The New Season at Caramoor can mean many things. First of all there is the Summer Music Festival. There is also The Rosen House Museum. The new show this year in the Rosen House from the Collection is: “From Here to Eternity: Popular Female Deities in Chinese Art.” Then there are the Galas which raise funds for each of them.

As a Docent at Caramoor, the new season means waking up the dormant memory cells in order to give a rewarding tour at the Rosen House Museum.The lives of the Rosens plus their collections is a topic too vast for any blog. Therefore I have struggled how to share the story of my new “Home Away From Home.” My solution - to tell you the introduction I give in the Music Room before the audience is broken out into smaller groups for the House Tour.

“Walter Tower Rosen was born in Berlin in 1875 and came to the United States with his family in 1885 for business reasons. He was tutored at home, entered Harvard at the age of 16 and graduated in three years. He played classical piano and practiced every morning before breakfast. He also befriended the Gardiners of Fenwick Court in Boston and perhaps their love of collecting inspired young Walter to do the same some day.

He returned to New York, graduated from New York Law School and while working in a New York Law firm he caught the eye of a client and went on to investment banking where his specialty became railroads.

Lucie Bigelow Dodge had a very interesting background as well. Her grandfather was one of the Founders of the New York Public Library, an Ambassador to France for Lincoln during the Civil War and an editor at The New York Post. Lucie’s Mother divorced her father when Lucie was twelve and a student at the Brearley School in New York. In order to divorce they had to establish a residence in South Dakota. Her mother Flora then married Lionel Guest - first cousin to Winston Churchill. They had a social life in London that Lucie quickly tired of. She missed working for her grandfather in New York and she ran away from home. She was found by Scotland Yard and returned under the condition that she could return to New York. She also then studied at McGill University in Montreal . It was at the Guest summer home in Quebec that her brother introduced her to Walter Rosen. They soon married in a simple ceremony due to the War of 1914. He was 39, she was 23. He was 5’6”, she was 5’10”.

They had two children - Walter Jr. and Ann. They used to travel on vacation to Venice every fall from their four adjacent town homes on West 54th Street which were over flowing with their growing collections of Renaissance Art. Lucie fell ill one year while there and suggested to her husband that they find a spot closer to her New York doctors and hospitals.

A colleague at his law firm told him that his mother Carolyn Moore Hoyt was thinking of selling her 100-acre estate in Katonah, NY. The name Caramoor is either the name of the property at that time after Carolyn Moore or we muse that it may be due to the Rosen’s love of all things Italian and their celebrated love for one another - Cara & Amore. Since it was 1929, they shelved their plans for a grand palazzo and expanded on the stable and staff buildings that were first built. Walter Rosen continued to visit his art dealer in Venice every September and would have the rooms from the palaces of Europe dismantled and retrofitted into the new space. It was completed in 1939.”

That is where I will have to stop! For more of the details on the Rosen Family, the many fascinating and some tragic stories, plus to enjoy their vast collections plan a visit to Caramoor! Group Tours, Concerts and Teas are all available as well. Plus, plan to come to one of the many concerts planned this Summer. Picnicking is also welcome on the grounds pre-concert.

As a Realtor I must share with you the fact that there are very special homes on the market right now in the Caramoor area. If you are interested, please give me a call! 914-232-1212 x342; KBenvinRansom@HoulihanLawrence.com

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Posted By: Karen Benvin Ransom