2016 Exhibition: Mansion House Hotel & Cottages

Drawn by Ezra Stiles
January 29, 1762
Courtesy of Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University

The text of the map’s legend is as follows:

Fisher’s I. 7 Miles Long
A. The Harbor on the No[rth] side
B. The only house on the Island
C. Excellent cleared land
This Island under Jurisd[iction] of New York and pays taxes there. It has 50 Deer upon it.

Please note that “B” marks a house that was later torched by the British during a Revolutionary War raid. In 1780, the Winthrop owners built a replacement house on or near that location that became known as the “West House.”

First published in 1877 by US Coast Survey with Aids to Navigation corrected to 1885
Courtesy of University of Connecticut, Map and Geographic Information Center

In 1863, a wealthy retired merchant named Robert Fox bought all of Fishers Island from the last in a long line of Winthrop owners. He chose to make the West House, marked prominently on this map, his primary residence, envisioning it as the center from which he would restore Fishers Island as a great stock farm.

The West House had been built in 1780 by the Winthrops to replace a house that the British had torched during a Revolutionary War raid. Prior to Mr. Fox’s purchase, the West House, a simple brick structure, had typically been occupied by the primary lessee of the island, or, when there was no lessee, by a hired Winthrop caretaker.

Circa late 1870s
Museum Collection

Before moving in with his family and household servants, Mr. Fox transformed the West House into an elegant residence more befitting his status as owner of Fishers Island. Post renovation and expansion, the much improved West House soon became known as the Fox Mansion House.

Circa 1880s
Museum Collection

After Mr. Fox died in 1871, Mrs. Eliza Fox, his widow, working with the Fox estate executors, began to promote potential uses of the Fox Mansion House. Their goal was to attract buyers or lessees.

In the mid-1870s, the island-owning Fox family pivoted away from running an animal stock farm to a new focus on making Fishers Island a destination for human visitors. During this period, the island’s cows and sheep took a back seat to people for the first time since European settlement in the 1640s. The Mansion House played a central role in this transition to a human centric island.

Advertisement published in The New York Times
September 17, 1872
Courtesy of Pierce Rafferty

This advertisement was the first known public expression of the possibility of utilizing the Mansion House as a hotel.

Surveyed and Mapped by E.B. Jennings, New London, May 1, 1878
Traced 1919 by D.S. Trowbridge
Museum Collection. Reproduction donated by Katherine Arnold

Land sales to the public began on Fishers Island in 1876 with all sales restricted to the west end. Allowed to take root, a small New England community sprang up almost instantly. By the end of the 1880s, Fishers Island had its first church, its first school, several hotels and boarding houses, a steamboat line, two rental cottage clusters, and a newly established population of winter and summer residents that was rapidly expanding.

Circa 1880s
Courtesy of Steamship Historical Society

1877
Museum Collection. Acquisition

The Mansion House offered lodging and dinners to guests and boarders, and shore dinners and clambakes for those wishing less formal fare. There was even a proprietor named Professor De la Vergne, whose very name added a touch of class to the new establishment.

1887
Museum Collection. Donated by Polly Edmonds

This side view of the Mansion House reveals the full sweep of the rear addition and shows the size of the hotel during the period of its Fox-family ownership, 1877 to 1889.

Fishers Island’s first post office was located at the back of the addition, just to the right of the rear porch pillars. Please note the sports net at right that was likely used by guests for badminton, or another net game.

July 1, 1882
Museum Collection

Opened in 1882 as a destination “shore hotel” for excursionists, the Lyles Beach offered a variety of inducements that attracted large crowds of yesteryear’s “day trippers.” It was owned by businessmen associated with Norwich, Conn.

The range of activities included swimming, sailing, dancing, bowling, billiards, arcade games, baseball, and a shooting range “better than the military.” Drinking was also a primary attraction, as some sections of southeastern Connecticut were then “dry.”

Unfortunately, there was rain on opening day and the crowds were quite minimal.

Circa 1891
Museum Collection

Billed as “The Coney Island of the East,” the Lyles Beach Hotel was Fishers Island’s first major hotel. It was located on the island’s north shore several hundred yards west of the entrance to West Harbor. On weekends hundreds of “day trippers” arrived for a day of fun, and almost always left by day’s end.

Published in New York Illustrated Times, August 9, 1884
Museum Collection. Donated by Kiki Arnold

After their major land purchase in 1889, the Ferguson brothers made it a priority to buy out and shut down the Lyles Beach shore hotel in order to stem the tide of “day excursionists” that were then flooding the island in the summer season.

