BOX-ROOM   |   FIRE   |   TREVELYAN VEAN​

THE OFFICE

Room 11.

New York, New York, USA | 1929

Set within this grand Jacobean mansion lies the office of writer and wealthy publisher, Jedediah Elston Trevillian (English: habitational name from Trevelyan; ‘house at the mill’). Its mix of oak furniture and cabinetry is less grandiose than other areas of the building, but does showcase the owner’s interest in the peculiar, the exotic and strange.

 

In late 1925, Trevillian died in this room aged 86 – and in a bizarre final twist to the eccentric’s life, his estate, company and fortune were willed not to his squabbling family, but instead to a seven-year-old boy caught trespassing in the grounds on the day of his death.

 

Included in the many Trevillian properties was Trevelyan Vean, a Châteauesque mansion on Fifth Avenue on the Upper East Side in New York City. Close by the mansions of the Astors and Vanderbilts, the French Renaissance-style chateau was designed as a blending of late French Gothic style and Beaux-Arts refinement for the design of the three-and-a-half-story mansion. The elaborate asymmetrical facade was faced in gray Indiana limestone, with an irregular roof of blue-gray slate trimmed with copper. The office is on the second floor, and details the life of its original owner, his explorations and adventures.