# 1910: Braceholme Mansion: Tarrytown NY



## Skydog (Sep 26, 2020)

Calling Dr. Emmett Brown - pull down that silver gull-wing door and fire up the Flux Capacitor because we are going back to the the Golden Age of the Tarrytowns (1874 to 1918)!

*1910: The Braceholme Mansion*

The Braceholme Mansion was a 12,000 square foot (or 1,115 square meter) stone masonry building located in what is now known as Wilson Park (in Tarrytown, New York).  The mansion was built by Dr. Charles C. Brace sometime between 1906 - 1910...out of you guessed it - granite quarried directly from the property itself (similar to the construction methods utilized on Castle Elda - located just a hop, skip and a jump north in Ossining New York - see thread: SH: Castle Elda).  The stone walls of the colossal Braceholme structure (colossal for a turn-of-the-century single family residence at least) were apparently 2-feet (or 0.61 meters) thick.  The property also contained an enormous greenhouse, a 10,000-square foot carriage house (split 50/50 for horses / automobiles) and a caretaker cottage coined the "Brace Cottage".  The Brace Cottage was originally built in 1880, but then rebuilt by Dr. Brace to complement his mansion.

One of my friends from high school is an architect and I asked him what it would cost to try and replicate the Braceholme mansion, carriage house and cottage today.  Answer: well...there are only a select few who even know how to build like that anymore.  His best guess was $1,000 per square foot as just builder cost alone (or 6-7x the cost of a modern-era McMansion).  If you add up all the square footage above you are easily looking at well over $25 Million as just builder cost alone (i.e. no profit)    to embark on this little project today - if you could even find anyone who knows how to do it of course.

Back to the official narrative, Dr. Brace was originally from Colorado but moved to Westchester New York in order to find a better location for his Denver Chemical Company, makers of Antiphlogistine, a warm salve for the relief of aches, sprains and chest colds. Sales of the poultice made Dr. Brace a wealthy man and the profits in turn funded the construction of the Braceholme estate.  However, if you look up Antiphlogistine (aka RUB A535) on WikiP W: RUB A535 - it says it was first introduced in 1919 and manufactured by Church & Dwight in Montreal, Quebec. The WikiP article goes on to that say that Antiphlogistine is relatively unknown outside of Canada - and is actually not even sold in the US today.  So a bit of an inconsistency with respect to the official timeline (and geography) right out of the gate.  I also couldn't find much of anything on the Denver Chemical Company for what it's worth.  For fun, I converted $25 Million into 1906 dollars and got $865,658 - not sure how many bottles of RUB A535 one would have to sell in the years leading up to 1906 in order to have a cool $1 Million to spend on a country home in 1906 - but it must of been a magical amount considering the product wasn't even invented until 1919! 

_*Picture #1: Braceholme Mansion (1910 - 1986) - 12,000 Square Foot Mansion - For scale - look at the rocking chairs on the porch. *_






*Picture #2: Brace Cottage (1880 - 2017): Apparently the structure required very little maintenance/repairs over its lifetime given it was so solidly constructed (constructed in 1880 or 1906 though?)*





*A Beautiful Day in the Old Neighborhood *

Braceholme was one of a number of mansions situated in this area in the early 1900s.  The area was named for William S. Wilson, a New York City merchant, who built a stunning brick mansion on twenty acres on Wilson Park Drive near the top of Beech Lane sometime before 1878.  He called his estate Pleasance and the house survives today as part of the administration building for the nuns of the Religious of the Sacred Heart of Mary.  Wilson's neighbor to the south was an equally grand house known as the Reynard Mansion, which in 1907 became the first Marymount College, now Marymount Convent for retired and infirm nuns.  Dr. Brace's closest neighbors (Frank Wright and Worcester Warner) also each had grand mansions flanking the Braceholme mansion, however, the Wright and Warner mansion were made of boring old wood - so will not be the focus of this little stroll down memory lane.

Of course Dr. Brace's most famous neighbor of all, John D. Rockefeller Sr., lived just to his north at his grand estate: Kykuit.  At the turn of the century the land in between Kykuit and the other mansions mentioned above was occupied by an orphanage called the Institution of Mercy.  Apparently its huge red roof was visible from Kykuit, the Rockefeller's hilltop home just to the north, because in 1908 John D. Rockefeller asked if he could paint the roof green at his own expense.  The nuns accepted.  In 1945 the building became Our Lady of Victory Academy high school.

*Assumption Hall Era*

In 1945 - the Braceholme Mansion was abandoned by the family during World War II due to a lack of heating oil.  That must have been a trendy thing to do back in the 1940s - abandoning Mansions and Castles (again see thread: SH: Castle Elda). The Sisters of the Sacred Heart, a religious order that once owned Marymount, eventually purchased the land with the three mansions on it (i.e. Braceholme, Wright and Warner).  Braceholme was rebranded "Assumption Hall" as was used as a dormitory and retreat center for many years (1st picture above is from the Assumption Hall era - ironically it is the only photo I can find online after hours and hours and hours extensively searching under various Braceholme / Assumption Hall combinations).

*Rockefeller Connection *

In the 1960s, Laurence Rockefeller (grandson or John D. Rockefeller Sr.) purchased the land the Our Lady of Victory Academy high school was on and the school moved to Dobbs Ferry.  The school and the outbuildings were subsequently razed (another potential thread in the future).  In 1982, Laurence purchased the 26 acres on which Braceholme and the other two mansions (Wright & Warner) sat on from the Sisters of the Sacred Heart.  After a brief battle with preservationists, the Warner, Wright and Brace mansions were demolished sometime between 1984 - 1986 (I've seen both dates provided in my research).  The land sat empty and wild for many years until the early 2000s, when most (but thankfully not all) of the land was sold to developers and a number of new modern houses / mansions were constructed. One article I found, and heavily borrowed from throughout this thread - was titled 'Mansions' Return to Tarrytown's Wilson Park But Pale in Comparison to Majestic Estates of Past.  And that about hits the nail right on the head.

The last remnant of the Braceholme estate - the Brace Cottage - was finally demolished just a few years ago (in 2017) - after a long and righteous battle fought by The Friends of Brace Cottage against the developer of the new estates.  Unfortunately they lost the battle, the cottage was torn down - and a new house is going up as of this post (Sep-2020).

What a shame.

But as I mentioned, a good swath of land was preserved in a grand bargain between the developers and the resistance (i.e. my noble neighbors) - specifically the very land that the three main mansions once stood - which is Wilson Park today.

Endnote: the prior owner of my house (built in the 1950s - i.e. not one of the new ones for what it's worth) took one of the block/stones from when the Cottage was demolished in 2017 and left it on my property.  I eventually found it, buried somewhat, then learned of its amazing history (from the prior owner) and now proudly display it in my garden.


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