For Sale: Mansion … Hospital … Hotel?
1500 Brinker Road, Wellsburg, West Virginia
Square Feet 80,443 Beds 61, Full Baths 24 Half Baths 40
Listed on the National Register of Historic Places Dec 31.1984 (link),
Ok now, bear with me on this one for a minute and let me explain. This one at first glance looks like an out-of-control army barracks (or … haunted psych hospital?), but … when you start looking closely (and doing some honest googling of the address) you realize that somewhere in the middle of this jumble of kindling is a turn of the century mansion. A mansion which has been altered, extended, and experienced more lives and conflicting personalities than Sybil. The original mansion (somewhere in the middle of the tangled mess), dating from 1901, boasts 73 rooms including 39 bedrooms, a commercial kitchen, dining areas, a library, billiard room, a chapel and much more.
The original property was conceived and built by Joseph B. (JB) Vandergrift (1868 -1915), a wealthy steel heir from Pittsburgh. Being groomed to take over the family business, Vandergrift attended all the right schools and received all required social obligations and training prior to entering his father’s banking and oil businesses. As such, he acted as vice-president of the Apollo Iron and Steel Company, director of the Pittsburgh Trust Company, Keystone National Bank, Natural Gas Co. of West Virginia, as well as numerous posts with the Pennsylvania Tube Company. Seemingly, his is a resume based heavily on nepotism, but what do I know. Upon the death of his father, (Jacob Jay (JJ) Vandergrift) in 1899, JB at the age of 31, retired from business and took over the management of his father’s considerable estate, which in 1899 was estimated at some $36 million – not a small chunk of change (about $1.3 Billion in 2023 dollars). As a treat for himself, JB purchased a remote 600-acre tract of land overlooking the Ohio River and retained celebrity architects Alden & Harlow (who designed buildings for the Pittsburgh elite including the Carnegie’s and the Frick’s.) to create an estate worthy of the rich playboy he envisioned himself to be.
Vandergrift desired the creation of a private world where he and his invited guests could pursue any and all of life’s (somewhat illicit) activities. Couple this with an unlimited budget and you get the hedonistic estate JB referred to as “Vancroft”. Alden & Harlow did not disappoint, creating a rambling Shingle Style dwelling with broad gable roofs, rough stone turrets and chimneys and extensive covered verandahs. The “pleasure palace” has 39 original bedrooms, a Billiards Room, library, a bar room, a “Presidents Room”, a “Asian Room”, an “Indian Room” and a “Turkish Room” which was designated for smoking opium. Each room incorporated an international theme supported by furniture and decorative antiques from around the world. The estate offered invited guests access to horse races on the estates own figure eight racetrack, dog and cock fights in a specially designed indoor ring, week-long poker games, alcohol, prostitution, an opium den, a billiards hall, bowling alley, indoor pool, a pergola, a club house, spring house, a grotto, themed rooms, hunting, and fishing. Everything JB loved was there, including, of course, some fast ladies whom he imported from Pittsburgh and was alleged to have cavorted with frequently. When you read this bio of JB and his Den-of-Iniquity, one cannot help but envision the ultimate caricature of a Hollywood invented rich and aimless, spoiled playboy – a deprived and damaged brat of a guy with no real morals or ounce of humanity … but, having never met the guy …. maybe he was just misunderstood.
Supporting JB’s hedonistic estate, Alden & Harlow designed and incorporated a total of 31 support buildings and facilities, including a pump house, spring house, numerous barns, horse stables, an athletic building housing the bowling alley and gymnasium, dog kennel, greenhouse, blacksmith’s shop, power plant, five windmills, and a clubhouse where Vandergrift held the aforementioned dog fights and cock fights.
At the age of 34 and after only 3 years of enjoying his own Sin City, JB lost interest in his grown-up playhouse packed up a few items and walked away from his Den of Inequity, selling the estate in 1904 to Joseph Speidel. Incidentally, this was the same year JB divorced his wife Diana (perhaps she had been fooling around with a hunky stable hand – more on that later). Speidel quietly enjoyed the estate for 7 years, selling to William N. Brinker in 1911 who changed the name of the estate from Vancroft to Brinkercroft (how creative!). At the estate, the Brinkers tried, (and failed) to develop a silent picture production company on the property. Despite my extensive (mainly Google) research, I was unable to locate any info on the Brinkers, nor any films they produced. Giving up the studio dream the family moved out in 1925 and retreated to Wilkinsburg.
