sons: Stephen received the northern acres and Adam III who received the southern half and the family's farmhouse.
Around 1906, Guggenheim purchased the roughly 220 acres of land from the Mott family in order to build his vast Long Island country estate. "Villa Carolla" was part of a line of Guggenheim family estates which were built in Sands Point, much like the family compound created by the Pratt family in Glen Cove. Three of the seven Guggenheim settled in Port Washington. In 1900, William Guggenheim built an 150-acre estate named "Waterside Farm" on what is now Arden Lane. After William, Isaac was probably encouraged to build from seeing the lifestyle that was achieved. Daniel Guggenheim did not build an estate of his own but purchased "Hempstead House" next door to William which had been built in 1912 for Howard Gould. A distant relative, Ethel M. Glorney, also had a modest waterfront estate in Plandome. Outside of Long Island, other Guggenheim family members also built expansive country homes in New Jersey and Rhode Island.
The original property, which was probably erected by Stephen Mott, contained an existing farmhouse on top of a pronounced hill which was razed by Guggenheim to exert his influence on the land. Guggenheim first called upon the renowned firm of Warren & Wetmore to design a set of Norman French-inspired outbuildings for his estate around 1907. The firm designed a main entrance lodge, superintendent's cottage, greenhouses, ice house, stable and dairy, farm house, hay barn, dog kennels, wagon shed and sewage disposal plant. The buildings were constructed out of stucco and red brick with steeply-pitched roofs. It is theorized that they also designed a main house for Guggenheim which was lost to fire shortly after being built. In rebuilding his estate, Guggenheim called upon H. Van Buren Magonigle to build a lavish new main house in the Italian Renaissance Revival style on 210 waterfront acres.
Photo courtesy of Port Washington Public Library Local History Center (n.d.)
Photo courtesy of Cow Neck Peninsula Historical Society (n.d.)
The main house's architect, Harold Van Buren Magonigle, was a nationally-recognized practitioner and sculptor, best known for his designs of civic memorials. Born in 1867 in the Bergen Heights neighborhood of Ohio, Magonigle grew up into an artistic family. His father, John Henry, was a prominent theatrical agent who managed Booth's Theater as treasurer for Lawrence Barrett and Edwin Booth. He was also superintendent of the Players' Club in Gramercy Park from 1888-1908. His mother, Katherine, was the sister of Mary Devlin who was Edwin Booth's first Wife. Magonigle was also a second cousin to Martin Van Buren who served as the eighth president of the United States. Despite growing up in decidedly an affluent lifestyle, Magonigle opted not to attend college which was not unconventional for the time. Instead of getting a formalized education at an elite architectural school like some of his peers, he was trained in the ateliers of prestigious architects. He started in the profession at just 14 years of age by working as an understudy in the office of Vaux & Radford. Perhaps through his family's social connections from the Players' Club, he progressed onto work in the preeminent offices of McKim, Mead & White and later Charles C. Haight. This sort of apprenticeship gave Magonigle sufficient architectural training under the tutelage of masterful practitioners. In 1889, Magonigle won the gold medal of the Architectural League of New York for his draftsmanship skills.
Magonigle relocated to Boston, Massachusetts in the summer of 1891 to join the staff of Rotch & Tilden, hoping to position himself as a strong candidate for the Rotch Traveling Scholarship. From 1893-1894, he also taught courses in decorative design at Cowles Art School in Boston. His efforts paid off as he earned the Rotch Traveling Scholarship in the spring of 1894, which allowed him to study in Europe. During this sojourn, Magonigle spent considerable time in Italy, Greece, France, and England, where he sketched some of the greatest architectural monuments of the world and studied at the American Academy in Rome which gave him a strong classroom education in the classical tradition. After returning to America in the fall of 1896, he spent a brief period of time back in the office of McKim, Mead & White. In 1897, he became a licensed practicing architect in New York. Early in his professional career, Magonigle associated with Evarts Tracy to become the firm of Tracy & Magonigle for two years. After that partnership dissolved due to an economic downturn at the time, he spent another two years as head of the office of Schickel & Ditmars. From 1901-1903, he designed alongside Henry W. Wilkinson, but that partnership also dissolved. Magonigle opted to remain a solo-practitioner for the remainder of his career, instead working alongside talented architects and artists. Magonigle had his offices in New York City at 7 West 38th Street and then relocated to 101 Park Avenue as his prominence rose.
