How New York's Old Money Built a Forest of Mansions and Then Walled It Off: Tuxedo Park

In 1886, tobacco heir Pierre Lorillard IV turned a rocky wilderness in New York's Ramapo hills into one of the most exclusive private enclaves in American history. Eighteen hundred immigrant laborers built an entire town in well under two years: roads, lakes, a clubhouse, a gatehouse, and a barbed wire fence reportedly twenty-four miles long. Architect Bruce Price designed the cottages, and his daughter Emily Post grew up behind that fence. But the real wall wasn't the fence. It was the Tuxedo Club, which decided who could buy a house at all. This documentary traces how that system worked and how the Great Depression broke it. Mansions were demolished for taxes, and the club was forced to sell discount memberships. In 1952 the residents incorporated as a village and turned a private gate into a public one guarded by their own police. You'll also discover the Gilded Age legend behind the tuxedo jacket, the court tennis champion the club couldn't beat, and the secret laboratory at Tower House, where Alfred Lee Loomis hosted Einstein, Bohr and Fermi and helped develop the radar that shaped World War II. The houses were never what lasted. The gate was. #TuxedoPark #OldMoney #GildedAge #NewYorkHistory #HudsonValley #GatedCommunity #AmericanMansions #Lorillard #EmilyPost #ArchitectureHistory #RealEstateHistory #Documentary Sources: American Heritage, "Tuxedo Park" (Frank Kintrea, 1978) American Heritage, "Aux Barricades: Tuxedo Park Hangs Sort" Village of Tuxedo Park, History Overview Village of Tuxedo Park, Village Gate System Village of Tuxedo Park, "The Chief Talks Automatic Gate" (2021) Village of Tuxedo Park, Mayor's Welcome Message Tuxedo Park Estates, History of Tuxedo Park Wikipedia, Bruce Price Wikipedia, Pierre Lorillard III Wikipedia, Pierre Lorillard IV Wikipedia, Tuxedo Park, New York PBS American Experience, "The Secret of Tuxedo Park" KPBS, "American Experience: The Secret of Tuxedo Park" Hudson Valley Magazine, "The Secret Lab in Tuxedo Park" Jennet Conant, "Tuxedo Park: A Wall Street Tycoon and the Secret Palace of Science That Changed the Course of World War II"