2. N.P. Bailey Mansion, West Fordham

The lost Bronx mansion  of N.P. Bailey
From the New York Public Library

Nathaniel Platt Bailey’s name can still be found in the Bronx, but his mansion is lost. Bailey, a wealthy 19th-century businessman and landowner, lends his name to Bailey Avenue and Bailey Playground. He settled in New York City in 1824 and was so successful in his early career that he was able to retire at the age of 35. His vast estate, according to the New York City Parks Department, “covered a part of what is now called West Fordham, extending from Fordham Road to Kingsbridge Road and from Bailey Avenue to University Avenue.” Bailey’s wife with whom he shared the mansion was Eliza Meier Lorillard, a descendant of the Lorillards who owned the mansion at what is now the New York Botanical Garden.

Bailey’s large mansion overlooked the Harlem River and is reported to have had views that stretched all the way to the New Jersey Palisades. When he died in 1891, the land was divided up and partly sold to the Roman Catholic Orphan Asylum. Today the former estate site is largely occupied by the James J. Peters Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center. This lost Bailey mansion is not to be confused with the one that still exists today in Sugar Hill, Manhattan. That mansion belonged to James Bailey of Barnum & Bailey Circus fame.