Maymont

The only book available about the Maymont Estate, which has more than 500,000 visitors per year, and ideal for those with an interest in the Gilded Age architecture and interior furnishings. During the Gilded Age of the late 1880s through the 1910s the era of Carnegie, Rockefeller, and Vanderbilt American millionaires displayed their prosperity by building and decorating impressive homes. In 1893 Richmond-born financier James Henry Dooley and his wife, Sallie May Dooley, added to those prestigious residences with their 100-acre country estate, Maymont. The Dooleys spent three decades filling its sumptuous interiors with treasures from around the world and establishing Maymont's magnificent gardens, landscape, and architecture. They bequeathed Maymont, completely intact, to the City of Richmond for its use as a public museum and park. Today, Maymont stands out as an unusually complete example of a Gilded Age estate. The residence, gardens, and grounds remain very much as they were during the Dooleys years, while the restored servant areas present the upstairs-downstairs lifestyle of the times. This lavishly illustrated and elegantly designed volume introduces the opulent estate of Maymont to all those who are interested in the history and grandeur of the Gilded Age in the United States.