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Back page: Sold: New York mansion of ‘Keeping up with the Joneses’ fame

In this Wednesday, Sept. 14, 2016 photo, work continues at the high-tech manufacturing facility at the RiverBend site that will house SolarCity in Buffalo, N.Y. A federal prosecutor on Thursday, Sept. 22, 2016, charged the CEO of the contractor on the project, Louis Ciminelli, and some of his executives in a sweeping fraud and bribery case stemming from Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s high-profile economic development projects. Joseph Percoco, Cuomo's former executive deputy secretary, and Alain Kaloyeros, president of SUNY Polytechnic Institute, are also among those who face charges, according to a criminal complaint by U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara. (AP Photo/Mike Groll)
AP | AP

RHINEBECK, N.Y. — A dilapidated New York mansion believed to have inspired the phrase “Keeping up with the Joneses” has sold at auction for $120,000.

Long Island-based Maltz Auctions says the 24-room Wyndclyffe Castle sold Wednesday.

The mansion was built in 1853 in Rhinebeck as the country house of Manhattan socialite Elizabeth Schermerhorn Jones, a member of a wealthy family and aunt of American novelist Edith Wharton. The property’s elegance is said to have prompted owners of nearby Hudson Valley estates to build even bigger mansions, giving birth to the idiom “Keeping up with the Joneses.”



Wyndclyffe fell into disrepair under various owners and was abandoned in the 1950s. It was bought in 2003 and was put up for sale by its owner.

—The Associated Press


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