Astor Courts, Estate of the Day

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed)
Sep 27th 2009 at 1:01PM

Today's estate is one of the prettiest I've seen in a while. Astor Courts in Rhinebeck, New York, was designed by architect Stanford White for John Jacob Astor IV. The beautiful Beaux-Arts mansion was completed in 1904 and is on 50 acres. The expansive main living area has five bedrooms and spans over 15,000 square feet. The truly stunning details include the indoor clay tennis court topped with a glass ceiling and framed by Gothic arches and a white marble pool surrounded by arches and graced with a pale sky-blue ceiling.

In 1964 Brooke Astor gave the home to the Catholic Church. The Wall Street Journal's Private Properties reports that the current owners, real-estate developer Arthur Seelbinder and his wife, Kathleen Hammer, a former producer for Oxygen Media, bought the home in 2005 for $3.2 million and spent a fortune restoring it. Stanford White's great-grandson, Sam White led the restoration. Clearly he did a fine job, it's a stunner (even if some of the decor seems a little too Crate and Barrel prefab for a home of this pedigree). The home is listed at $12 million.

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Gallery: Astor Courts

Tags: astor courts, AstorCourts, brooke astor, BrookeAstor, estate of the day, EstateOfTheDay, new york real estate, NewYorkRealEstate, rhinebeck

Filed under: Estates

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Goto98 Sep 27th 2009 1:34PM

Incredible,

I cant say I care much for the exterior of the structure, but the grounds and interior wreak of a delightful world of old luxury.

A fascinating estate by a fascinating family.

gregg Sep 27th 2009 5:41PM

The grounds look a bit dry and overgrown in places, and could use some TLC
(but hey, I understand.....it's 50 acres), and the exterior is too monolithic and museum like, but the interior (restoration and design) is absolutely fabulous!!! The indoor tennis court is unbelievable!! Great job!!

Spectacular Bid Sep 27th 2009 11:58PM

Worth putting focus on is that this particular property under Astor was never as per say a residential estate as it is offered today, but rather simply the gentlemen's 'casino'. A type of retreat recreation property not uncommon with large estates of the era. (In fact my wife and I almost purchased a relic gilded age property with one still intact this year also in Upstate NY.) The Astor mansion that went with this property (over 2,800 acres of largely farm lands) was Ferncliff and it was razed in the early 1940's.

The restoration job of this property is sensational although the property never was anything less then A1 in its original construction or design. It cost over $1 million alone when it was built which is in excess of $20 Million in 2009 dollars.

The current owners contracted for purchase of this property in Nov 2004 and took possession in March 2005. They certainly have not done the far too typical (and reprehensable) quick fixer upper of this estate. Rather they truly did plow the time, resources and research to do it right.

I'll cut them slack for the already noted weak staging furtinture used to keep the clean, bright, simple look of the architecture in focus.