Passing from the Brinker’s the estate began the unlikely transition from “sensual pleasure palace” to a place for “spiritual nourishment” (kind of a Sodom and Gomorrah transition into the Garden of Eden), with ownership transferring through a number of religious organizations: namely the William Penn Society and the Catholic Knights of St George. The Knights added 22 additional bedrooms, staff lounges and a commercial kitchen in a three story, full care home addition to the rear of the mansion, replaced the home’s swimming pool with the much more in keeping chapel and, deciding Vandergrift’s beloved racetrack didn’t fit in with the Knight’s religious doctrine, replaced the track with a cemetery.
In 1974, the Knights add the sprawling “Independent and Assisted Living “wing to the mansion – Now, don’t even get me started on this atrocity – I mean what happened in the 1970’s? Here the architect designed and tacked on an offensive “boy scout camp” looking structure to the original architecture of a bucolic gentleman’s estate making no attempt at all to blend the two structures into one overall experience. It’s like going from Disney World’s Liberty Square to Tomorrowland without benefit of any transitional or concealing landscaping. This massacre of the property added another 27 bedrooms, bringing the property’s square footage to a whopping 80,443 square feet for the mansion, care home, and 10 support structures. This number does not include the 11,000-square-foot basement, a 3,570-square-foot stucco “retreat house” added in 1938, a 2,567 square foot Maintenance Supervisor Dwelling added in 1945, a shop building, a spring house, several barns, and a 4,577 square foot lodge added in 1975 containing a bathhouse and a new swimming pool.
After outliving it’s purpose and becoming vacant, the property, now going by the grandiose name of “The Catholic Knights of America Center” was purchased in 2007 by a local entrepreneur by the name of Gene Valentine, investing a reported $3.5 million in renovations to the building and facilities and rechristening the estate “Aspen Manor” offering “seniors a well-appointed, vibrant community null of home maintenance, meal preparation and home upkeep”. (link). Over time this dream was gradually whittled down to eventually becoming “The Aspen Manor B&B”. In 2019, Gene Valentine passed away and the property was shuttered, now awaiting its next incarnation. The listing ensures the utilities remain on, and a caretaker performs regular checks and maintenance twice a week.
The interiors, as described by a guest of the Aspen Manor B&B (whom identified herself as Rainelle T.) in July of 2015, provided the best description I could find on the interiors (on Tripadvisor of all places Link):
“…. When I try to tell friends about our stay here, it sounds like something made up! We stayed in the historic bed and breakfast wing. It had so many twists and turns a person can get lost. Rooms with animal heads, furniture and antiques with price tags, pianos with old sheet music, winding narrow staircases leading to more hallways with room after room and if you turn left in the entrance, you are in the former nursing home wing. … If you are adventurous, don’t require modern amenities to make you happy, and aren’t afraid of the dark, stay here!”
And what would a creepy maze of a house be without a resident ghost? Apparently, a young lady is rumored to have hung herself in the stables after her husband discovered her affair with a hunky stable hand. Apparently, she has been seen wandering about the property, doomed to forever roam the place where she took her own life. Bet they didn’t mention that in the brochure for the seniors home! Records show Joseph Vandergrift and Diane divorced in 1904, so that kind of deflates the rumour of her being the ghost, but still makes for good lore.
My friends and I have all talked on and off as to what retirement would look like (some day, like a long time from now!) But we’re in agreement that we need to pool our resources, find a kick ass country place and staff it with good looking people to care for us in our golden years. Perhaps this is the place – who knows.
The property, currently held in a trust, was listed for $3.8 million on Aug 26, 2021 and reduced to $3.2 million on Oct 13, 2022 (not a Friday, I checked). As of today, it’s still available – so I’m thinking you could probably come in now with a stink bid and walk away with the place. Just think’n out loud of course.
