The Forgotten Fahnestock Family & Their Many Mansions

Dive deep into New York's high society of the gilded age, as we explore the opulent homes of the Fahnestock family - from Manhattan townhouses to countryside estates. Which Fahnestock mansion is your favorite?
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Public Domain Photos from: Library of Congress, Museum of the City of New York
CC BY-SA 4.0(creativecommon...) Photos from: Wikipedia User: Bobbykelleyfl, JERRYE & ROY KLOTZ, M.D.
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Music from Epidemic Sound

[@richardmassoth8237]

I was most familiar with the name "Fahnestock" from the "Fahnestock clip" which was an early clamp-type electrical connector used in electronics and radio. I found it interesting that an early electical company of Long Island City, NY was incorporated as the "Fahnestock Electrical Co". The inventor and patent holder, John Schade, assigned the patent to this potential part of the Fahnestock financial empire. Very nice architecture from this family, and a wide-spread financial acumen. But their "legacy" is possibly more murky?

[@johnchristopher20]

I used them when I was a kid, about 1960. Pronounced it fahn stock.

[@BillFahnestock]

Those were my people!

[@janemckee4922]

They are all beautiful and thank you for bringing a forgotten family back to life!

[@randyboglisch137]

Ken. What absolutely lovely homes! Each more beautiful than the next...WOW!! thank you so much for sharing your research into this amazing family and their homes

[@mitchellbarnow1709]

What an amazing family that I’ve never heard of before today! Thank you so much for these incredible stories of prosperity and loss.

[@ThisHouse]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@chadsimmons6347]

I walked several hours north of Kansas City,,,,but never found this place called New York? i think its fake!!!

[@ShirleeKnott]

feed the algorithm a comment or a reply and help the channel grow! it also likes to snack on likes to both comments and replies. 👍❤

[@AFTrainsND]

All of your videos are very interesting. Since I suspect that many of your subscribers are history buffs as well as architecture buffs, I’d like to suggest you consider the rebuilt Custer House at Fort Abraham Lincoln State Park just outside of Bismarck/Mandan, ND. Custer and his 7th Cavalry were stationed there when they left for the LIttle Big Horn. Custer’s original officer’s house burned down and, Custer being Custer, he couldn’t just build an ordinary officer’s house- he had to build something that was quite elegant for that area at that time. Unfortunately, that house was dismantled after the fort was decommissioned but the state of North Dakota has numerous photos and records that allowed them to build a very faithful replica on the original site that contains some furnishing from when the Custers lived there. The tours are very interesting and I think your history fans would enjoy a look at this house.

[@ThisHouse]

Thank you for the suggestion, I think that could make for an excellent video. Cheers!

[@FeedScrn]

There is a Fahnestock Park in upstate NY... You helped me connect the dots. Thank You.

[@andrewbrendan1579]

I'm surprised I've never heard of this family before. Maybe they were less public than some of the other Gilded Age wealthy families. So many beautiful homes here, but the one I like best is the country house seen from the air. A simple, beautiful, grand house and with space to be a working, self-sufficient farm or at least nearly so.

[@annonymously331]

There are many that the general public don’t know. Most have only heard of the vanderbilts

[@LJB103]

Bois Dore (Newport) has been up for sale several times over the past decades. Eastover (Lenox, MA) is now some kind of a retreat center. Excellent video. I was familiar with Harris Fahnestock, but not his descendants. Execllent video.

[@DLeadVox]

I am loving the floor plans of the houses you are presenting! Gives great orientation as to where the rooms are in relation to one another and to experience the flow of the house. Great work Ken! ❤❤❤

[@andrewaway]

Fascinating.

[@bettesmith1117]

Thank you. I had never heard of this family. Wonderful homes and inspiration.

[@johnvonundzu2170]

Never heard of this family before, which is sad considering the uniformly fine taste they seem to have had. The thinly populated bookshelves are very odd - there's probably a forgotten story there. Lovely video - thanks again.

[@BillFahnestock]

Fascinating, may have to stop up to the Northeast sometime

[@Emily_Paris]

Simply amazing! I learn so much from you Ken about the families and their mansions. I love it. You’re a pro at what you do.

[@eldgeth3799]

What beautiful homes!

[@sandypompilii6901]

Amazingly beautiful homes

[@heatherscott-fleming4888]

I love learning about families I have never heard of, good work.

[@asylumlover]

Yes I too recognize the name!!!! I too have Fahnestock Clips!!!!!!!!!!!! I salvage Fahnestock clips from old equipment!!!!!!!!!!!

[@williamtyre523]

Fascinating to see the numerous homes built/completed/merged by one family. I recall looking at the exterior of the home in Washington, D.C. that is now the Haitian embassy. I hope you'll do more videos with the backstory of those wonderful houses on and around Massachusetts Avenue that now serve as embassies.

[@StamperWendy]

What's better than owning a mansion? Combining two into one!

[@owenpurvis2633]

Really enjoy your tours of these grand mansions and appreciate knowing which of them survive and how they are used today. I would have liked to know more specifics of which of this family's homes remain today.

[@Porsche996driver]

These remind me of Embassy Row in DC. Back in the ‘80s when I was in the army. I also remember touring Woodrow Wilson’s former house. It would be cool for you to maybe do some of those. ✨

[@GarySteele-x2r]

This Fahnestock home is my favourite Griddle House

[@MsMsmak]

Embassy of Haiti. Wow. What a prestigious legacy.

