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Caramoor
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East elevation of Rosen House, 2008
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| Location: | Katonah, NY |
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| Nearest city: | White Plains |
| Area: | 81 acres (33 ha)[1] |
| Built: | 1929–39[1] |
| Architect: | Christian Rosborg, Mott Schmidt |
| Architectural style: | Renaissance Revival |
| Governing body: | Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts |
| NRHP Reference#: | 01000548 |
| Added to NRHP: | March 25, 2001 |
Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts is a former estate near Katonah, New York United States, that has since become a venue for classical music performances and an art museum. Both are legacies of the house's original owners, Walter and Lucie Rosen.[2] The Caramoor International Music Festival is held there every summer. It also runs educational programs, and can be rented for events such as weddings.
The Rosens built the estate gradually during the 1930s, its main house an imitation Italian villa. Many pieces of the buildings were imported from various European countries.[3] The informal musical performances they hosted evolved into the beginning of Caramoor's current offerings in 1945, and their collection of Renaissance-era and Chinese artworks, some rare, is on display throughout the estate. Lucie Rosen later donated it to the private organization that runs it today. In 2001 it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
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Caramoor is an 81-acre (33 ha) parcel on Girdle Ridge Road just east of the NY 22 state highway east of the hamlet of Katonah in the Town of Bedford. The area is primarily residential, with houses on similarly large lots amidst wooded, gently rolling terrain. The John Jay Homestead State Historic Site, a National Historic Landmark, is a short distance to the northwest along Route 22.[1]
There are 12 total contributing resources on the estate—seven buildings, one site, and four structures. An additional building, the Venetian Theater, was built after the estate became the performing arts center. It is too modern to be considered contributing.[1]
A curving driveway leads past modest stone entrance posts and through an electric entrance gate at a high deer fence through Caramoor's wooded perimeter into a central cleared area, dominated by the Rosen House on a slight rise to the south. A branch leads to other outbuildings.
The Rosen House is a stucco building rising two stories a poured concrete foundation with a red tiled roof in a variety of asymmetrical gable and hip configurations and irregular fenestration. A high curved wall at the southwest corner connects to the servants' quarters in that direction. A terrace with stone balustrade extends from the dining room on the east; another terrace is located off the master bedroom on the southeast. The caretaker's apartment, its small yard surrounded by a high wooden fence, is located at the southwest corner. A south wing, built after the Rosens' deaths to house rooms from their apartment in New York is non-contributing.[1]
At the center is the Spanish Courtyard, surrounded by a cloister with 12th-century Byzantine columns,[4] reached by a large stone arched entryway in the center of the south wall. The cloister, a one-story colonnaded open walkway, to allow the courtyard's use as the primary entrance to the house. In the center is a large fountain; a clock is on the second story near the main gate.[1] When used for musical performances during the festival, it seats 550.[5]
Rooms are mostly entered from the courtyard or narrow hallways along the exterior walls. Most are finished in the style of the house, with stucco walls and coved ceilings. Much of the furniture and decoration, sometimes comprising entire rooms, was brought by the Rosens from England, France, Italy and Spain. The second floor, less extensively decorated and primarily bedroom space, is also mostly original. The basement, under the kitchen wing, has storage space and a garage.[1]
Among the rooms with notable furnishings and decor are the Burgundian Library. It has a vaulted blue ceiling decorated with 13 Biblical scenes, and 65 other paintings on the doors and walls. The Cabinet Room has lacquered panels originally created for the Palazzo Riccasoli in Turin during the 18th century.[6]
Chinese wallpaper made for the European market in the 18th century decorates the dining room, complemented by one of the only two eight-fold Chinese jade folding screens in the world, a Qing Dynasty work depicting the Taoist Hills of Immortality in 40 panels with a gilded teak frame. Around the table are red lacquered chairs made by an English cabinetmaker for a Spanish castle. More Chinese wallpaper is found in the Reception Room, with furniture from a Venetian dress shop. In the master bedroom is a gilded bed that once belonged to Cardinal Maffeo Barberini, later Pope Urban VIII.[6]
The largest room, the Music Room, is located at the north end. It is 40 by 80 feet (12 by 24 m) with a 30-foot-high (9.1 m) ceiling. Originally the living room, the furniture has been moved to the west side and removable seating installed on movable risers. A large stage is located at the west end.[1] It seats 220 and is used for music year-round.[5] Its art includes a 16th-century Florentine cassapanca, an extensive collection of Urbino majolica, a 13th-century head of Guan Yin, a Lucas Cranach the Elder painting and tin-enameled terra cotta reliefs from the studio of Andrea della Robbia.[6]
Attached to the Rosen House via a connecting wall is the servants' quarters. Architecturally similar, it is a two-story building with its own entrance to the courtyard. It now serves as the Caramoor Center's offices.[1]
The second-largest building on the property is the Venetian Theater, along the main entrance drive. It was added in the late 1950s expressly as an additional music venue by enclosing a brick stage already in the garden with a colonnade. A large tent roof is in place to shelter the audience, and a restroom wing similar to the Rosen House projects from the west end.[1] It seats 1,750, and is the principal venue for musical performances.[5]