Magonigle's first major commission was in 1901 for an alumni hall at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York which was never built. That same year, he and H.W. Wilkinson also designed the Gates Avenue Courthouse in Brooklyn, New York which was erected as a magistrate’s court. In 1903, Magonigle began the practice of architecture alone, achieving national renown almost immediately when he won the competition for the design of the McKinley Memorial in Ohio. This resulted in Magonigle receiving a long line of clients for institutional, residential, and commercial work. His notable commissions include the main building for Mrs. Dow's School in Briarcliff Manor, New York, Elks Clubhouse in Brooklyn, New York, Fifth Avenue residences for Irving V. Brokaw and William McNair in Manhattan, New York, Arsenal Technical School in Indianapolis, Indiana, Okara Lake camp lodges in the Catskill Mountains, New York, Adirondack League club cabins in Little Falls, New York, City Club of Auburn, New York, Essex County Parks Commission Administration Building in East Newark, New Jersey, and the First Plymouth Congregational Church in Lincoln, Nebraska. In addition to Guggenheim's Long Island country home, Guggenheim designed the estates of Gov. Franklin Murphy in Mendham, New Jersey, John French in Greenwich, Connecticut, and a bungalow outbuilding for Mary M.B. French in Woodstock, New York.
Magonigle is perhaps best known for his work on monuments which were often created in collaboration with acclaimed sculptors of that era like Attilio Piccirilli or Robert I. Aitken. He was also a frequent winner of national design competitions for significant national monuments like the Liberty Memorial of Kansas City and McKinley Memorial in Canton, Ohio. This pit him against his peers in a juried comparison against both local and nationally-recognized architects from around the country. His other public works included the U.S.S. Maine Monument and Riverside Park Firemen's Memorial in Manhattan, New York, Gov. Stevens Mason Monument in Detroit, Michigan, George Rogers Clark Memorial in Charlottesville, Virginia, Schenley Fountain in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and the Walnut Hill Park WWI Monument and Elihu Burritt Memorial in New Britain, Connecticut. Magonigle also designed a mausoleum for John Henderson Core at the Elmwood Cemetery in Norfolk, Virginia. Towards the end of his career, Magonigle designed the United States Embassy complex in Tokyo, Japan in collaboration with Antonin Raymond.
Outside of his design firm, Magonigle was a tour de force in the architectural world as a juror of national design competitions and author of articles in prominent architectural publications. Known as a renaissance man among his architectural peers, Magonigle was especially gifted in the complementary fields of drawing, oil painting, sculpting, and graphic design. He was an extremely-talented illustrator of charcoal renderings; even the draftsmen who came out of architectural schools and technical institutes had a command of drawing that is unknown today. When not creating beautiful and precisely-rendered architectural drawings, he designed furniture, magazine covers, seals, pottery, typography, and illustration, and sketched in watercolor and painted in oil. In both his artistic and literary work, Magonigle stressed academic training and rendering while allowing for free expression—two methods often difficult to orchestrate into a balanced union.
Magonigle died in Vermont on August 29, 1935. As a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects, Magonigle served as president of the New York chapter of the American Institute of Architects, president of the Association of the Alumni of the American Academy in Rome and the Architectural League of New York, director of the American Federation of Arts, and vice president of the National Sculpture Society from 1925-1927. In 1930, the New York chapter of the AIA awarded Magonigle their Gold Medal of Honor for meritorious contribution to the architectural profession during his career. He was also a member of the Society of Beaux-Arts Architects, American Artists Professional League, Salmagundi Club, Grolier Club, Players' Club, New York Press Club, Boston Architectural Club, Cosmos Club of Washington, Auburn City Club, Caton Country Club, Essex County Country Club, and the Japanese Society of Architects. Concurrent to his architectural practice, he served as First Lieutenant and Battle Adjunct General in the New York National Guard. Following his death, Mrs. Magonigle donated a large sum of money to Columbia University, leading them to be among the principal benefactors to the school.
