A visit to a Grand Mansion( retreived from a post to the Archives)
Posted by Larry Ryan /ce and jw on November 30, 1997 at 10:43:12:
Joan found this in her routine review of the Archive section of Pemberley. If you reply to a post there, it doesn't show up on the index boards. She (and I) think that it's interesting, and worth showing to the rest of Pemberley
You can respond to it here, if you wish.
Posted by Larry Ryan on November 27, 1997 at 17:29:54:
In response to Re: Old Houses, Bulldogs and Movies, written
by Caroline on June 15, 1997 at 12:00:02
] ] Most people
] ] were actually proud of their old houses and were happy to
climb up
] ] in the loft with me!(One house built about 1450 had FIVE
staircases
] ] built one on top of the other- that was wierd!)
] ] Are the Netherfield and Longbourne houses the houses that
were written about in Jane Austin's Pride and Prejudice? Are
these real places. The A and E production of P/P was superb
and the houses used were outstanding. Do these places really
exist with the names that were used in the A and E production.?
The choice of houses in that production was perfect. Rosings
Park could not have been more stiff, cold and inappropriatelyelaborate. Longbourne was grand but in a modest sort of way.The scenes at Pennfield were especially tender. The summer vistthat Jane made with her relatives reminded me of an experience from my childhood.
In about 1953 when I was about seven or eight years of age I
remember stopping at a great estate house in Perrysbury, Ohio.
The estate was a perfect Georgian house which beloned to W.
W. Knight. Knight was a bank baron as far as I know. There
were many great estates on the bluffs of the Maumee River
between Perrysburg and Rossford Ohio. . Most had been built
in the early 1920's by industrial barons. Anyway they were
beautiful and well situated.
We did exactly as happened in Price and Prejudice. Knowing
that the family was not at home, we stopped and were given a
full tour of the house by the primary housekeeper, a kindly
woman who happened to have been an acquaintance of an
elderly aunt of mine who was on the drive with us. I will neverforget visiting the estate. The road leading to the house must have been a mile long and lined with beautiful elm trees that provided an arch over the road. On the way down the road there were well tended farm fields and several well tended cotages for the farm managers. The estate's farms were tidy and spread beond these cottages, which were colonial in style. As we approached the estate house the entire scene became more like a park with huge specimen trees framing the huge georgian mansion and providing just the right glimpses of the river beyond and below. This particular estate was built within sight of another grand house which was known as the Ford Estate. I think that they were built reasonably close to one another (even though each had its own roads and full set of estate buildings)because there was some connection between the Knight and Ford families. The Ford house was tudor and huge (47 rooms)
rambling and equally as beautiful as the Knight Mansion.
The Knight mansion was a perfect three story tudor. The third floor housed all the servant's rooms. The first and second floors were grand with views of the river below or of the estate park and gardens. We toured every room of the house including the grand staricase and back stairases. We heard commentary from the housekeeper regarding all of the large family portraits which hung on the walls of the rooms. The rooms on the first and second floor were perfedtly decorated in a formal manner. There were fireplaces everywhere. In the servant's area there were special rooms for ironing and storing linens. After seeing every room in the house. We strolled around the grounds and enjoyed the formal and informal gardens which were in their glory at the height of the summer. There was a beautiful swimming pool, guest houses, gardener and chaufeur cottages closer to the main house.
As a child, I never imagined that any one lived like this
The Knight House does not exist anymore. I have no idea of
what happened to it. I have lived in CA. over twenty years, and the last time I was in Ohio and drove by the estate area, I noted that Knight Estate property had been developed into an upscale housing development. The house is completely gone with not even an indication that it or the cottages, the gorgeous gardens ever existed. The Ford Mansion is still there providing some glimplse of a life style which has passed.
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