TARRYTOWN, NY.- Alexander Jackson Davis: Designer of Dreams, a major exhibition dedicated to the work and legacy of American architect Alexander Jackson Davis (July 24, 1803 – January 14, 1892), fills Lyndhurst’s mansion and exhibition gallery this summer from May 23 to September 22, 2025, showcasing the depth of Davis’s influence on the nation’s built environment and cultural identity. The exhibition reunites rare paintings, watercolors, and decorative objects from Davis’s archives for the first time since 1900 when they were dispersed among four institutions: the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the New York Public Library, the Museum of the City of New York, and Columbia University. Other important lenders include Winterthur, the Smithsonian, the New-York Historical Society, the Newington Cropsey Foundation, and Historic Hudson Valley.

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“Alexander Jackson Davis was a visionary architect who shaped America’s architectural dreams, but also its architectural realities,” said Howard Zar, Executive Director of Lyndhurst. “His work established both the grandeur of American home design and the practical challenges of modern architectural practice—from speculative development to the tension between artistic integrity and client demands. It defined the aspirations of a growing American elite, blending historical influences into a distinct and modernized style.”

Architect of a Growing Nation

Davis’s prolific career included designs for New York University, the University of North Carolina, Davidson College, and the Virginia Military Institute, as well as the Wadsworth Atheneum, the nation’s first public art museum, and state capitols in Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. His most enduring legacy, however, is found in his country homes, particularly the Gothic Revival and Italianate mansions of the Hudson Valley, with Lyndhurst standing as his crowning achievement.

His career took off in the 1830s when a cholera pandemic prompted New York’s elite to flee the city and build country homes along the Hudson River as romantic retreats. This migration transformed the Hudson Valley into an architectural showcase, with Davis at the forefront, creating residences that blended picturesque natural settings with innovative designs.

Davis bridged the gap between gentleman-architects of the 18th century and the formally trained professionals who followed. His designs incorporated elements from medieval Gothic, Greek Revival, and Italianate architecture, but rather than creating direct imitations, he synthesized these styles into something uniquely American. His work helped establish new ways of thinking about residential architecture, combining aesthetic grandeur with modern functionality.

Many contemporary American attitudes towards home design and ownership were originated by Davis. He designed the nation's first McMansion In 1864 when he doubled the size of Lyndhurst for business magnate George Merritt, transforming it into the first large-scale suburban mansion of the Gilded Age and setting a precedent for the larger, more ostentatious homes built to showcase wealth that dot the Hudson Valley and define the McMansion phenomenon today.

In addition to designing buildings, Davis was a pioneer in holistic design, creating interiors, furnishings, and landscapes that complemented his architectural visions. His innovative approach, which integrated architecture with its surrounding environment, anticipated trends often attributed to later figures such as Frank Lloyd Wright.

Though his designs may appear deeply historic, they were, in their time, as radical and avant-garde as Frank Gehry’s work seems to some today. Without ever visiting Europe, Davis studied imported pattern books featuring Gothic, Tudor, and classical architecture, adapting these references into homes that felt dramatic yet livable.

“American architecture has always displayed a heavy dose of aspiration, looking to Europe for architectural models that display good taste,” noted Zar. “Whether it’s a Hollywood producer’s ersatz French château or a Las Vegas casino modeled after Venice, we think of these as modern attitudes—but Davis was responsible for this, starting almost 200 years ago.”

Significant aspects of Davis’s career mirror the realities of contemporary architecture. His correspondence reveals an ongoing struggle to collect payments from speculative developers, while clients often hesitated at his bold designs, fearing they were too avant-garde.

Davis notoriously noted that he had had more building torn down during his career than most architects had erected. He was constantly trying to save houses from demolition that had been standing for only a few decades.

"In the same way that young enthusiasts are restoring old houses in cities like Detroit in a more sustainable attitude towards architecture," said Zar, "Davis decried the American habit of demolishing buildings simply because tastes had quickly changed and his American clients needed to keep up with their wealthy peers."

American Tastemaker

A pivotal figure in New York City’s burgeoning artistic and intellectual community of the early 19th century, Davis, along with contemporaries like author Washington Irving and painters Thomas Cole and Asher Durand helped shape a uniquely American cultural identity during a transformative period in the nation’s history.

Davis worked in the period after the wars of independence were over and after the opening of the Erie Canal created a huge growth in America’s economy and an influx of immigrants, but before Americans traveled to Europe and before education and information were universally available. Davis stepped in as an advisor to the newly wealthy and to a growing middle class of Americans, providing not only designs for appropriate homes but a wide-reaching approach to creating a tasteful lifestyle that included creating surroundings with romantic landscapes and interiors filled with evocative furniture and beautiful artworks.

His architectural legacy is perhaps most vividly captured in the Gothic Revival and Italianate country houses of the Hudson Valley. Moving up the Hudson River these include: Litchfield Villa, now Prospect Park in Brooklyn; the Rye Country Club; Lyndhurst in Tarrytown; Samuel Morse’s home in Poughkeepsie; a likely redesign of Edgewater owned by Gore Vidal and Richard Jenrette in Barrytown; Montgomery Place, now part of Bard College; and the Haight Gantley House in Hudson, New York. These structures reflect the Romantic movement’s emphasis on emotion over reason, a defining aesthetic of the period.

Davis often became friends with his clients, advising them well after the architectural portion of his commission was completed. In this way, Davis created a pattern that continued to later architects, such as Stanford White, who purchased antiques for his clients and included fine furnishings in his designed interiors. Davis is also a progenitor of American tastemakers like Martha Stewart who popularize and set standards for landscape and interior design for all Americans.

A Forgotten Master Reexamined

Although Davis was once a cornerstone of American museum exhibitions, the last major exhibition on his work was mounted at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1992. Today, as museums reexamine overlooked figures in art and architecture, Davis is being rediscovered for his lasting influence on how Americans build and inhabit their homes.

Zar noted, “the Met’s recent Siena exhibition illustrates that even in the current vogue for outsized works of contemporary art, superlative works drawn from our art historical past still speak to contemporary audiences and inform them about their lives today.”

While the exhibition format and works might be traditional, the story they tell is timeless and very relevant to current viewers. Davis was largely self-made. He came from a poor family without a college education. He rose to prominence as an artist before becoming an architect and gained success by ingratiating himself with some of the wealthiest and most powerful Americans of the time. As his clientele moved from the North to the South, Davis's career was ultimately undone by Civil War and post war politics. These themes are explored in the exhibition as well as in the catalog and in a scholarly symposium to be held at Lyndhurst on June 22, 2025.

Exhibition Highlights

The exhibition explores Davis’s architectural evolution through major commissions, including:

• Lyndhurst (Tarrytown, NY) – The first fully realized example of Victorian Gothic Revival in the U.S., later expanded into one of the nation’s first Gilded Age mansions.

• Ericstan (Staten Island, NY) – A quintessential Gothic villa that exemplifies Davis’s ability to integrate architecture and landscape.

• The Harral-Wheeler House (Bridgeport, CT) – A landmark mansion showcasing his mastery of the Italianate style.

Key loans include:

• 13 exquisite watercolors from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, illustrating Davis’s transition from artist to architect.

• Drawings and architectural plans from Columbia University’s Avery Library, offering insight into Davis’s creative process.

• Period furnishings from Historic Hudson Valley, demonstrating his holistic approach to home design.


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