The
History of Tappan Hill Mansion
The
house sits on land that was once part of the
estate of a wealthy family called
Phillipse.
George
Washington fell in love with the family's
daughter but was afraid to propose.
Legend has it that
he tracked her movements through a friend
until she married.
Ironically,
the Phillipses remained loyal to the English
during the Revolution. After
the war, the estate, as with the properties
of many loyalists, was seized and sold at auction.
It was nearly a century later that a mansion
was first built on the property, which was
until
then only woods and farmland, by a Captain
William Casey. Casey had held the property
for some time
but was unable to develop it until awarded
his pension for service in the Revolutionary
War at age 76.
Mark
Twain bought the Casey house in 1902. Embattled
and salty from financial difficulties, Twain
was known for his adversarial relationship
with the local tax assessors. Twain sold the
house to the famous banker, Jacques Halle,
in 1915.
Halle
lived in a time and social milieu of extreme
wealth. Westchester became the neighborhood of
Jay Gould, who built Lyndhurst Castle down the
road, and the Rockefellers. Halle tore down the
original wood-frame Casey mansion and replaced
it with a massive stone edifice. For whatever
reason
- the war,
the Depression -
Halle sold his estate just before World War II
and the mansion became a restaurant.
In
1990, Tappan Hill was acquired by an events company
and now serves solely as a place to party. |