Near it is the Sunken Garden, a holdover from the estate owner who preceded the Rosens. It was planted around 1912, making it the oldest feature of the estate native to it. It is enclosed by stucco walls on three sides, with stairs and intersecting walkways leading to its flower beds. The large planted "Medieval Mount" at the rear has built-in concrete benches.[1][4]
The Venetian Circle on the east of the garden is framed by a pair of 17th-century Swiss gates. They are topped with Pegasus heads sculpted by Malvina Hoffman. Two paths lead to and through other gardens. From the Juliet Gate, manufactured in 17th-century Italy, the Cedar Walk leads 300-foot (91 m) path through the high eastern and western cedars of the Woodland Garden to the Italian Pavilion, formerly the viewing area for a nearby tennis court, now bricked over. The Butterfly Garden there, based on a Filippo Brunelleschi design, features plants that support all stages of butterfly development. Nearby is the Cutting Garden, just outside the greenhouse and cottage, where Caramoor's horticultural staff cultivates cut flowers for planting. A longer wooded path leads through the Theater Garden's tall trees to a large Victorian urn.[1][4]
A former dovecote, moved from the Spanish Courtyard to a location south of the house,[1] has been converted into a fountain. It now serves as the center of the Sense Circle, designed to be enjoyed by the visually impaired. The fountain makes pleasant sounds, and the plants around it appeal to the other three senses, with some even being edible.[4]
Other outbuildings around the property include a stable, two cottages, accompanying garages and a storage shed. All are contributing, dating to the 1930s, and are architecturally similar to the Rosen House. The landscaping is included in the Register listing as well.[1]
A native of Berlin, Walter Rosen emigrated to the United States with his parents in 1885, at the age of 10. He was well-educated, developing an early interest in music and art, and graduated from Harvard three years after entering it at a young age. Three years later, he became one of the founding partners of the law firm of Underwood, Van Vorst, Rosen and Hoyt. After another three years, in 1901, he left to join a client, the Ladenburg Thalmann bank.[1]
He remained there for the rest of his life. In 1914 he married Lucie Bigelow Dodge, a woman who had grown up in an affluent New Jersey family and shared his passion for music and art. On vacations and business trips to Europe, they collected many of the artworks that are now at Caramoor.[1][5]
They bought the property in 1928. John Hoyt, one of Walter Rosen's former law partners, knew they were looking for a country retreat and told them about his mother's estate, named Caramoor as a contraction of her name, Caroline Moore Hoyt. The Rosens visited and were greatly taken by the Sunken Garden and its cedars, meant to imitate the cypresses of Italy.[7]
Originally, the Rosens intended to tear down all but the garden and build a Florentine-style palazzo.[8] The Depression forced them to reconsider those plans, and instead they slowly remodeled the existing farm buildings on the site into the current estate, which at one point was 117 acres (47 ha). By 1939 that work was complete. Architect Christian Rosborg is credited with the design, closely supervised by the Rosens, whose townhouse on Manhattan's East Side had been redone in a French Renaissance style before they moved in.[1][5]
In 1940 they began hosting musical performances for their friends in the Music Room. Four years later, when their only son Walter died in World War II while serving in the Royal Canadian Air Force, they decided to dedicate the remainder of their own lives to preserving Caramoor's musical legacy. They established the Center in 1946 and began hosting performances open to the public.[1][5]
Seven years after Walter Rosen died in 1951, the performances had become so popular it became necessary to add the third venue, the Venetian Theater, near the Sunken Garden the Rosens had preserved from the prior estate. The house was opened to public tours in 1970, two years after Lucie Rosen died. Architect Mott Schmidt designed a new wing in 1974 to house rooms from the Rosens' New York City apartment and expand the art collection on display.[1][5]
The tent roof and floor were added to the Venetian Theater later to allow its use in inclement weather. The restroom wing was added later. The Sense Circle was created after the dovecote was moved to its following pigeon problems in the late 1980s. There have been few significant changes to the buildings and gardens other than those.[1]
Caramoor's offerings are primarily classical (the Orchestra of St. Luke's has been in residence there since 1979[9] and opera. During the Caramoor International Music Festival, on Thursdays through Sundays in July, jazz, bluegrass and popular artists have performed as well.[10] Concerts continue year-round in the Indoor Series, presented in the Music Room.[11] In 2005 the festival staged Joseph Schillinger's "First Airphonic Suite", with Lydia Kavina, great-niece of theremin inventor Leon Theremin, as the soloist on that instrument[12] (Lucie Rosen, an enthusiast of the theremin, was an accomplished performer on it herself, and she and her husband were for a time Theremin's patrons. The center's collection includes some of her instruments, including a highly advanced one Theremin gave her shortly before leaving the U.S. in 1938).[13]
The center also has extensive educational programs. Since 1986, an average of 5,000 students have in some way been part of those. They range from programs for schoolchildren that, in addition to music, introduce them to Renaissance culture and Chinese art.[14] Programs for musicians include mentoring from distinguished artists and the Ernst Stiefel String-Quartet-in-Residence.[15]
Pincic lunches are available for visitors who wish to wander the grounds before a performance.[16] The facilities can be rented out for events such as corporate retreats and photo shoots;[17] weddings are a particularly popular use, with The Knot having chosen Caramoor as one of its favorite places for the ceremony and reception.[18]