Slate Valley Ties to Big City Movements 

The beginnings of influential architecture during the Gilded Age (1870s-1900) can be seen through the examples of several slate industry investors, particularly Jay Gould. After the economic Panic of 1857 Gould started to establish himself in the Slate Valley through his investments in both the Rutland and Washington Railroad and the Granville Slate Company. For a period following the Civil War, he and his growing family were residents of Middle Granville, perhaps living in proximity to the Gould Row Houses that were constructed for the employees of his slate enterprise. 

By 1870, Gould purchased his first Fifth Avenue mansion in New York City. Twelve years later he moved across the street to 579 Fifth Avenue and lived part-time at a summer country estate, Lyndhurst, in Tarrytown, NY.   

The Jay Gould Mansion on Fifth Avenue was built in 1869 for future mayor George Opdyke and his wife, Elizabeth, and was designed by Stephen Decatur Hatch. Hatch, like other architects, made use of the Second Empire style for the mansion and for his next project, the Gilsey House Hotel at 1200 Broadway. 

The design features in the Second Empire style were introduced in the United States by Detlef Lienau (1818-1887). Predominant in this style is the Mansard roof, named for Francois Mansart, and revived during the reign of Napoleon III, in France. Lienau studied in Paris and came to America in 1848, becoming a founding member of the American Institute of Architects (AIA). 

As families of wealth were establishing their homes along Fifth Avenue and other locations throughout the country, the Mansard roof style became an architectural boom for the slate industry. Lienau served as a mentor to other architects and brought his son J. August into his firm. The Lienau portfolio included extensive buildings and homes in the New York, Connecticut, and New Jersey areas. Perhaps Lienau's grandest work, the Lockwood-Mathews Mansion (1869) in Norwalk, Connecticut predates the City Beautiful Movement, but included all the elements of architect – muralist – and landscaping integrated into the master plan. The home is stated to be perhaps the finest example of Second Empire architecture in the country. 

In the summer of 1884, Gould took respite from the bustling world of Wall Street and atop his perch of influence on the Blaine campaign for President of the United States to have a registered stay at the Lake St. Catherine Hotel just miles away from Middle Granville. One of his former slate industry competitors, Penrhyn Slate Company, was further establishing its architectural status at that time. J. August Lienau married Elizabeth Williams, daughter of the late John S. Williams of the Williams and Guion Company. Their wedding in November 1884, attended by many family members and friends, was highlighted in the New York Times and listed many in the “new generation” of the shipping line, now called Guion and Company, who were also investors and officers in the Penrhyn Slate Company. J. August Lienau himself was soon added to the Board of Directors. 

The investment by the Williams and Guion families in the slate enterprise was connected to the Black Star Line ships that brought immigrants to the United States since 1848. The toils and efforts in quarrying started in 1856 by Eleazer Jones, the Welsh born immigration agent based in Liverpool; along with his brother, William, he would take the journey to America and settle in Middle Granville. Eleazer would die in 1873 with none of his three sons interested in the slate industry; however, the strength of the Penrhyn Slate Company would continue and was enhanced by the architectural styles of the time and the wealth along the streets of many cities. 

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