An architectural, personal, and historical account of one of the towering figures from America’s Gilded Age

First published in 2001, this acclaimed volume is back in print, shining a spotlight on the four major houses purchased or built and renovated for Henry Clay Frick, the world-famous art collector and steel tycoon. 

The most authoritative book available about Frick’s houses, it contains exclusive content, including vintage photographs, documents, letters, original working drawings, artist’s sketches, and designer’s notes. With America’s Gilded Age continuing to fascinate readers, this book provides a unique cross-section of the era with history, architecture, design, art, and biography.

With priceless furnishings, interiors, and designed gardens by the most prestigious architects of the day, the houses featured in this book exemplify the great residences of the era: the late-Victorian Clayton in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania houses the Frick Pittsburgh; the neoclassical Eagle Rock in Massachusetts was Frick’s summer retreat; One East Seventieth Street in New York is home to the world-renowned Frick Collection; and the Clayton Estate in Roslyn, New York is a Georgian Revival masterpiece.

The author—a great-granddaughter of Henry Clay Frick—provides privileged access to the subject, which results in a text that describes the rooms, artwork, furniture, and gardens in exacting detail, and interweaves stories of the lives of Frick and his family with the history of the houses.

Martha Frick Symington Sanger is a great-granddaughter of Henry Clay Frick. Her award-winning biography, Henry Clay Frick: An Intimate Portrait, was published in 1998. Sanger has lectured throughout the world on Frick’s life and art collection.

Wendell Garrett was a senior vice president of American art at Sotheby’s New York, and was the author of several books on American social and cultural history.