Circa 1893
Museum Collection. Photo by James S. Casey

After wooing the owners of the Lyles Beach for two years, the Fergusons succeeded in purchasing the hotel in 1891 for $10,000. They immediately shut it down for a complete renovation. With all major docks and landings under their control, they promptly banned all excursion steamers from landing on Fishers Island. Consequently, 1891 marks the end of the very brief tourist period on Fishers Island that lasted only from 1876, the beginning of land sales, to 1891.

The former Lyles Beach reopened in 1892 as the more elegant Munnatawket Hotel. The main hotel had 79 guest rooms with an additional 14 in the detached annex, for a total of 93.

Illustrations from The New York Herald
July 1891
Museum Collection. Acquisition

At the time of the Ferguson purchase, the Mansion House was still a rustic “B&B” style hotel. Neighboring Bell Hill—or Shingle Hill as it’s generally called today—was almost totally undeveloped. Only two years after their purchase, E.M. & W. Ferguson began the first of several ambitious expansions of the Mansion House Hotel and simultaneously began construction of a series of associated cottages on the sides of Bell Hill.

Circa 1893
Photograph from a promotional brochure
Courtesy of Jim Diaz

Understanding the importance of providing houses where families could stay for the entire season, the Fergusons wasted no time in erecting Mansion House Cottages on Bell Hill. The first six were completed by late 1891. As more cottages were built, more families returned year after year, often to the same cottage. As intended, they bonded to each other and to the island. The Mansion House cottagers formed a core group at the center of the early resort and, in later years, the core of the associated clubs. Ultimately, many built their own homes on Fishers Island.

1897
Lithographic advertising brochure Published by E.M. & W. Ferguson
Museum Collection

Despite the Munnatawket Hotel’s superior water view, the Fergusons made the landlocked Mansion House the center of their resort. This contradiction is best explained by the fact that Bell Hill offered a prominent and varied setting for adjacent Mansion House Cottages with plenty of room for expansion.

Circa 1893
Photograph from promotional brochure
Courtesy of Jim Diaz

In 1891, the Fergusons hired H. Edwards-Ficken (1844-1929), a prominent English-born architect based in New York, to design the first side addition to the Mansion House. Completed in late 1891 or early 1892, his elegant and proportional Queen Anne-style extension didn’t last long. Before the decade was out, it was eclipsed and then replaced by much larger, more ungainly additions.

Please note that Edwards-Ficken was also the architect responsible for the Walton Ferguson residence on Fishers Island, completed 1894 (today Warden) and E.M. & W. Ferguson’s Administration Building, completed in 1898 (today’s Fishers Island Utility Co. building).

His diverse commissions in the wider world included the Cloisters building at Yale and the original 1,000-foot iron pier at Coney Island. A celebrated athlete, he also designed the winged-foot symbol of the New York Athletic Club.

Circa 1893
Published in promotional brochure
Museum Collection

The first addition stretched from the middle of the Fox rear addition and was known as the “Dining Room extension” because of its ground floor function. The original Mansion House residence, seen at front right in this floor plan, functioned as a front office for the hotel with an adjacent waiting parlor.

There were 33 hotel rooms on the second and third floors during this period.

August 1893
Photograph by James S. Casey
Museum Collection. Donated by Sandy Esser

The Edwards-Ficken first addition is featured at left with the original Mansion House in right background. Note the sports net in foreground.

Circa 1895
Museum Collection. Donated by Polly Edmonds

There is a handwritten note on reverse of this vintage photograph: “It is not always possible to sit at the same place 50 years after. We sat there yesterday afternoon.”

Circa 1890s
Photograph by James S. Casey
Museum Collection. Donated by Mrs. A. Abbott

In the early days of the resort on Fishers Island, trunks and personal property were shuttled between dock and destination by baggage handlers utilizing horse-drawn wagons.

Circa 1901
Museum Collection. Donated by Harry and Susie Ferguson

Many early Mansion House Cottages lacked a full kitchen and were designated “Non Housekeeping.” They did have a small range for heating water for the bath. Not to worry! The absence of a kitchen was promoted as a positive: cottage renters could eat and socialize at the hotel, or, if so desired, have meals delivered straight to their cottages. Guests were assured in promotional brochures that they could be “at home” without any of the cares or worries of actual housekeeping. Porters and bellboys were just a buzzer or a phone call away. In fact, the cottages were so convenient that household servants were not even needed.

