Florham is a former Vanderbilt estate that is located in Madison and Florham Park, New Jersey. It was built during the 1890s for Hamilton McKown Twombly and his wife, Florence Adele Vanderbilt, a member of the Vanderbilt family. Now part of the Florham Campus of Fairleigh Dickinson University, the mansion is one of the ten largest houses in the United States of America.

Early history[edit]

Florham's history can be divided into two parts: the establishment of the estate by the family during the Gilded Age, and the 'consecration' of the estate from a temporal use to an intellectual use as the home of Fairleigh Dickinson University.

The business teacher from Branson, Missouri, is charged with two counts of endangering the welfare of a 14-year-old girl from Florham Park whom he allegedly met online, as well as one count of. 2021 Meeting Schedule and Board Minutes; 2020 Archived Board Minutes; 2019 Archived Board Minutes; 2018 Archived Board Minutes; 2017 Archived Board Minutes.

Florham From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Florham is a former Vanderbilt estate that is located in Madison and Florham Park, New Jersey. It was built during the 1890s for Hamilton McKown Twombly and his wife, Florence Adele Vanderbilt, a member of the Vanderbilt family. Florham Park is a borough located in Morris County in the state of New Jersey, and has a population of approximately 11,696. 5 More about Florham Park Camping.

Building Florham[edit]

Florham was built between 1893 and 1899 by Florence Adele Vanderbilt and her husband, Hamilton McKown Twombly, to be the couple's country estate. Florence, the youngest and favorite grandchild of the transportation tycoon Cornelius Vanderbilt, married Twombly in 1877 after meeting him at the two families' summering spots in Newport, Rhode Island.^[1]

In 1893, the couple commissioned the famous firm of McKim, Mead & White (the architects of the Old Penn Station and Rhode Island State House) to build Florham as the country setting to raise their family.^[2] The architects' instructions were to build 'a house on the order of an English country gentleman ... a thoroughly comfortable house, without the stiffness of the modern city house.'^[1] Beginning in 1891, some 1,200 acres^[2] were acquired in 37 purchases to assemble a property on Madison's 'millionaire's row', a neighborhood that was home to several other Gilded Age estates belonging to the Rockefellers, Dodges and Mellons.^[3]

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With 110 rooms, McKim, Mead & White designed what remains today as one of the ten largest houses in the United States.^[1] Florham's design was principally inspired by Sir Christopher Wren's late 17th-century expansion of Hampton Court Palace under King William III and Queen Mary II, evident especially in the house's lay-out, pillars, and contrasting stone and red brick. The furnishing of the house's interior, overseen mainly by Stanford White, included several Barberini tapestries, a Louis XV ballroom and several Renaissance fireplaces purchased from noble Italian homes.^[4] Another famous New Jerseyian, Thomas Edison, whose initial electrical projects were supported by the joint effort of Twombly and J.P. Morgan, personally designed the mansion's heating system and boiler in a tunnel system beneath the house.^[5]

The estate also included vast greenhouses, including an orangery which still stands today as part of Fairleigh Dickinson's library, a dairy farm, stables, gatehouse and carriage house. The celebrated architect of New York's Central Park, Frederick Law Olmsted, was commissioned as the 'landscape architect' of the estate, designing the Italianate gardens that survive today. Olmsted also designed other Vanderbilt estates, including Biltmore. Setting the site of the mansion on a hill overlooking the Passaic Valley and Black Brook meadows, Olmsted told Twombly 'You have a sweep of landscape to an infinitely remote and perspectively obscure background ... as much so as if you owned the state of New Jersey.'^[3]

Between the purchase of the land, the construction of the mansion, greenhouses, stables, and farm, and the furnishing of the mansion, the cost of the entire estate came to about $5,000,000^[4] (a cost of about $146,000,000 in 2017 dollars). McKim Mead and White also brought over 600 laborers and families from Italy to build and later work on the estate — especially as rose cultivators. This community founded the base for Madison's large Italian community.^[1]

The family, though often in New York or Newport, spent a majority of its time at Florham and developed a relationship with the local community. The family were all members of Grace Episcopal Church in Madison, which was restored in Florence's memory in 1952. The Grace Episcopal Church Boychoir, well known and admired in the area, sang annually at the estate, when it was treated to a lavish Christmas feast with full wait-staff.^[6] Grace Church's Tiffany stained-glass windows, one a memorial to Alice Twombly, a daughter who tragically died in 1896 at age 16, can all be seen today in the lively parish.

