| The Bronx Journal Online-Local
Castle in the Woods
The Bartow-Pell Mansion is a jewel in a far-flung
part of the borough
Joan Snaith
Bronx Journal Staff Reporter
The Bartow-Pell Mansion, a landmark nestled
in the woods of Pelham Bay Park in the Bronx, sits on well-manicured
grounds that are very picturesque. Still, it isn’t well known as a
tourist attraction and many people in the Bronx and Manhattan have never
heard of it.
Ask around, though, and you’re likely to
find a few people in the know. "What I love about Bartow-Pell
Mansion is the lovely English garden setting," says Wendy Thorpe,
43, a GED teacher, who works in Harlem. "The entire mansion is very
well preserved. Inside on the second floor the wall treatment is
accurate, the federalist blue and the furniture used in the mansion for
that time period is also accurate." Ms. Thorpe first learned of the
mansion from a colleague. She was also in a wedding that was held on the
grounds of Bartow-Pell Mansion. "It was a very romantic
setting," she says. Thorpe says the caretakers are very protective
of the grounds and that the mansion is an ideal spot for weddings
because of the wonderful ambiance.
Indeed, looking at the mansion reminds one
of an old English movie with a garden setting. There is a herb garden
that contains an array of culinary, aromatic, medicinal and ornamental
plants. Between Shore Road and the parking lot is the "Treaty
Tree," a huge oak tree where Thomas Pell signed a contract to
acquire the land the mansion now sits upon.
On November 1654, Thomas Pell, an English
physician who had previously settled in Connecticut, struck a bargain
with the Sewanoe Indians and acquired by treaty 9,000 acres of land
bordering Long Island Sound. After the Dutch ceded their rights to the
English in 1664, Pell received a royal charter to create a manor on the
grounds. Thomas Pell’s nephew and heir, Sir John Pell, built a manor
house there in 1675, which served four generations of his descendants
until it was destroyed during the Revolutionary War. Later, after the
Revolutionary War, John Bartow took over the property when he was wed to
Ann Pell, the daughter of the fourth lord of the manor and his cousin.
The property was owned outside the family for sometime until John’s
grandson, Robert, bought it in 1836. By then it was reduced to 200
acres. In 1842 Robert built the house that now stands on the property.
In 1888, the mansion, along with the
carriage house and 200 acres of land was purchased as part of the deal
that made Pelham Bay Park part of New York City. In 1914, a group of
prominent New Yorkers decided to save the mansion and restore it. It
opened a year later in May 1915, presided over by the president of the
International Garden Club Inc., which continues to maintain the interior
of the building and the gardens (the city cares for the exterior.) In
1938, Mayor Fiorello La Guardia used it as a summer office. Today it is
opened to the public as a museum, as is the magnificent garden. The
building belongs to the city and is under the jurisdiction of the
Department of Parks.
On display are ten rooms furnished with
American Empire furniture, paintings, and decorative arts. Although none
of the furniture that belonged to Robert Bartow, the original owner,
remains in the house, there are a pair of portraits and a needlework
picture that were left by Bartow’s extended family. Some furnishings
have been borrowed from the Metropolitan Museum, the Brooklyn Museum and
Museum of the City of New York, but most belongs to the Bartow-Pell
Landmark Fund, which operates the museum. The museum also has an
elliptical staircase and a canopied sleigh bed. A carriage house is on
the north side of the house. Inside are sleighs, a traveling carriage
and objects relating to the era of horse drawn transportation.
In the summer, the grounds can be rented
out for weddings. The cost of the rental of the grounds is about $2,500
for 150 people and $3,500 for 200 people according to Victor Domgjoni, a
manager of the property. He points out that Bartow Pell-Mansion only
rents the grounds; the bride, groom and their respective families have
to furnish any equipment needed for their wedding.
Domgjoni thinks more Bronxites should take
some time to visit Bartow-Pell Mansion as well as other landmarks of the
Bronx. "You know, everyone always visits Manhattan landmarks and
forgets the other boroughs especially the Bronx," says Ernestine
Smith, 48, an administrative assistant at Lucent Technologies. "New
Yorkers should take the time out to learn more about the Bronx -- they
will discover that the borough has some very interesting historic sites
to explore."
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