Lynnewood Hall

Lynnewood Hall is a 110-room Neoclassical Revival mansion in Elkins Park, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, designed by architect Horace Trumbauer for industrialist Peter A. B. Widener between 1897 and 1900. Considered the largest surviving Gilded Age mansion in the Philadelphia area, it housed one of the most important Gilded Age private art collections of European masterpieces and decorative arts assembled by Widener and his younger son Joseph.Peter A. B. Widener died at Lynnewood Hall at the age of 80 on November 6, 1915 after prolonged poor health. He was predeceased by his elder son George Dunton Widener and grandson Harry Elkins Widener, both of whom died when the Titanic sank in 1912.DescriptionBuilt from Indiana limestone, the "T"-shaped Lynnewood Hall (dubbed "The last of the American Versailles" by Widener's grandson) measures 325ft long by 215ft deep. In addition to 55 bedrooms, the 110-room mansion had a large art gallery, a ballroom large enough for 1000 guests, swimming pool, wine cellars, a farm, carpentry and upholstery studios, and an electrical power plant.A 2014 Philadelphia Inquirer article described the mansion as "dripping with silk, velvet, and gilded moldings, the rooms furnished with chairs from Louis XV's palace, Persian rugs, and Chinese pottery, the halls crammed with art by Raphael, Rembrandt, El Greco, Van Dyck, Donatello." TIME magazine published an account of a lavish party held at Lynnewood Hall in 1932.