When the Roslyn Landmark Society applied to the William G. Pomeroy Foundation for a historic marker at the Mackay Estate Gate Lodge, the Foundation asked for primary sources dating the design of the structure, which turned out to be a fun archival treasure hunt. With the documentation we had, we could say the Lodge was designed by Stanford White for Clarence and Katherine Mackay, and we could say it went up in 1900 and 1901, but at the time, what we could not provide was a dated document showing that the design existed in 1899, which is the date we wanted on the marker.
So this summer we went to the New-York Historical Society and asked for the boxes on Harbor Hill - looking for one thing: a piece of paper from 1899 reference to the Gate Lodge. After several days, we found it in a typed note Stanford White sent across his own office on December 18, 1899. "Dear Richardson," it begins. White had to be at Mr. Mackay's house that morning at a quarter past ten, and if he wasn't back by ten, Richardson was to send by messenger "the perspective of the house, the two perspectives of the lodge, the different elevations and plans of the lodge, and also of the gates which are somewhere on Ives table but which I cannot find." Two days earlier, on December 16, Clarence Mackay had signed the contract for the granite work on the main house, $13,768, with a red wax seal beside his name, and the man who witnessed his signature was William Richardson. This correspondence showed that the Gate Lodge for Harbor Hill was drawn up on December 18, 1899, and somebody was hunting for the drawings on a colleague's desk - dating it before 1900!
The box held several hundred other things as well: clock bids and slate samples, a landscape architect who thought the Lodge was in the wrong place, a quarry in Maine proud to be chosen, and weekly pay sheets with the names of the men who built it.
We're sharing them here because now, almost 130 years later, the building once again needs the work those papers describe.
The slate roof that went on in the winter of 1900 is coming down this year, slate by slate, so that we can rebuild the structure of the roof, remake the copper gutters and finials, and recreate the clock that at in the roof above the gates -faithfully recreated from the original drawings. We can see the expression of that building, designed in 1899, and we are working to restore it to Stanford White's vision.
An anonymous donor is matching every new gift to It's Time to Give, dollar for dollar, up to $28,000, for the Gate Lodge's slate roof, its copper gutters and finials, and the clock above the gates. A gift of any size counts twice until the match is met.
You can give at roslynlandmarks.org/itstimetogive.
White's note of December 18, 1899
Contract for the granite work to build the main house, known as Harbor Hill, with Clarence Mackay's signature, the red wax seals and Wm Richardson as witness.
The cover of the contract with White Granite Company for the "House at 'Harbor Hills'"
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