This mansion in the Hudson Valley of New York at one time sat on 80-acres (now reduced to a couple) and was purchased by the wealthy socialite Elizabeth Jones in 1853 as a summer house.
A cousin to the Astors and aunt to Edith Wharton, Jones occupied a space in the upper echelons of New York high society. In 1853 she had built for herself this gothic mansion in the sleepy hamlet of Rhinecliff, a hundred miles up the Hudson River.
The 24 bedroom Gothic mansion had towers and gables and arched windows, and looked like something right out of a fairy tale. It was so grand that it prompted a ‘building boom’ as all neighbors started upgrading their houses and thought to be where the saying “Keeping up with the Joneses” was born.
Elizabeth Jones never married, and after her death, the mansion’s later owners fell foul of the Great Depression, until in 1950, the house was abandoned for good. Today Wyndcliffe lies hidden in the thick forests of the Hudson river valley.
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