04/02/2026
Thomas Edison’s Glenmont Mansion circa 1880, West Orange, New Jersey.
Built as an Americanized version of the Queen Anne Victorian style in 1880-82, Glenmont was a marvel of advanced housing. It contained all the rudiments of today’s modern home—hot and cold running water, indoor bathrooms with flush toilets, central heating (via gravity convection), and refrigeration (via ice storage). Thomas later wired the home for electricity in 1887.
Glenmont is an imposing structure whose extreme dimensions measure approximately 125 feet long, 116 feet wide, and 54 feet high. The construction of Glenmont includes over 157,000 bricks, and in excess of 10,000 pounds of iron and steel framing. There are 23 fireplaces exiting through 7 chimneys. A total of 94 exterior windows grace the building, 41 of them adorned with canvas awnings. Over the years, the Edison’s added 6 more bathrooms, mostly on the second floor, for a total room count of 29.
Edison resided at Glenmont, for over half of his lifetime. Its architect, Henry Hudson Holly, is considered to be the father of the Queen-Anne style architectural movement in the United States. Holly's crowning achievement, Glenmont, was part of a working estate which presently contains six outbuildings, including a barn and a greenhouse.
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📖 https://www. thomasedison. org/edison-s-home-glenmont
📖 https://www. nps. gov/edis/learn/historyculture/glenmont-collections.htm