"Stronghold"

 residence, country house, Second Empire (architecture)

 Upload a photo

The 30,000sq.ft. brownstone, limestone and fieldstone castle designed c.1886 by George B. Post for New York banker James Coleman Drayton and his wife Charlotte Augusta Astor,.

After Drayton and Astor divorced, the estate was sold in 1892 to attorney Thatcher M. Adams, who sold it in 1899 to John F. Dryden, founder of Prudential Insurance Co. in 1875, and U.S. Senator from NJ. Dryden named it Stronghold, and through these years the estate employed a staff of up to 50, with farms, gardens, an orchard, greenhouse, ice house, water tower, generators, and a repair shop adjacent to the 10-car garage on site to fix the farm equipment and cars. He lived here until his death in 1911, and his son Forrest F. Dryden, president of Prudential from 1912-1922, resided here until his passing in 1932.

In 1940, Forrest's son John F. Dryden II sold the estate and it became the new home for The Gill School, and was used by Gill until 1995. It is now a private estate again, and there has been extensive restoration on all of the estate buildings with an addition, after being bought by fashion entrepreneur Marc Ecko in 2005.

househistree.com/houses/stronghold