After dining at the Culinary Institute of America the evening before (sorry, no pictures - it was fabulous!) we toured the Hyde Park Vanderbilt Mansion. Quite a place, though the smallest of their abodes. A palace modern by late 19th century standards it remains as if frozen in time, awaiting the next opulent party. Lavishly equipped with Italian marble and furnished with European antiquities, it bespeaks a bygone age of grandeur. No one today takes this sort of painstaking effort to achieve classical elegance. Click the pix for a larger image.
 First view of the place from across the front lawn.
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 Victoria's new earrings.
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 Front of the house.
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 Second floor rotunda. No flash photography is allowed inside, so only on the rotunda railing was I able to steady the camera enough for some natural light shots.
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 The house is full of priceless art.
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 From the basement, servants' country, looking up the service stairway all the way to the third floor.
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 North side of house, which commands a view of the Hudson River Valley.
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