• Aerial view of Florham

• Front of the mansion

• The main entrance

• View from the garden

Florham and the decline of the Vanderbilts[edit]

Hamilton McKown Twombly died in 1910; Florence survived him by 42 years until her death in 1952, with the lavish, Gilded Age lifestyle being retained long after her husband's death. Of Florence's two surviving children, Ruth Twombly and Florence Twombly Burden, only Florence Burden married and had two sons.^[7] By the time of Florence Vanderbilt's death in 1952, however, much of the country's industrial and landed elite had disappeared in the social changes that came with World War II. The Burden family could not continue Florham's lifestyle, and the estate was broken up and sold in 1955. None of the numerous Vanderbilt estates remained in the family, other than Biltmore. Arthur T. Vanderbilt II noted:

These magnificent country homes ... were built to become precisely the equivalent of those Old World palaces, great ancestral homes that would proclaim for centuries, for all time, the prominence of the Vanderbilts ... But it did not work out that way. Far from becoming ancestral homes, these monuments to limitless wealth, built for eternity, were hardly used for a lifetime. None was occupied by the next generation.^[8]

Several months before the estate sale auction, William Burden, son of Florence Twombly Burden, gifted dozens of the house's interior fittings to the White House. Many of these items remain in the White House collection, including several chairs from the estate, which have sat in the Oval Office under Presidents George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump .^[9]

Fairleigh Dickinson University[edit]

Florence and her daughter Ruth died in 1952 and 1954, respectively, and the estate was broken up, with the bulk of the lower portion, occupied by the dairy farm and stables, going to Exxon, later to be sub-developed into a corporate park. The mansion, with 178 acres of gardens, the carriage house and greenhouses were sold in 1957 to the expanding Fairleigh Dickinson University, to be the school's Morris County campus.^[10] Funded by Colonel Fairleigh S. Dickinson in Rutherford, NJ, to be a liberal arts school for Northern New Jersey, the University now has 4 campuses in three countries. The founding president of Fairleigh Dickinson, Peter Sammartino, oversaw the purchase of the estate, hasty renovation, and its opening to students in the fall of 1958.^[11] The carriage house was remodeled as the University's science labs, and the orangery was preserved and now functions as reading room of the campus library. While pieces of the estate have been remodeled for educational use, the University has been careful to preserve its history and environment. Realizing the responsibility and opportunity of this Vanderbilt treasure, the University has been engaged in the gradual restoration of both the mansion and grounds. In 1990, the Friends of Florham was founded for volunteers who research the building's history and donate to its upkeep.

References[edit]

1. ^ ^abcdCarol Bere, Samuel Convissor, and Walter Cummins (2011). Florham: The Lives of an American Estate. Madison, NJ: Friends of Florham. p. 19. ISBN978-0615567433.CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
2. ^ ^abCarol Bere, Samuel Convissor, and Walter Cummins (2011). Florham: The Lives of an American Estate. Madison, NJ: The Friends of Florham. p. 32.CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
3. ^ ^abCarol Bere, Samuel Convissor, Walter Cummins, Mark Hillringhouse, and Arthur T. Vanderbilt II (2016). Florham: An American Treasure. Madison, NJ: The Friends of Florham. p. 22. ISBN978-0-578-18086-1.CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
4. ^ ^abCarol Bere, Samuel Convissor, Walter Cummins, Mark Hillringhouse, and Arthur T. Vanderbilt II (2016). Florham: An American Treasure. Madison, NJ: The Friends of Florham. p. 23.CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
5. ^Carol Bere, Samuel Convissor, and Walter Cummins (2011). Florham: The Lives of an American Estate. Madison, NJ: The Friends of Florham. p. 40.CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
6. ^Geissler, Suzanne B., 'History of Grace Church: 1854-1984,' (1987, Madison, NJ), p. http://03925f5.netsolhost.com/wp2014/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/History-of-Grace-Church.pdf
7. ^Carol Bere, Samuel Convissor, Walter Cummins, Mark Hillringhouse, and Arthur T. Vanderbilt II (2016). Florham: An American Treasure. Madison, NJ: The Friends of Florham. pp. 76–79.CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
8. ^Carol Bere, Samuel Convissor, Walter Cummins, Mark Hillringhouse, and Arthur T. Vanderbilt II (2016). Florham: An American Treasure. Madison, NJ: The Friends of Florham. p. 81.CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
9. ^Carol Bere, Samuel Convissor, Walter Cummins, Mark Hillringhouse, and Arthur T. Vanderbilt II (2016). Florham: An American Treasure. Madison, NJ: The Friends of Florham. pp. 82–83.CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
10. ^'History and Mission - Fairleigh Dickinson University (FDU)'. view2.fdu.edu. Retrieved 2017-05-06.
11. ^Carol Bere, Samuel Convissor, Walter Cummins, Mark Hillringhouse, and Arthur T. Vanderbilt II (2016). Florham: An American Treasure. Madison, NJ: The Friends of Florham. pp. 84–85.CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)

