'
Seven Springs', the
Eugene Meyer estate designed by
Charles A. Platt c. 1918 in Mt. Kisco,
New York. Meyer was Chairman of the Board of the Federal Reserve from 1930-1933 and subsequently president of the World Bank Group and owner of the Washington Post. 'Seven Springs' is now owned by Donald Trump who recently received approval to develop the property, click
HERE for more. Click
HERE to see 'Seven Springs' on google earth and
HERE on bing.
Photos from
House & Garden, 1918 via
DED.
5 comments:
Well I'm positively tickled pink by this little treat! It's a shame that Trump is finally getting his way, but time marches on, I suppose.
Zach,
Thank you for the two posts on the Eugene Meyer properties. Mr. Meyer was a good friend of my grandfather, Davidson Sommers, and I was honered to walk his daughter, Katherine Graham, to her seat at my grandfathers funeral. This is a big treat for me.
I've always loved this estate - including the much under appreciated stone Heinz mansion of "Nonsuch" on the property.
When Trump sent the contents of the Meyer mansion to auction (Sotheby's) I bought the catalog. It was when bought packed with sensational furnishings and I can only imagine how barren its been the last 18-years.
The bing view highlights how devoid of activity there is there. Which will change soon with swaths of trees to be removed for faux Chateaus with 7-bay car garages I'm sure.
Nonsuch received some infamy back in 2009 when the now late Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi lease the grounds and pitched his Bedouin tent just yards from the mansion. He was in the US for a UN summit.
I believe the officials nixed the temp structure from being used due to a lack of permits.
Anyone who loved the Post or Phil or Kay Graham would love this record of the Meyer home. I can picture Kay and Ruthie during summers there on horseback. There were several other houses on the grounds i wonder what became of those? The property in those days was said to be 700 acres or more! Imagine life there in that big, cold stone house with butlers and a full compliment of maids, laundresses,and governesses. Kay wrote of its isolation in her memoir, despite all the other siblings and hired help. Imagine the art as well, much of which went on to museums, galleries and the White House! I am sad Trump owns it. I feel it is a national treasure that at one time housed many great artists and literary greats of the day. I've always wanted to have the chance to sneak on the grounds and to get a peek at a bygone era...
I was honored to be a guest at this facility in May, 1982. The Seven Springs Center was used for symposia and I was a lead speaker on A Palestinian Homeland: What should it Be? I remember the wonderful food and the friendly deer, as well as the company. I was then Chair of the Palestine-Israeli Working Group at the Department of State. Here are some of the people I discussed Palestine with. Mohammed Ahmed Addellah (Chairman, Foreign Affairs Committee, People's Assembly, Cairo), Ahmed Bahaeddin (Editor, Al Ahram, Cairo), Graeme Bannerman, (Senate Foreign Affairs Committee), L. Dean Brown, (President of the Middle East Institute), William Butler (Chairman of International Commission of Jurists), Dr. Geoffrey Kemp (National Security Council), Judith Kipper (American Enterprise Institute), Chris Kojm (Senior Editor of Foreign Policy Association), Charles Maynes (Editor, Foreign Policy), Emile Nakhleh (Professor Mount Saint Mary's College), Harold Saunders (For Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs), Avram Scheitzer (Ha'aretz, Tel Avis), Hisham Sharabi (Georgetown University), Howard Squadron (Chairman, Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations), Barbara Tuchman (Historian), and many others. It was that kind of place, which could attract the best and brightest.
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