In his work, Magonigle strove for an architecture firmly rooted in tradition, appropriate to its uses and infinite in its possibility. He had a unique voice as an architect that was received as distinctly American. Utilizing training in the Beaux Arts tradition, Magonigle was able to reinvent the great artistic styles of the past, including ancient Egyptian and Greek elements as well as Gothic architecture in his designs. While he was the sole partner of his firm, his employees included artist Edgar F. Bircsak with Albert Harkness, Joseph A. Cardiff, and Robert William McLaughlin, Jr. as associate architects. Magonigle sometimes also planned landscaping for the country homes he designed. Magonigle achieved great artistic compositions by working with a team of supporting architects, landscape architects, and artists who were picked for each project.
In designing "Villa Carola", Magonigle opted for an assemblage of artists and artisans to carry out his design which was meant to evoke the glamor of a Venetian palace from Italy. Guggenheim likely chose Magonigle to design his estate as one of the leading architects of that period (this was his only country house commission on Long Island). Magonigle translated the classical vernacular from Europe that would be traditionally found in public squares or cathedrals for a residential context of the modern age. He took the elements of the Italian Renaissance Revival style and reordered, shifted and reinterpreted them to make an entirely new statement in a uniquely American lens. "Villa Carola" was a particularly unique estate in part because the outbuilding group of supporting structures were already existing from an earlier estate on the property. Magonigle had to make a design statement that was his own, but also mesh well with an established program that had been erected several years earlier.
Courtesy of "The Architectural Forum" (Apr. 1920)
Magonigle's 40-room main house for Guggenheim was designed to resemble a stately Northern Italian villa. It was built by the Thompson-Starrett Company at a cost of $2,000,000. Due to his extensive travels in Europe for the Rotch scholarship, Magonigle was intimately-familiar with the vernacular architecture of Europe. It is possible that the Lombard Revival-influenced design was inspired by the Castello Estense which is located in Emilia-Romagna, Italy. The main house was designed as a two-story rectangular block surmounted by a hipped roof with two lower wings projecting at either end, creating a recessed front overlooking a formal terrace. A loggia stretches across the center which incorporates small stone columns that echo the arched openings of the first floor wings. The floorplan was devised with four wings surrounding an open courtyard at the center to provide circulation and to control the prevailing breeze in the summertime. The exterior featured a hipped red-tile roof with bracketed eaves and interior chimneys with corbelled tops, a tall central block with recessed frieze windows, and a decorative band of notched brick at the attic story. Notably, round-arched windows form arcades on the center of the ground level to create an open loggia on the second floor.
Despite the Italian Renaissance vocabulary employed first by Warren & Wetmore and then reimagined by Magonigle, the estate stays true to his classicist-oriented design training by paying careful attention to the functional relationships of the spaces within. Visual aesthetics of scale and balance were also critical. The choices made were deliberate to make a successful design while also providing proper circulation for its occupants and the ability for staff to operate without being seen by guests. Service facilities were relegated to a back wing, while the principal rooms were proudly showcased. Rather than make the site conform to a preconceived plan, the design was truly dictated by contours of the land itself to emphasize its most flattering qualities.
Taking advantage of commanding views of the water from the northeast and southwest, the main house was sited at the highest point on the property with a curved, mile-long driveway made of small bluestone chips. Visitors would pass through an undulating, verdant landscape until reaching an oval court at the entrance. A separate service road was placed to the south with its own entrance gate that allowed for ease of access for deliveries and staff activities without being seen from the main approach. To the west of the main house was a series of formal gardens which were set on axis. The estate had 1,900ft of direct waterfront on Hempstead Harbor.
