In 1895, Frederick W. Vanderbilt purchased the Langdon estate, comprised of 153 acres, a structurally unsound house, a farm and 459 acres on the east side of Post Road. Hyde Park was the name of the stately home he commissioned for himself and his wife, Louise and it was built between 1896 and 1899 on approximately 600 acres. The mansion on a bluff overlooking the Hudson River in Hyde Park, N.Y., this was one of several homes owned by the couple.

Edith Wharton was part of “Olde New York” society, and is credited with establishing interior design as a profession in the United States. She was the first woman to receive the Pulitzer Prize for non-fiction for her book, Age of Innocence. She believed that good architectural expression included order, scale, and harmony.