Shadow Brook’s next high-profile resident was steel magnate and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie, who had heard about the estate when he was renting the Brick House in Connecticut, the country house of Anson Phelps Stokes’ widow, Helen Louisa.

Unable to travel to his beloved Skibo Castle in Scotland due to his failing health and the war in Europe, he paid $350,000, equivalent to $10.3 million (£7.7m) today, to Shotter’s creditors in 1916.

Carnegie made some changes to the house, including the instalment of an indoor fire safety sprinkler system, and proclaimed it was “as dear to him as was Skibo Castle”. Sadly, he didn’t enjoy it for long and passed away here in August 1919.

Shadow Brook: the tragic tale of America’s second-largest Gilded Age mansion