Courtesy of "The Architectural Forum" (Apr. 1920)
The main house was built using wire-cut brick from the Hocking Valley Products Company of Logan, Ohio--materials usually thought to be unusable due to their uneven coloring which resulted from mistakes in firing. Often, these pieces would just be re-ground and turned into grog which would become a filler for other bricks. The Greendale “rug-faced brick” was a popular construction material used in the early 1900’s with a rough front which was created by dragging steel prongs over the face of the clay before it went to the kiln for firing. Seeing this irregularity as an opportunity rather than a hinderance, Magonigle divided the bricks into 13 color groups in a range of brown, red, and yellowish hues (he probably also received a very fair price for these irregular materials). During construction, the bricks were carefully arranged to in a manner that appears to have a single warm tone from a distance, but formed a pattern of depth and texture upon close inspection. The brick was laid in Flemish bond, the stretchers being used as headers, and two stretchers with a dry joint between forming one long stretcher. The joint compound was grit cement mortar toned to a deep cream color.
The exterior detail exemplified the comfort level that Magonigle had with sculptural works, utilizing a vast palette of terracotta elements fabricated by the O.W. Ketchum Terra Cotta Works of Philadelphia. As a splendid renderer and sculptor, Magonigle was intimately-familiar with the power of texture and color in design. He was very fond especially fond of using Tuscan terracotta ornament which allowed the building to speak, and used this technique later on for the Essex County Parks Administration Building in New Jersey which bears a very close resemblance to "Villa Carolla". Terracotta ornament was used to frame the windows, doors, and bay of the dining room. Imagery of nautical themes, animals, and plants were selected for decoration. The backgrounds of the ornamental portions were treated with polychromatic glazes to provide vivid coloring.
Courtesy of "Pencil Points" (Oct. 1920)
Courtesy of "Pencil Points" (Nov. 1920)
Courtesy of Southeastern Architectural Archive, Tulane University of Louisiana (1922)
Courtesy of "Architectural Renderings in Wash" by H. Van Buren Magonigle (1936)
The exterior design featured walls of pinkish stucco, massive arched doors framed with a white and blue glazed terracotta faience, and an upper-level arcade with Vermont marble columns. The columns in the loggias, porte cochère and the exterior arcade on the second story are made from various tones and veinings of marble which were treated chemically with a ferric stain to produce a golden hue. The roof was covered with pan-and-roll tiles specially designed and manufactured for this house, with the occasional tile chosen in a green coloring to give the illusion of the accumulation of aged moss. The overhanging roof eaves were cased with cypress beams to become fireproof. Windows were fabricated by the International Casement Co.
Photos courtesy of "The Architectural Forum" (Apr. 1920)
Photos courtesy of "Arts & Decoration" (Feb. 1920)
Photo courtesy of "House Beautiful" (Nov. 1921)
Photo courtesy of "The Architect" (Jan. 1925)
Photo courtesy of Henry H. Meyers Collection, University of California (1920's)
Photos courtesy of Ketcham Collection, Athenaeum of Philadelphia (1920's)
To coincide with the main house's building a series of intricate gardens were designed in 1916 by Ferruccio Vitale. Vitale, who was a partner of the firm of Vitale, Brinckerhoff & Geiffert, opted to plan for a large formal garden with fountains on axis to the west of the main house. Additionally, less formal gardens were created off-axis for presumably farming purposes as kitchen garden to supplement the large greenhouse group on the estate for growing plants. Guggenheim's estate was quite unique on Long Island to maximize the open acreage of land as a private golf course instead of remaining as just open grass. It was reported that Isaac had the nine-hole course made on his own land after learning that he would not be granted admittance to the Sands Point Golf Club due to his Jewish faith. Although the name is lost to time, the golf course was likely designed by Devereux Emmet who was considered the finest in the country.