For those who wanted full kitchens, “House Keeping” cottages were also constructed and offered for seasonal rental.

Circa 1913
Photograph by Brown & Dawson, Stamford, Conn.
Museum Collection. Donated by Harry and Susie Ferguson

The front row of Mansion House Cottages had filled in by the early 1900s. The cottages pictured here are (from R to L): Cottage #6 through Cottage #9.

At far left is the William E. Stone residence (today Maysles). Built in 1888, it was the first house in this area, preceding the adjacent Corson Cottage (circa 1891), two neighboring Ferguson residences (both built in the mid-1890s) and the Mansion House Cottages (built between 1891 and the mid-1910s).

Circa 1910
Printed color postcard
Museum Collection. Donated by Pierce Rafferty

Please note the protuberance on the top of Bell Hill. This was the roof cover of the reservoir for the western end of the island. The Fergusons first established a water distribution system in 1904 that included a brick pump house on Barlow Pond, a pumping main, and the reservoir seen here. The Bell Hill Reservoir had a capacity of 330,000 gallons, a diameter of 51 feet, a depth of 22 feet, and 24-inch thick brick walls. Water was gravity fed from its tank that stood at the highest spot on the west end.

The Bell Hill Reservoir was eclipsed by the “Top of the World” reservoir (500,000 gallon capacity) built in the mid-1920s on Chocomount Hill as part of the Olmsted Plan. It is still the island’s primary reservoir. Bell Hill continued to function as a secondary reservoir until its wooden roof decayed circa 1957. A residence was later built atop the former Bell Hill Reservoir site.

1893
Museum Collection. Donated by Mary Jean Pelham

Originally built by the Winthrops, this dock was much improved by Robert Fox following his purchase of Fishers Island in 1863. When the Steamer Munnatawket first made runs to Fishers Island in the early 1890s, she tied up at this dock to facilitate access to the nearby Mansion House.

The Day reported that the “venerable Mansion Dock” was torn down in late January 1914. Note that the Fishers Island Yacht Club’s dock was built in the late 1920s on or near this original Mansion House dock site.

Circa 1925
Reproduction detail from aerial photograph
Museum Collection

The Mansion House wharves extended into West Harbor lining the edge of a two-acre approach comprised of fill. There were steamer and yacht wharves and a protruding 126-foot long Coal Pocket wharf. Passenger ferries arrived and departed from here on occasion beginning in the early 1900s and regularly from 1926 through 1947. Built between 1902 and 1912, the Mansion House wharves were torn down in 1959 and replaced by a less prominent dock that is used today by some of the Island’s commuter ferries and for Goose Island’s boat refueling service.

1936
Courtesy of Maxine Arnold

Please note the freight building at left center that featured a second story “open air” waiting pavilion. This 1895 building, originally situated on the Munnatawket Hotel dock, was moved to the depicted Mansion House wharf location circa 1926. Prior to the tearing down of the Mansion House wharf in 1959, the freight building was moved ashore and converted by Gordon Ahman into a residence for his family that still stands overlooking West Harbor.

Circa 1895
Photograph by James S. Casey. Museum acquisition

Circa 1913
Photograph by Brown & Dawson, Stamford, Conn.
Museum Collection. Donated by Harry and Susie Ferguson

Circa 1915
Printed color postcard
Published by W.G. Wilbur, Fishers Island, N.Y.
Museum Collection. Donated by Pierce Rafferty

The “Dining Room extension,” a redo of the first Edwards-Ficken addition, is at left. The original Mansion House residence that served as the hotel’s office is straight ahead.

Circa 1913
Published by Brown & Dawson, Stamford, Conn. Museum Collection. Donated by Harry and Susie Ferguson

Circa 1912
Real photo postcard
Museum Collection. Donated by Fort H.G. Wright Association

Circa 1902, a second major extension was added to the Mansion House. It featured a ballroom on the ground floor.

1914
Real photo postcard
Photograph by Edward Quimby
Museum Collection. Donated by Fort H.G. Wright Association

Circa 1912, a third major extension, four stories high, was added to the Mansion House. It featured a large living, or drawing room for socializing on its ground floor. Please note how the second extension to its right still only had three floors. It would soon expand skyward with an added fourth floor.