[@Cindy-m4b9o]

They all are very pretty. I hope Theresa's happiness and love .

[@christopherkraft1327]

Fascinating story!! 👍👍🙂

[@gandfgandf5826]

The video image alone was enough to send me go ogling. Wow, so many beautiful houses built by one family. The 'Fabulous Fahnestocks' could have been a film by Orson Wells. My favourite was one not shown in the video, 'Ker Arvor' built for Snowden Fahnestock in Newport in 1932, so they still had money in the depression. It's a mansion yes, but not a marble palace, and still a private home.

[@stacylindsey9729]

Girdle Ridge it looks grand

[@rickyt3961]

thank you!

[@tomjpurchase]

Have you considered doing a video about the George Eastman House in Rochester NY?

[@danielkoher1944]

1:11 This is definitely fine architecture so far. Did you grow up in Manhattan?

[@ThisHouse]

I would have loved to have grown up in Manhattan, but I am originally from St. Louis. Cheers!

[@dhand400]

Seemingly forgotten was Dr Ernest Fahnestock, my great great grandfather. Harris’s home, his neighbor was president Grant was technically in Elberon, a tiny town next to long branch nj. Ernest’s home, Shadow Brook Farm is located in Shrewsbury nj about 20 minutes away from Elberon. Also I can assure you that it’s pronounced Fahn stock as I heard them say it first hand it is also my cousins middle name.

[@johnscanlan9335]

The name of the great Villard House on Madison Avenue, across the street from St. Patrick's Cathedral, is properly pronounced VIL-LARD emphasizing two syllables.

[@mileshigh1321]

The townhouse of Harris F. Jr was my favourite!

[@greensage395]

They say there never was a Fahnestock! :) ..that's a joke! "Finer-Stock"!

[@gloriaswift3896]

There is a historic Fahnestock building in Gettysburg Pennsylvania on Baltimore Street. After seeing this video, and with such an unusual name, I wonder if it was built by someone in the same family? Hmmm...

[@ozzielinkin]

Cue up The song by Good Charlotte , “ Lifestyles of the rich and the famous……….”

[@BlaiseMiller-bk7dk]

I know near our cabin in the Pennsylvania Grand Canyon on the top of the canyon was an old lodge not really big but definitely a very nice lodge. It’s been abandoned for a long time but that was owned by a fahnestock in the 1920s, sadly it’s was just demolished last year due to it being hazardous. But I wonder if there was any relation.

[@neoream3606]

I love grand staircases I wish I could fit one in my house.

[@BonnieBennettStan]

For early people! 👇

[@ShirleeKnott]

[@tuts351]

Didn't they have descendents?

[@bonniewills2814]

Fahnestock is pronounce as two syllables - the "e" is silent.

[@paulbrunelle1444]

What happened to the family's money?

[@SandfordSmythe]

My wife's distant cousins. You left out the Fahnestock who found out his fiance was a close friend of JFK.

[@albertmyers7176]

😎😎😎😎😎😎

[@yolandarodriguez2154]

I’m the 400th 👍 ❤

[@peggypierce8020]

What became of the family?

[@117Pinkyflower]

They definitely knew how to spend their money and go broke!

[@tomblack6972]

It’s pronounced as 2 syllables not 3: Fahn stock. And it’s Vi lard’not vill’ard. You can ask me how I know and I won’t tell you.

[@BOEHHO89]

I wonder what these people would spend their money on if they lived today .

[@jimurrata6785]

The 'E' is silent. Faan Stock

[@ThisHouse]

I thought the same thing! After a descendent of the family reached out to me (asking me to cover her family's mansions) we had a phone call in which she pronounced the last name the way I said it in the video.

[@jimurrata6785]

@@ThisHouse Interesting, and if that's the case I hope you'll accept my apology. 😊 I do know some Fahnestock's (not sure how closely related) and they don't pronounce the E

[@ThisHouse]

No problem! I went to school with a Fahnestock who pronounced their name the way you suggested.

[@peterammermann1845]

@@ThisHouse Due to numerous intermarriages over the years between Studebakers (who I'm descended from) and Fahnestocks, I have numerous cousins and cousins-of-cousins who are Fahnestocks, and I've heard the name pronounced both ways (with and without the middle "e" pronounced). I''m not directly related to Harris C. Fahnestock, but his great-uncle Samuel Fahnestock married a Hannah Studebaker (a 1st cousin of my 6-greats-grandmother's). She in turn, interestingly, was a great-aunt of the Studebaker brothers who established the blacksmith shop that was later renamed the Studebaker Brothers Manufacturing Company and fairly rapidly grew into the largest wagon and carriage manufacturing company in the world, before also becoming the only major wagon-manufacturing company to successfully make the transition from making horse-drawn carriages to manufacturing gasoline-powered automobiles (with a ten-year stint making electric cars along the way)! And speaking of the Studebakers, could you do an episode on any of their homes, or at least Tippecanoe Place (in South Bend, Indiana: www.tippe.com/)? Built by the second oldest of the Studebaker brothers, Clement, at the time of its completion it was the largest private residence in the entire state of Indiana, and although it has since been converted into a restaurant, many of its distinctive architectural features can still be seen. (And South Bend has a couple other notable mansions, as well, which could help justify a trip out there for a video!)

[@truthteller8459]

One of their homes is now the Embassy of Haiti? Geez, you know what it smells like inside now

[@sisuguillam5109]

Like any office building?