Photo courtesy of Ryerson & Burnham Archives, Art Institute of Chicago (1916)
Operating an operation of this size and scope took a bevy of household staff to manage on a daily basis. As "Villa Carola" became part of a program of Guggenheim estates which lined the Long Island Sound shoreline from the east to north of Middle Neck Road, there was a sense of a family compound. This close proximity and familial relationship allowed the Guggenheims the ability to share resources among the brothers in order to maximize their use. The Guggenheim family ranked as the great land owner in Sands Point in the 20th century. Isaac would have had likely 25-50 full-time staff members working for the estate. Guggenheim was regarded as a well-liked estate owner by his staff. He was known for distributing gold coins in amounts ranging from $5-$75 each holiday season as a gift to his workers. In addition to the cost of staff salaries, the estate was assessed for a North Hempstead tax of $517,000/yr.
At the helm of "Villa Carola" was W. J. Buckley, superintendent, who worked as the managing director to oversee the daily operation of the main house, outbuildings, and expansive grounds. Some of Isaac's other known staff included housekeeper Delia Brew, chauffeurs Charles Jones, Fred Jones, Evan Williams, Ernest de Lorenzo, and Harry Corrigan, with florist Henry J. De Young. Abele Marra and Louis Troiano were recorded as general workers. For the golf program, Willie Mackie worked as the estate's golf professional while brothers George, John, and Tom Mahoney were his caddies. In later years, both heads of household had separate, dedicated chauffeurs. One of Guggenheim's butlers, Otto Kleesattle, went from being trusted household staff to an indicted thief after committing a grand larceny charge by stealing $1,000 of Mrs. Guggenheim's jewels. Regrettably, Alfred W. Crocker, who was a night watchman, was murdered in the middle of the night on his first day of work during an armed robbery in November of 1911.
Curiously, Guggenheim's estate at Mott Point was a prominent location for the distribution of illegal alcohol products during the Prohibition era. Rumrunners frequented Guggenheim's property as a distribution point off the Long Island Sound for discreetly transferring alcohol throughout the peninsula. This would be done during the winter months while the estate was closed for the season and the headcount was minimal to avoid any interference by the family's staff. After landing a motorboat on Guggenheim's private dock at the coast of his property, large moving vans would be stationed to drive out onto the pier. The liqueur would then be loaded onto the vehicles in the dead of night to avoid capture. Many successful truckloads later, the Port Washington Police Department eventually caught onto this operation and were able to confiscate nearly a thousand cases of Scotch and rye valued at $140,000.
Photo courtesy of Guggenheim Museum Library & Archives (n.d.)
"Villa Carola" came to be known as a weekend and summer getaway for Issac Guggenheim and his family. Guggenheim's children would gather on weekends to take daylong trips on the Long Island Sound on his sumptuous yacht. Isaac would frequently meet on his personal course with his brothers Solomon, Murry, and Daniel for a round of golf. Issac and his wife were also gracious hosts to small, but sumptuous dinner parties in their dining room. Often, in the evenings, family friends would be invited to gather to listen to renowned organists play classical pieces in the music room. Composer John Philip Sousa was believed to have been a frequent visitor. Issac himself enjoyed gardening and would personally-attend to over 100 potted plants around the main house. During the winter months, he would trek outside in heavy Scottish tweed to oversee the cultivation of fresh fruits and vegetables in the estate's greenhouse group. When the produce was ripe enough to eat, he revelled in serving Brussels sprouts, lima beans, strawberries, and greengage plums that were grown on the estate.
