List of Gilded Age mansions


Gilded Age mansions were lavish houses built between 1870 and the early 20th century by some of the richest people in the United States.
These estates were raised by the nation's industrial, financial and commercial elite, who amassed great fortunes in era of expansion of the tobacco, railroad, steel, and oil industries coinciding with a lack of both governmental regulation and the absence of a personal income tax. The manor homes and city seats were designed by prominent architects of the day and decorated with antiquities, furniture, and works of art from the world over.
Many of the wealthy had undertaken grand tours of Europe, during which they admired the estates of the nobility. Seeing themselves as their American equivalent, they wished to emulate the old world dwellings on American soil, and spent extravagantly to do so, often seeking to one-up each other. Concentrations of such homes developed in the financial centers and resorts of the Northeast, the industrial heartland of the Upper Midwest, and in the rapidly expanding regions of the West Coast, with vacation homes also appearing prominently in Florida.

California

District of Columbia

Georgia

ImageNameYear builtStyleArchitectCityNotesRef.
Rockefeller Cottage1892ShingleJekyll IslandWas the summer house of William Rockefeller Jr. Today, a museum operated by Jekyll Island Museum
The Greyfield1905Colonial RevivalCumberland IslandWas built for Margaret Carnegie Ricketson. Today, an inn and wedding venue
Dungeness1886Queen AnneCumberland IslandBuilt for Thomas M Carnagie. Destroyed by fire in 1959
Plum Orchard1898Classical RevivalPeabody and StearnsCumberland IslandBuilt for George Lauder Carnagie. The estate is now part of Cumberland Island National Seashore.
Rhodes Hall1904Richardson RomanesqueWillis F DennyAtlantaBuilt for Amos Giles Rhodes, today is open to the public and has been the home of The Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation since 1983.
John H James Residence1869Second EmpireWilliam H ParkinsAtlantaOriginally built for John H James, was the Georgia Governor's Mansion between 1870 and 1923, in that year was demolished.

Kentucky

Michigan

Montana