Anson Phelps Stokes - Family

Family

Stokes married Helen Louisa, daughter of Isaac Newton Phelps, on October 17, 1865. In 1893, he built Shadowbrook, a 100 room Berkshire Cottage at Lenox, Massachusetts. Shadowbrook was so large that a family anecdote tells of Anson Phelps Stokes Jr. being told by his mother while playing outside one day that because there was a storm gathering he should come inside and bicycle in the attic. In 1902, Stokes bought land at the southern tip of Long Neck, a small peninsula in Darien, Connecticut and built Brick House, where he and his family lived for many years. (Andrew Carnegie occupied Brick House for several summers, and in 1917 he bought Anson Phelps' estate Shadowbrook, where he died in 1919.) The Stokes family also had a summer house, or Great Camp, on Upper St. Regis Lake in the Adirondacks, where family members spend their summers to this day.

Anson lost one of his legs 15 years previously in a horse-riding accident, when he was thrown against a tree and his leg crushed. At his death on June 29, 1913, in New York City, Anson Stokes was survived by nine children: four sons and five daughters. His sons include Anson Phelps Stokes (1874–1958), an educator and clergyman, architect Isaac Newton Phelps Stokes, and noted socialist James Graham Phelps Stokes.

His personal wealth was estimated at USD $25,000,000 at the time of his death, or about USD$ 587,878,788 in today's dollars. However, when his estate was settled, a month after his death, it was reported that the actual value of his estate was between $500,000 and $750,000 (about USD$ 17,636,364 in today's dollars.