Photo courtesy of Samuel Yellin Collection, University of Pennsylvania (1916)
Photo courtesy of "The Architectural Forum" (Apr. 1920)
Photo courtesy of "Arts & Decoration" (Mar. 1920)
As visitors entered the main house, they were greeted by a set of heavy wrought iron and glass doors fabricated by Samuel Yellin who was one of the preeminent metallurgists in American history. Born in Galicia, Poland, Yellin was apprenticed to a blacksmith at the age of seven, and became a master craftsman at the age of 17. He immigrated to America from Poland in 1906 after having already trained as a blacksmith in his home country. He joined his mother and sister who lived in Pennsylvania. By 1909, Yellin established a metalworking concern in Philadelphia which manufactured in the precedents of the old European styles which had experienced a resurgence in popularity in the 20th century. Yellin's workshop in Philadelphia--the Samuel Yellin Metalworkers Co.--would go on to produce original metalwork for banks, hospitals, colleges, churches, libraries, government buildings, private residences and universities. His studio was able to do anything from a small candlestick to a massive gate that spanned multiple stories in height. Yellin employed 268 men at the firm's peak in 1928, and the studio received 1,200 commissions by the 1930's alone. Some of his acclaimed works include the Grace Cathedral of San Francisco, Clark Library, Los Angeles, Federal Reserve Board Building, Chamber of Commerce and the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C.; United States Courthouse - Sarasota, Florida; Curtis Institute of Music, buildings for Bowdoin College, Harvard University, Northwestern University, University of Pittsburgh, Princeton University, Yale University, University of Pennsylvania, and numerous private residences.
Photo courtesy of Robarts Library, University of Toronto (1920)
Photo courtesy of the Getty Research Institute (1921)
A second set of foliated wrought iron gates by Yellin were placed further into the entry foyer. Just off of the entry, the center court was accessed through a loggia. Stained glass panels framed each of the arched doors. This grassy open-air courtyard opened onto the loggias on the first and second floor with a large Faience fountain in the center. Decorating each arched doorway and windows were yellow terracotta tiles from the O.W. Ketchum company. At the center of the fountain was a bronze sculpture by Robert Aitken which was installed after the first iteration was lost in a fire while on display for the 35th Exhibition of the Architectural League of New York.
Photos courtesy of "Arts & Decoration" (Feb. 1920)
Photo courtesy of Peter A. Juley & Son Collection, Smithsonian American Art Museum (1920)
Photo courtesy of Robarts Library, University of Toronto (1920)
Accessed off of the drawing room room and just beside the formal dining room was the summer dining room with a large bronze aquarium fountain and further terracotta vaulted and mirrored walls.
Photos courtesy of "Arts & Decoration" (Feb. 1920)
Photo courtesy of Ketcham Collection, Athenaeum of Philadelphia (1920's)
Photo courtesy of "The Architectural Forum" (Apr. 1920)
As part of the original design scheme, Magonigle allied with skilled decorative artists to create murals for the first floor wall surfaces. Gold doors and walls were painted by Herman T. Schladermundt who was a regarded muralist and stained glass artist. Magonigle's wife, Edith, who was an accomplished painter in her own right, was tasked with a series of Orientalist-inspired murals in 1917 for the telephone room: Along the doors were scenes painted of individuals in conversation with lunettes above depicting the triumphs and travails of long distance telecommunication via telephone.
Photo courtesy of "The Architectural Forum" (Apr. 1920)
Photo courtesy of Harry B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University (1912)
Isaac Guggenheim passed away while in England at the age of 62 in October of 1922, leaving behind a fortune of $14,000,000. After Issac passed, his country house was to be auctioned off at the New York Real Estate Exchange by Joseph P. Day & Company, appraisers. The first offer made was for $250,000 by Stuard Hirschman, and 11 successive bids were recorded in a bidding war. The Crescent Athletic Club of Brooklyn considered purchasing the estate as a suburban branch of the organization but they were outbid on the property. After the financials were settled, the paintings and furnishings, which had been purchased for roughly $250,000, were sold at auction for a grand total of only $75,000.