Circa 1937
Courtesy of Harry Ferguson

This birds-eye-view aerial, dating from the 1930s, provides the best single view of the entire Mansion House and Cottage complex. When the three rows of cottages were finally filled in by the mid-1910s, 24 structures ringed Bell Hill, including 18 cottages, 5 bungalows, and a Diet Kitchen that was dedicated to serving children healthy meals.

Work-related buildings can be seen at right, including Building 100, the Help’s Quarters, and the identical Building 102, the Mansion House Laundry. The neighboring low-lying structure was the Market Garden Hot House.

July 1926
Day & Zimmermann, Inc. Engineers
Museum Collection

This map shows the relative positions of the cottage colony, the Mansion House Hotel, and the numerous work and worker-related buildings that supported the overall hotel operation.

Circa 1940
Real photo postcard
Photograph by Adelard T. LeGere
Museum Collection. Donated by Pierce Rafferty

This photo documents the Mansion House at its peak size with three four story extensions. The historic residence is all but lost behind the trees at right. The exact date that the first and second extensions were raised to four stories has not yet been determined.

The three extensions cumulatively stretched 273-feet to the south from the side of the rear addition of the historic residence. The third addition brought the Mansion House Hotel’s room total to more than 120, not including the Cottages.

Circa 1920s
Museum Collection. Donated by Richard S. Baker

Circa 1914
Real photo postcard
Photograph by Edward Quimby
Museum Collection. Donated by Pierce Rafferty

Building No. 100 was built in 1910 for use as “Help’s Quarters.” It is one of dozens of work-related buildings that have disappeared from the Fishers Island landscape and are long forgotten.

Circa 1938
Photograph by T.A. Conroy Jr., Brookline, Mass.
Museum Collection. Donated by Harry and Susie Ferguson

The exact function and location of this Rube Goldberg array of pipes, pumps and gizmos has not been determined. The machinery was perhaps used to pump hot water to the Hotel’s radiators. (Please bring informed opinions to the attention of the Museum’s director.)

Photographs from Report-2432-2
July 1926
Day & Zimmermann, Inc. Engineers
Museum Collection

Building No. 94 Bell Boys Quarters (built 1910) and Building No. 107 Mansion House Boiler House (built 1913) were just two of the dozen buildings clustered immediately to the north of the Mansion House Hotel.

Circa 1913
Photograph by Brown & Dawson, Stamford, Conn.
Museum Collection. Donated by Harry and Susie Ferguson

Both of these bungalows were completed in 1909 at a time when the bungalow architectural style was popular. They were the first built on the third row of Mansion House Cottages.

Please note that the top of the Bell Hill Reservoir is visible above the roof of Bungalow No. 1.

Circa 1939
Museum Collection. Donated by Harry and Susie Ferguson

Cottage No. 12 was completed in 1912. Located on the third row, it shares many architectural elements with its bungalow neighbors.

[Sadly, this residence was destroyed by fire in 2021.]

Circa 1939
Museum Collection. Donated by Harry and Susie Ferguson

Almost all the Mansion House Cottages, including Cottage No. 4, have been transformed over the past century by the addition of bathrooms, kitchens, bedrooms and expanded porches making the matching of historic photos with today’s cottages often quite difficult.

Circa 1913
Photograph by Brown & Dawson, Stamford, Conn.
Museum Collection. Donated by Harry and Susie Ferguson

Cottage No. 9 was built circa 1902-03.

July 1903
Museum Collection. Donated by Martha Davis Soper

Cottage No. 5 was once the home of widely celebrated American fashion designer Claire McCardell (1905-1958) who specialized in stylish, affordable “ready to wear” apparel. She was married to the Texas-born architect Irving Drought Harris. Mr. Harris bought Cottage No. 5 in 1949 from the Hay Harbor Realty syndicate during the period when the cottages were being sold one by one to private parties.

Circa 1910s
Museum Collection. Donated by Peg Campbell

Circa 1913
Photograph by Brown & Dawson, Stamford, Conn.
Museum Collection. Donated by Harry and Susie Ferguson

“There has been erected convenient to the Cottages a Diet Kitchen and Dining Room for young children, where simple meals are prepared by a Dietician and under the supervision of Dr. B.H. Gray. It is optional, however, whether meals are taken there or in Main Dining Room.” Text from promotional brochure, circa 1912.

The Diet Kitchen, completed in 1911, converted to residential use in the late 1940s.

