Carnegie’s Braemar Cottage

At an elevation of 2,000 feet in the Allegheny Mountains, 75 miles east of Pittsburgh, Cresson became a popular retreat for Gilded Age giants such as Henry Clay Frick (1849-1919), Charles Michael Schwab (1862-1939) and William Thaw Sr. (1818-1889) etc.

 

But, Braemer Cottage is not a house one would expect to associate with the richest man living in America’s Gilded Age. Having owned the cottage for twelve years, in 1886 Carnegie purchased an additional 500 acres at Cresson and planned to build a Scots baronial-style castle here, contracting Frederick Law Olmsted (1822-1903) to design it. But after Christmas that same year, Carnegie sold up everything in Cresson and never stepped foot there again. Instead, looked back to his native Scotland and bought Skibo Castle.
 
A Modest Summer Home

In 1873, Carnegie had leased a 100 square foot lot from the Pennsylvania Railroad and by the following year had built the cottage on it as a summer home (there was no central heating) for himself and his mother. She named it Braemar for the Aberdeenshire Highlands village in her native Scotland. 

 

It was a comfortable, gingerbread-trim three-bedroom home with reserved but fine plaster mouldings and tall ceilings, for a cottage. Up until then, both Andrew and Peggy were used to living in hotels and rented accommodation, and rather than employ staff they took all their meals at the fashionable Mountain House Resort Hotel, the hub of Cresson Springs’ social life, where Carnegie also put up his guests.

 

The latter half of 1886 was to be an eventful time for Carnegie. It started in July when his soon-to-be-wife, Louise Whitfield (1857-1946), made her only visit to Cresson, soon followed by Olmsted who came to draw up plans for their castle. But, in October Carnegie’s only brother, Thomas Morrison Carnegie (1843-1886) caught pneumonia and died at Pittsburgh while Andrew and his mother were confined to the cottage suffering respectively from typhoid and pneumonia. 

 

In November, the week before Carnegie recovered, Peggy died at the cottage. One month later, Carnegie left Cresson and never returned. He disposed of the 500 acres on which he’d planned to build his castle to the State of Pennsylvania for $1 on the condition that a sanatorium for those suffering from tuberculosis was built there instead. Between 1914 and 1964, close to 40,000 people were treated there.  

 

Braemar was long mistaken – and is still sometimes confused – with the Jones’ far larger Braemar Cottage next door. It remains a private home to this day.