Bibliography[edit]

• Bere, Carol and Samuel Convissor, Florham: An American Treasure (2016) ISBN978-0578180861
• Cummins, Walter and Arthur T Vanderbilt II, Olmsted's Vision: The Landscape of Florham (2018) ISBN978-0692101964
• Cummins, Walter and Arthur T Vanderbilt II, 'The Richest and Most Famous Private Chef in the World' Joseph Donon: Gilded Age Dining with Florence Vanderbilt Twombly (2017) ISBN978-0692893371
• Friends of Florham and Fairleigh Dickinson University Florham: The Lives of an American Estate (2011) ISBN978-0615567433
• Vanderbilt, Arthur T., Fortune's Children: The Fall of the House of Vanderbilt William Morrow Paperbacks; Reprint edition (2001) ISBN978-0062224064

External links[edit]

Coordinates: 40°46′33″N74°25′52″W / 40.775726°N 74.431028°W

Name: Independence Way
Address: 1 – 8 Independence Way, Florham Park, NJ 07932
Living Options: 1 group home and 62 independent living apartments, including 26 one-bedroom apartments and 36 two-bedroom apartments*
For: Adults with developmental disabilities

Application Deadline: Postmarked by September 15, 2020
Anticipated Move-In Date: October 1, 2020
Contact: 201-291-0619 or housing@bergenunitedway.org
Income Requirements: Yes

*Independence Way includes both one- and two-bedroom apartments. We will take your preferences into consideration; however, apartment selection is based upon multiple factors including careful review of one’s application and a person-to-person interview. Roommate pairings are made according to common likes and dislikes as well as schedule.

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Applications are available now!

The application is a fillable form, which means you can type your answers right into the application. Please be sure to download it to your computer first, so that you can save your work along the way. If you prefer to write in your answers, simply print out the application. All completed applications, whether typed or hand-written, must be postmarked by September 15, 2020 and mailed to:

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Madeline Corporation
Attn: Florham Park Application
555 10th Street
Palisades Park, NJ 07650

For questions or assistance, please contact our Housing Services Coordinator.

Phone: 201-291-0619
Email: housing@bergenunitedway.org

Independence Way is a community thoughtfully-designed by Z+Architects of Allendale, New Jersey. It includes 62 independent living apartments spread across seven low-rise apartment buildings. Apartment entries are accessible from an interior hallway. Second and third floor apartments are accessible by elevator or stairs.

Living options include 26 one-bedroom apartments and 36 two-bedroom apartments. These barrier-free apartments offer ample living space, a full kitchen, a private bedroom and an in-unit washer and dryer. The one-bedroom apartments average 800 square feet; the two-bedroom apartments average 1,100 square feet.

Each of the apartment buildings is equipped with amenities such as outdoor patios with barbecues and interior community rooms that foster a sense of community. A walking path unites all the buildings and provides a safe and accessible option for daily exercise.

A highly-trained concierge will oversee day-to-day operations and provide support services as needed. 24/7 video monitoring will provide an added layer of security.

Independence Way was designed to take advantage of all The Green has to offer including on-site transportation through Access Link, employment opportunities at local businesses, educational events at Fairleigh Dickinson University as well as high-quality housing that allows for sense of community and ease of living.

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Independence Way is located within The Green, a 268-acre mixed-use corporate campus developed by Rockefeller Group Development Corporation, LLC. This master-planned development is centrally-located in Morris County.

Address:1 – 8 Independence Way, Florham Park, NJ 07932*

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*Because this is a new development, your GPS system will not recognize the above address. Please use this address instead: AVE Florham Park, 90 Park Avenue, Florham Park, NJ 07932. Once you turn into The Green, Independence Way will be on your right.

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In 2016, Rockefeller Group Development Corporation, LLC, Bergen County’s United Way and Madeline Corporation created a partnership that would introduce supportive living into The Green. Rock Group felt a development of this type would align with the community spirit of The Green. More importantly, they believed that residents would enjoy a high quality of life on their campus with employment opportunities, recreation, education and transportation readily available.

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