Real World - Rynwood

Over the course of the semester, students will be tasked with advising Rynwood Holdings on how best to capitalize on the property’s key aspects of architecture, interior design, marketing, and F&B in order to attract the intended clientele, while preserving the historic nature of the existing buildings and maintaining the majority of the open space. Additionally, students will be asked to explore what additional amenities could be built, within the parameters set out above.

Rynwood Holdings is in the early stages of converting one of New York’s largest private estates into hospitality use.  Tucked away on 51 wooded acres on Long Island’s famed North Shore (memorialized by F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Great Gatsby), the 45,000 SF stone mansion was built by Sir Samuel Agar Salvage in 1927 in a grand style meant to evoke the stately country homes of his native England.  Rynwood Estate also includes two cottages, a gate house, a tea house, a tennis court, a swimming pool, fountains, and extensive gardens.  After Sir Samuel’s family, ownership passed to Margaret Emerson Vanderbilt, wealthiest woman in the world at that time, and the widow of Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt, who went down on the Lusitania.