Astor Courts — McBournie Richards

The Beaux-Arts estate Astor Courts, which is modeled after the Grand Trianon at Versailles, is the most notable historic landmark in the town of Rhinebeck, New York. 

Designed by Stanford White for John Jacob Astor IV as a recreation pavilion for his Ferncliff estate, the turn-of-the-20th-century house was once the private home of philanthropist Brooke Astor.

It’s notable for a number of reasons, one of the more interesting of which is that it was never fully finished: Astor, a passenger on the Titanic, didn’t survive the sinking, and the second floor of the 40,000-square-foot residence was never built; the house still has a central staircase that would have led to the top floor.

Through the years, the house, which is on 50 acres of rolling hills, had numerous owners and at one time was a premier wedding venue. Chelsea Clinton was married there in 2010. Its latest owners are Wendy and Eric Schmidt, the former CEO of Google.

The couple, who updated the infrastructure under the direction of White’s great-grandson, Samuel White, a partner at PBDW Architects, asked the McBournie Richards firm to renovate and restore the interiors of the mansion.

“They saw the style they wanted as a cross between a country inn and the Obama living private quarters in the White House,” says principal Bill Richards, who founded the firm with Gary McBournie. “Astor Courts and the White House are almost like sister buildings— Stanford White led McKim, Mead & White’s 1902-03 White House renovation. They each have the same rotunda and columns.”

With the Schmidts’ parameters in mind, the designers set about transforming the home’s vast and grand spaces into comfortable living areas for a 21st-century family. 

Color played an important role in the plan. 

“White was a colorist, but by the time we were working on the house, it had been neutralized,” McBournie says. “We brought bold color–and life–back.”

Saturated hues, particularly in the yellow great room, the coral sitting room and the deep-teal library, are augmented by layers of textures that play out in handwoven rugs, decorative paintwork, velvet and linen upholstery, lacquered woods and richly veined marbles.

Many of the furnishings and artworks were bought at shops and auction houses in the Hudson Valley.

“Like all our projects, Astor Courts looks as though the items were collected over time,” McBournie says. “The layering of periods and styles gives comfort.”

The primary bedroom, which has ornate plaster and details on the walls and ceiling, features a bed draped in a blue Kravet silk and Cowtan & Tout floral linen, a Ralph Lauren Home Alexandra chandelier, a Louis XV-style giltwood mirror from an auction house and shades by Blanche Field.

In the hallway, the designers created a Parisian-style lounge and bar, complete with kitchenette, the furnishings are a mix of vintage and antique finds: a George III-style parcel-gilt lantern, a circa 1900 Karabagh rug, a gilt and lacquer table, a convex mirror, a Neoclassical console and oversized mirrors.

One of the challenges of the project was humanizing enormous rooms such as the great hall, whose ornate moldings were repaired and replicated based on period photos. 

“We treated it like a hotel and reimagined it as a sequence of smaller, distinct areas, each defined by thoughtful groups of furniture and lighting,” McBournie says, adding that it’s now an animated space where groups of people can engage simultaneously in a variety of activities.

In the family room, Richards and McBournie added early 20th-century painted French panels and paired them with a settee upholstered in a bold geometric fabric; in the foyer, they installed a hand-painted custom de Gournay mural in shades of blue to pay homage to the Hudson Valley; and they appointed the veranda outside the breakfast room and kitchen with a Bielecky Brothers chair and sofa painted in Benjamin Moore’s “Garden Cucumber.”

The project also included restoring the marbled indoor pool and its vaulted ceilings and Corinthian columns and updating the indoor clay tennis court with a retractable glass roof. 

The home’s nine bedrooms now are en suite: The closets were converted to baths, and armoires were added for storage.

As for that staircase that had nowhere to go, it now is defined by a whimsical balustrade that leads to a skylit red hallway that culminates at a door that leads to the rooftop deck.

The duo says that it was an honor to work on such an important piece of history. 

“Stanford White was one of the gods of architecture and design,” Richards says. “It’s a very watched building; we didn’t want to make any missteps.” TB