Circa 1913
Photograph by Brown & Dawson, Stamford, Conn.
Museum Collection. Donated by Harry and Susie Ferguson

“The Cottages, Fishers Island, N.Y.” Circa 1913. Photograph by Brown & Dawson, Stamford, Conn. Museum Collection. Donated by Pierce Rafferty
Panoramic view of Mansion House Cottages on Bell Hill, (also known as Shingle Hill), with reservoir clearly visible in center background.

Circa 1895
Page from promotional brochure
Museum Collection

In addition to the fishing excursions and the swimming activities offered here (both surf and “still water”), the brochure also promised that “on the Mansion House lawn can be found Lawn Tennis and Croquet, also numerous Hammocks under the shade trees where those who become tired of the Games may lay down and rest.”

Circa 1901
Museum Collection

For two decades following their 1889 purchase, the E.M. & W. Ferguson company was blocked from establishing a unified recreational center or clubhouse fronting Hay Harbor. The privately-owned Corson property—site of today’s Hay Harbor Club clubhouse—separated the Fergusons’ Mansion House bathing beach (see bathhouses marked on map) from the Fergusons’ sailing dock located just southwest of the Corson property.

Circa 1904
Museum Collection

Stymied from establishing a club fronting Hay Harbor, E.M. & W. Ferguson built a club in 1895 on the grounds of the Murdock Cottage (today the Parsons’ “Neau Vue”). They named it “the Casino.”

The clubhouse included a large social room, two bowling alleys and a billiard room. There was initially one adjacent clay tennis court, but two were added later. The Casino first opened in 1896 and remained active through the 1909 season with both hotel guests and members of the wider Fishers Island community using its facilities. (Note that in the 19th century, a casino was a building or pavilion used for social gatherings and recreation, not necessarily for gambling.)

Circa 1890s
Museum Collection

The Casino is marked by an arrow.

1909
Museum Collection

In early 1909, E.M. & W. Ferguson succeeded in securing the Corson Cottage for use as a clubhouse. The new Hay Harbor Club opened on July 10, 1909.

In its early decades, the Hay Harbor Club functioned almost an extension of the Mansion House Hotel; guests and cottagers from the Hotel had access to facilities at no charge, or for minimal fees.

By obtaining the Corson property, the Fergusons were finally able to unify tennis, swimming, sailing and boating activities in one social club.

Circa 1912
Museum Collection. Donated by Fort H.G. Wright Association

In the fall of 1909, scores of laborers working with horse teams dragged the Casino building from its Murdock Cottage site over skids to the Corson Cottage. Although the distance was only 300 yards, it took two months to move the building to its new home. Carpenters subsequently attached the two clubs, literally merging the old club with the new.

Note the Casino bowling alleys that stretched down the road-facing side of the Hay Harbor Club. Please note also that the “Ballroom,” where generations of HHC members learned how to Bunny Hop, was originally the 1895 Casino’s social room.

Circa 1920
Printed color postcard
Published by J. Soloman, New London, Conn.
Museum Collection. Donated by Pierce Rafferty

Even after the establishment of the Hay Harbor Club, the Mansion House continued to offer its guests sports activities on the hotel grounds, including the golf practice area revealed in this postcard.

Circa 1939
Photograph by Peyser & Patzig, Inc., New York
Museum Collection. Donated by Harry and Susie Ferguson

Circa 1939
Photograph by Peyser & Patzig, Inc., New York
Museum Collection. Donated by Harry and Susie Ferguson

1940
Published by Mansion House Hotel
Courtesy of Jeff and Catherine Edwards

In 1940, the Mansion House distributed several series of detached color cards in packets to hotel guests. The cards promoted suggested activities and specific events like luncheons and dinners.

Note the card designed to encourage bird watching, was very up to date with listings of the latest Fishers Island bird sightings.

July 1926
Day & Zimmermann, Inc. Engineers
Museum Collection

The South Extension, sometimes called the Living or Drawing Room Extension, was the third addition to the Mansion House. Four stories high with a small cellar for a heating boiler, it was the only section of the hotel that had an elevator.

Circa 1939
Hand-colored printed postcard
Published by Eagle Post Card View Co., New York
Museum Collection. Donated by Pierce Rafferty

This rare interior view of the third extension reveals a room arranged primarily for small group socializing. Records indicate that the room measured 108’ long by 36’ 6” wide. The ceilings were 11’ 10” high.

Circa 1938
Photograph by T.A. Conroy Jr., Brookline, Mass.
Museum Collection. Donated by Harry and Susie Ferguson

This interior view shows the Drawing Room extension of the Mansion House Hotel populated with hotel guests.

