Author Spotlight: An American Renaissance: Beaux-Arts Architecture in New York City by Phillip Dodd

The Gilded Age, also referred to as the American Renaissance, marks the first time that the titans of American finance and industry had more wealth than their European counterparts. As the center of this dynamic economy, New York City attracted immigrant works and millionaires alike. It was not be enough for the self-appointed elite to just build their own grand chateaux’s and palazzo’s along Fifth Avenue, as collectively they dreamed of creating a new metropolis to rival the great cultural capitals of London, Paris and Rome. To fluent their newly acquired wealth they needed an architecture dripping in embellishment and historical reference. Enter the Beaux-Arts.

This book, which has been painstakingly researched and beautifully photographed over many years, takes a close look at twenty of the finest examples of Beaux-Arts architecture in New York City. While showing public exteriors, its main focus is on the lavish interiors that are associated with the opulence of the Gilded Age, as well as the stories of the millionaires that commissioned them – names that Julian Fellowes (the creator of Downton Abbey and the HBO series The Gilded Age) notes in the foreword, “still reek of money.”

At this special event for Bartow-Pell Mansion Museum, author Phillip James Dodd will present several of the Beaux-Arts landmarks featured in the book – some world-renowned landmarks recognizable and accessible to all, while others are obscure buildings that history has forgotten – as well as the patrons and architects that designed them, and their influences on Julian Fellowes’ television series The Gilded Age.

Light refreshments will be served after the lecture. Books will be available for purchase.