A Ghost Room

The day after we visited the Culinary Institute of America, we drove further north to the Vanderbilt Mansion National Historic Site and spent most of the day there touring, first, the mansion and then the grounds and gardens.  It is a mansion overlooking the Hudson River, built during the "Gilded Age" by Frederick Vanderbilt, one of the grandsons of Cornelius "Commodore" Vanderbilt who rose from poverty to become a shipping and railroad tycoon.  What is wonderful about this mansion is that when Frederick died, he willed the mansion to a niece who tried to sell it but found no buyers.  At the suggestion of her neighbor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt suggested that she donate the house and all its furnishings to the National Park Service!  So this is an astounding place to visit because it has all the original furnishings.  The mansion is virtually unchanged from the time the Vanderbilts lived there!  The Vanderbilts only used this mansion for the spring and fall seasons.  What we see here is an example of how the furniture was protected when they were absent - these are custom made covers for every piece of furniture in the mansion!  I loved the spooky feeling, seeing the furniture draped in white.  I shot this in color but it is a better photograph seen in black and white.