Circa 1939
Museum Collection. Donated by Harry and Susie Ferguson

July 1926
Day & Zimmermann, Inc. Engineers
Museum Collection

The ground floor of the second extension featured a ballroom used for dances and musical events.

Circa 1938
Photograph by T.A. Conroy Jr., Brookline, Mass
Museum Collection. Donated by Harry and Susie Ferguson

The ceiling-mounted flags indicate that this was likely a July 4th event.

Circa 1939
Museum Collection. Donated by Elizabeth Husband

This group of unhappy dwarfs, led by the smiling Marta Tilford as Snow White, has been partially identified. From L to R: (1) Unknown, (2) Bertie Fisher, (3) Duncan Fulton, (4) Sandy McKown, (5) Unknown, (6) Unknown, and (7) Tom McCance. If you can identify any of the “unknown” dwarfs, please inform the Museum Director.

July 1926
Day & Zimmermann, Inc. Engineers
Museum Collection

The ground floor of the first extension held the Hotel’s main dining room.

Circa 1939
Photograph by Peyser & Patzig, Inc., New York
Museum Collection. Donated by Harry and Susie Ferguson

Circa 1939
Photograph by Peyser & Patzig, Inc., New York
Museum Collection. Donated by Harry and Susie Ferguson

Circa 1938
Photograph by T.A. Conroy Jr., Brookline, Mass.
Museum Collection. Donated by Harry and Susie Ferguson

July 1926
Day & Zimmermann, Inc. Engineers
Museum Collection

This floor plan provides the clearest record of the ground floor functions of the various sections of the Mansion House Hotel after it reached full size in the mid-1910s. Please note that the “South Section” was also known as the “Drawing Room” section.

Circa 1939
Hand-colored printed postcard
Published by Eagle Post Card View Co., New York
Museum Collection. Donated by Pierce Rafferty

Circa 1939
Museum Collection

Note the front desk in background. During the period when the Mansion House was operating as a hotel (1877-1941), the front office was on the ground floor of the historic residence. Guests could pick up keys and mail in the Reception Lounge that is today Harry and Susie Ferguson’s library room.

Circa 1939
Real photo postcard
Published by the Foto Seal Co., New York
Museum Collection. Donated by Pierce Rafferty

Adjacent to the Reception Lounge was a parlor where guests could relax, or wait for check in to be completed. This area is today Harry and Susie Ferguson’s dining room.

September 22, 1938
Photograph by Adelard T. LeGere
Museum Collection. Donated by Sandy Gaston

Already battered fiscally by the Great Depression of 1929, the Fishers Island Farms, successor company to E.M. & W. Ferguson and owner of the Mansion House, received numerous additional economic blows when the Great Atlantic Hurricane of 1938 slammed ashore unannounced on September 21, 1938.

The storm ripped the roof off the Mansion House’s Market Garden Hot House as seen here.

September 22, 1938
Photograph by Adelard T. LeGere
Museum Collection. Donated by Sandy Gaston

The Mansion House itself was less damaged by the Hurricane than surrounding support buildings. The greatest damage on the hotel property was to adjacent trees.

September 22, 1938
Museum Collection

Date unknown
Museum Collection. Donated by Richard S. Baker

A victim of the Great Depression, the Mansion House Hotel shuttered its doors after the 1941 season and remained closed after the outbreak of World War II. During the conflict, the Ferguson owners attempted without success to interest the US Army in leasing the hotel for use by the Women’s Auxiliary Corps (WACS) stationed on Fishers Island at Fort H.G. Wright.

After the war, the Fergusons decided to tear down the various extensions to the Mansion House Hotel leaving extant only the the original Fox-era Mansion House. This section was returned to residential use as a private Ferguson dwelling.

August 22, 1947
Photograph by: H. Lee Ferguson, Jr.
Museum Collection. Donated by Harry and Susie Ferguson

Circa 1938
Museum Collection. Donated by Harry and Susie Ferguson

Circa 2002
Photograph by Pierce Rafferty
Museum Collection

The historic Mansion House is the only residence on Fishers Island that has been occupied by all three of Fishers Island’s primary owner families: the Winthrops, the Foxes, and the Fergusons.

Harry Ferguson—son of Lee Ferguson, grandson of Henry L. Ferguson, and great-grandson of Walton Ferguson—is the current resident of the Mansion House, along with his wife Susie and their golden retriever.