Courtesy of "Town & Country" (Oct. 1924)
Rather than have the home be sold out of the family, Isaac's brother, Solomon Robert Guggenheim purchased the property at auction in 1924 for $610,000 in cash, and renamed it "Trillora Court" in honor of his three daughters. Guggenheim worked as a member of the Guggenheim Brothers holding company. He was at the helm as chairman of the American Smelting & Refining Co., the largest concern of its kind in the world. He was also president of Yukon Gold Co., Braden Copper Corp., and American Smelters Steamship Co., vice president of New River Collieries Co., director of Kennecott Copper Corp., Pacific Tin Corp., Northern Railway Co., and the Guggenheim Exploration Company. By way of his business interests, Guggenheim was a committee member of the Copper Export Association. He served as treasurer of the board of the Public School Athletic League of New York City. Additionally, he founded the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation to promote the arts through the Guggenheim Museum in Manhattan.
Upon taking possession of the estate, Solomon immediately went to work making changes to rework the home and grounds in his liking. That same year, he undertook a remodeling of the main house's interior by Rowland Burden-Muller who supervised the overarching redesign. To achieve this vision of a more modern, Art Deco-inspired look, the architect/decorator, Burden-Muller, partnered with other decorators like Maruice Voruz de Vaux who handled the treatment of Mrs. Guggenheim's bedroom. Murals in the sun room were painted by Claggett Wilson. Other alterations included the removal of the glass overdoors and a restaining of the oak paneling throughout the rooms for a more advantageous shade. Some of the fixtures were replaced with sconces by E.F. Caldwell & Co. and doorknobs by P.E. Guerin (style #E-16700).
Photo courtesy of Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum (1927)
One of the most dramatic changes could be found in the drawing room which was further revamped into a large music room for Solomon's family. Guggenheim's mother, Barbara, instilled a love of music and the arts in their family which carried its way into the desire to have a music room with a built-in Estey organ. Perhaps foreshadowing the Guggenheim family's fascination with the abstract and new, Burden-Muller called upon Jean Dunand who collaborated with Séraphin Soudbinine, both noted artists who were creating very forward-thinking works for that time. The latter was most likely responsible for the overall design, as well as for carving the relief figures of angels and angular rocks. Together, the artistic duo created a set of doors and a pair of lacquer screens titled “Pianissimo” and “Fortissimo,” which were composed from lacquered wood with eggshell and gold leaf.
Photos courtesy of "Town & Country" (Feb. 1927)
Photos courtesy of Town & Country (Jun. 1926)
In the center court, the fountain was replaced with a sculpture entitled "Summer" by John Gregory which was executed out of marble. The piece was roughly lifesize in scale and was regarded as one of the finest works that Gregory created during his career.
Photo courtesy of "Town & Country" (May 1926)
Under Solomon, life at "Trillora Court" continued much as it had during his brother's tenure. As the son of an immigrant peddler, the life of a country squire was very appealing. Solomon educated his daughters in England, engaged in quail shooting, and became a patron of non-objective art. This was one of multiple properties for Guggenheim as he also owned an expansive plantation in South Carolina. He would winter in Florida, riding aboard his 205' yacht, 'Trillora', for the annual journey. Solomon, the later owner, also lived at the Plaza Hotel where he would go on to meet Frank Lloyd Wright. Solomon had the second-highest tax rate for Sands Point in 1925, paying over $517,000/yr to the Town of North Hempstead. However, his estate was estimated to be worth around $40,000,000 by 1926. Some of his household staff included Albert Thiele (accountant), Mr. Jules (valet), Mr. Gunther (chauffeur to Irene), Mr. Allen (chauffeur to Solomon) and Mr. Boyd (butler).
Towards the very end of his life, Solomon decided to take on the hobby of collecting art--and abstract, complex art at that. Fostered by his wife, Irene, who was fond of old masters, Solomon had began the process of collecting nearly millions of dollars worth of masterworks by artists like Jean-Antoine Watteau. Irene was a patron of artists and sculptors who brought him into the art world. After meeting Baroness Hilla von Rebay in 1926, Guggenheim was introduced into the world of nonobjective art which used form and color to achieve its artistic effect without regard for subject nature. Vasily Kandinsky became the mainstay of his collection, but he begun to also acquire pieces by Paul Klee, Marc Chagall, and Pablo Picasso. Once he had begun to amass a formidable collection which was known worldwide by 1937, Solomon set up the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation to establish and maintain a museum of modern art. First housed in rented quarters, Frank Lloyd Wright was commissioned to design a permanent museum on Fifth Avenue (construction was held up by over 30 violations of the New York City building code). Building finally began in 1956, and it has become one of the world's leading modern art institutions.
