Explore the Bartow-Pell Mansion and Carriage House

Event Highlights:

• Admire the Three-Story Spiral Staircase: A striking, freestanding oval staircase greets guests in the main entrance hall
• Walk Through the Double Formal Parlors: Grand, symmetrical entertaining spaces designed with a perfect 2:3 spatial ratio inspired by Italian Renaissance architect Andrea Palladio
• Step Inside The Orangery: A sun-filled indoor conservatory featuring tall windows, which was a rare and highly unusual luxury for an American home of that era
• Enter the Servants' Quarters: Access the third-floor attic space, which gives a sobering look into the daily lives of the Irish immigrant women who lived and worked at the mansion between 1840 and 1880
• Uncover Mayor LaGuardia's Connection to the Home: Hear how, in 1936, during one of the hottest summers on record, New York City Mayor Fiorello H. LaGuardia utilized the mansion as his official summer office
• Learn About the Hamilton and Aaron Burr Connection: See Burr's personal writing desk Burr married a distant Bartow relative, Theodosia Bartow, cementing a direct connection to early American revolutionary history

About this Tour:

Join us for a guided tour of the last surviving 19th-century grand country estate out of more than twenty luxury manors that once lined the shores of Pelham Bay! On this excursion to the Bartow-Pell Mansion, guests will explore three-levels of the home and the carriage house.

The Bartow-Pell estate’s long history began in 1654, when Thomas Pell, an English physician from Connecticut, at the urging of the English government, bought about 50,000 acres from the native Lenape people. His heir and nephew, Sir John Pell, completed the house after 1670. It served four generations of Pells before it burned down during the American Revolution.

The present gray stone Greek Revival mansion was built by publisher Robert Bartow on the site; he moved in with his wife and children in 1842. The house remained in the Bartow family until 1888, when the estate was acquired by New York City along with many acres of what is now Pelham Bay Park.

The mansion was rented out for some years; as the Day Home and School for Crippled Children and to the International Garden Club.

In November 1945 the property opened as the Bartow Mansion Museum, which was open to the public. Interior restoration, acquisition of appropriate furnishings (often loaned by other museums), and a new partnership with the Parks Department, enabled the building to become the historic house it is today.

The house and grounds, which include formal terraces, a fountain, herb and perennial gardens, as well as an 1840s stone carriage house, are owned by the city of New York and operated by the Bartow-Pell Conservancy. The mansion is a member of the Historic House Trust, has been designated a national and a New York City landmark, and is on the National Register of Historic Places.