Winfield: Living in the Shadow of the Woolworths

I just loved this book. Having read and loved Monica Randall's book [first edition] Mansions of the Long Island Gold Coast I was especially interested in reading more about her adventures on the North Shore of Long Island. I wasn't disappointed. This book is well written and offers a wonderful view into Monica Randall's life as she worked, sometimes undercover of night, to document and save the mansions and their contents. Her story is a haunting tale that focuses on Winfield, her connections to it, and the brief time she spent living in it, while sharing her connection with other of the famous mansions, both lost and saved.

This book is a must for anyone who in interested in History and has empathy for old houses. I enjoyed this book tremedously and could not put it down. Ms Randall has certainly researched her subject extremely well, and has made Winfield, and all the other houses on the Gold Coast come alive. The lifestyles of the families who inhabited these houses are fascinating. One is left with a clear understanding of Ms. Randall's sympathy for these beautiful old places, and a sense of sadness also for the loss and dereliction of so many of these national treasures. Winfield is a wonderful story and would make a wonderful movie.

The author begins by pulling you into the horror she feels at watching the famed Gold Coast mansions be razed to make way for new development. I found myself drawn into the activities of the Gold Coast Rescue Club which used just about every trick in the book, so to speak, to rescue what artifacts they could from the crumbling and neglected mansions and related outbuildings. (You'll be amazed at what they manage to rescue from obscurity) This is a fascinating story, not just of Woolworth and his eccentricities or Winfield Manor, but of a life long love of the architectural monuments from an era that has long since come and gone. The story weaves from her adolescent years to living in a Woolworth heiress mansion to meeting and falling in love with the man who purchased Winfield in the late 70's and her subsequent move into the estate. Don't confuse this as an all encompassing narrative on Woolworth, his family or Winfield. Rather, it's a gripping story of one woman's love of an era and her involvement with one particular magnificent Gold Coast Mansion.

Winfield is one of the best books I have read in a while. It has a great combination of history and the authors direct experience, revolving around the mansion built and lived in by F.W. Woolworth. Anyone from the area (Long Island) will enjoy this book that much more! The story is well written and the novels reads with a very nice flow. The book also has enough clues to help you find the mansion, should you have the urge to search it out... (By the way as of today, 10/19/04, the mansion is on the market for a cool $20 million). Enjoy!

This was exactly what I was looking for: a nicely written, page-turning ghost story. The perfect summer beach vacation book --- or anytime, for that matter. Just don't read this before going to bed.