After Solomon died in 1949, "Trillora Court" left the family's hands for the first time. Shortly after his death, the family donated the music room's screens and doors to Séraphin Soudbinine to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Cooper-Hewitt Museum, respectively, so they would be kept for posterity. A group of private builders purchased the estate with a plan to subdivide the estate into a number of 1 acre parcels. That venture was unsuccessful, and only three houses were constructed which faced Astor Lane. At that time, Thomas J. Watson, Jr., an executive of the IBM Corporation, discovered the property and recommended its purchase to become an exclusive country club for the company's New York area employees. The corporation made few alterations to the main house to provide for seminars and meetings. The grounds, gardens, and golf course were equally maintained.
Later used as the IBM Country Club & Conference Center, the property became an executive management training center for the company's top personnel to partake in intensive, weeklong programs. Any IBM employee was eligible to use the country club with just a nominal $2 annual entry fee to encourage its use. The Village of Sands Point purchased the club in 1994 after IBM's 25-year scenic easement expired and they were no longer prohibited from selling to developers. The next year, the property reopened under the leadership of Mayor Leonard Wurzel as the Village Club of Sands Point. The prospect of an active club life in Sands Point with ample amenities for golf, swimming, and tennis was a very appealing opportunity to residents.
This conversion also had unexpected discoveries that shed tremendous light into the early history of Cow Neck: Found surreptitiously in 1998 as part of an environmental impact report, a small burial plot of 25ft in size was located at the edge of a wooded terrace on the grounds of the Village Club of Sands Point. It contains the grave sites of Elizabeth Griffen Sands, Margaret Sands, and Cato Sands. The property was formerly owned by Samuel Sands in the 18th Century. There is also a Native American burial site located on the large property. Realizing the progression from the earliest residents to the revolutionary era and then the Gilded Age, the Guggenheim estate provides an incredible look across a continuum of hundreds of years of Long Island's change.
The Guggenheims started in this country as a family of penniless Jewish immigrants from Legnau, Switzerland. They arrived in America with no knowledge of English and settled in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The family's first venture was peddling stove polish which quickly turned into operating a manufacturing business. The patriarch of the family, Meyer, was driven by an undeviating desire to establish an enterprise that he could leave to his children after he died. After a chance visit by a Quaker friend who was a speculator in western lands, the family would get their start in the immensely-profitable mining industry. They would go on to control the majority of the copper lead supply in the world. Their fortune became the largest ever amassed by a Jewish family in America. In turn, they believed that this inherited wealth should be used for the progression of mankind. In order to give back for the many millions that had been made, they focused on admittedly daring charitable endeavors. During the first two decades starting in 1924, the Guggenheims set up five major, permanent philanthropic foundations that were some of the largest and most prominent in the country. Channelling the Guggenheim values of boldness, adventurousness, and willingness to take risks, that same spirit was applied through their philanthropy to take on solving the biggest challenges of mankind.
This sense of values that characterize the Guggenheim legacy dates back to the early days of the family. As the story goes, Meyer gathered in his office with seven sticks and handed one to each son. He instructed each son to break their stick in half, which they did. He then put the seven sticks together and instructed the sons to try to break them again and they couldn't. The moral of that exercise was that if they stick together, they'll do well--the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. This notion of interconnectedness manifested itself in the sort of activities that the family invested their energy. As one thinks of the pioneering endowments of the Guggenheim Museum or the many Guggenheim foundations, it is hard to forget that much of that story had its start here in Sands Point. The Port Washington community is so fortunate to be able to play, dine, learn, and party in the shadows of the indelible legacy of the Guggenheim family which remains no less relevant today.
TO BE CONTINUED
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