Hyde Hall

267 Glimmerglass State Park, Cooperstown, Otsego County, New York

Completed in 1834 for George Clarke (1768-1835) and his second wife, Anne Low Cary (1783-1850), widow of Richard Fenimore Cooper (1775-1813), of Otsego Hall. It has been frequently said that Hyde Hall was in its time the largest private residence in the United States; however, although undoubtedly large for it's time, it was on a lesser scale compared to several other neoclassical mansions of the era, such as Point Breeze and Lansdowne House. Hyde Hall is not to be confused with the Vanderbilt Mansion, Hyde Park, both of which are operated today as house museums. 
George Clarke was a great-grandson of The Hon. George Clarke (1676-1760) who became the Colonial Lieutenant-Governor of New York. In 1705, the governor married Anne Hyde (1693-1760), the sole heiress to Hyde Hall in Cheshire, England, that became hers after the death of her father, Edward Hyde (1667–1712), the first Colonial Lieutenant-Governor of North Carolina. During his time in America, Governor Clarke accrued 120,000 acres in the Hudson and Mohawk Valleys; sugar plantations in Jamaica; and a fortune of over £100,000. He returned with his wife to England in 1745 to take up residence at their seat.