Florham

Florham
The English-baroque mansion at Florham, now the centerpiece of Fairleigh Dickinson University
General information
Architectural style	Baroque Revival architecture
Address	285 Madison Avenue, Madison, New Jersey 07940
Town or city	Madison, New Jersey
Opened	1899
Owner	Fairleigh Dickinson University
Design and construction
Architect	McKim, Mead & White
Other designers	Frederick Law Olmsted, Thomas Edison
Other information
Number of rooms	110

Florham is a former Vanderbilt estate in Madison, New Jersey. It was built by Hamilton McKown Twombly and his wife, Florence Adele Vanderbilt, a member of the Vanderbilt family. Now home to Fairleigh Dickinson University, the gilded age mansion is the 8th largest house in the United States of America.

Florham’s history can be divided into two parts: the building of the estate by the Vanderbilts and the gilded age, and the ‘consecration’ of the estate from the temporal use to the intellectual as the home of Fairleigh Dickinson University.

Florham was built between 1893-1899 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. In 1893, the couple commissioned the famous McKim Mead and White firm (the architects of the Old Penn Station and Rhode Island State House) to build Florham as the country setting to raise their family. 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.” Beginning in 1891, some 1,200 acres 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.

With 110 rooms, McKim Mead and White erected what remains today as the 8th largest house in the United States. Florham’s design was principally inspired by Sir Christopher Wren's expansion of Hampton Court Palace under King William and Queen Mary, 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. Another famous New Jerseyian, Thomas Edison, who’s 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.