In 1864, railroad magnate Samuel Sloan and his wife Margaret commissioned a 16-acre country estate in Garrison known as Oulagisket or Lisburne Grange. The couple also built three homes nearby as wedding gifts for their children. The estate, with its Greek Revival facade, was renovated in 2014 by River Architects of Cold Spring into an energy-efficient passive house and is on the market for $11.25 million.
Sloan was president of the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad for 32 years. In 1907, his son, Samuel Sloan Jr., and his wife Katherine moved into the home and expanded it by about 5,000 square feet and introduced a more Italianate style. In the 1920s, architect Fletcher Steele redesigned and expanded the landscaping.
The 11,800-square-foot home, which has six bedrooms, stayed in the Sloan family until Katherine died in 1951. The buyers owned it for nearly 60 years, until 2010.
It is listed by Richard Phan of Douglas Elliman.
I’d respectfully like to offer some corrections to the staff of The Highland Current with regard to the architectural modifications to this once spectacular mansion mentioned in this article.
The house as it was originally designed and built in the early 1860s (top photo) was a textbook example of Italianate Revival style architecture as popularized by Alexander Jackson Davis, Calvert Vaux and Richard Upjohn in the mid-19th century. The modifications carried out between 1907 to 1913 during Sam Sloan Jr.’s ownership introduced Mediterranean motifs, i.e. terracotta roofs and stuccoed exterior walls. Mediterranean villas were very fashionable from 1900 to 1930. The alterations carried out for Sloan Jr. were tastefully executed simultaneously “modernizing” the family home while retaining its original architectural character and massing.
In 2014 the house was again altered, as this article explains, but this time, the modifications completely obliterated any trace of the original houses architectural character and integrity. The alterations, which took several years to finish, involved stripping the building down to its basic shell, the removal the center tower and several wings. All architectural components and fixtures were removed and sold off. The house re-emerged as a modern interpretation of an 1830 to 1840’s Greek Revival manse.
I believe that great old houses should be preserved and stewarded just like fine art and collectables. They should be preserved for future generations long after trends fade. That’s not to say that old houses can’t be readapted to meet modern needs but there’s been a noticeable trend in the Hudson River Valley towards this sort of alteration. Several other well known mansions in Philipstown have met similar fates in recent years. Nobody in their right mind would buy a great painting just draw smiley faces and mustaches on it!