About Us
Our History
The Philip Cheney Mansion
The Philip Cheney Mansion, a National Historic Landmark building is now the estate of the Viscogliosi family. Anthony Viscogliosi purchased the home in 2003 and together with his wife Paula lovingly preserved the house to bring it back to its original grandeur. The couple worked with Jared Edwards, a well-known preservation architect on this 13-year restoration project that was delayed in the 7th year by a fire. The majestic 7.5-acre estate sits on the expansive Great Lawn in the heart of the 175-acre Cheney Brothers National Historic Landmark District. The 20,000 square foot house is the largest of the Cheney mansions remaining. The brick Jacobean style mansion was first the home for Knight Dexter Cheney from 1837-1907. He was the president of the Cheney Brothers, a silk manufacturing family business. The original clapboard house designed by Stanford White was inherited by Knight Dexter Cheney’s ninth son Philip A. Cheney.
Philip Cheney had the house redesigned by Charles Adams Platt in 1928 only keeping the Grand Salon from the original house. On the first floor, the house boasts an expansive entrance hall, grand salon, grand dining hall, four season loggia, cigar room/library, gourmet kitchen, service pantry, breakfast room and both a ladies powder room and gentlemen’s lounge with adjacent sitting rooms. The home has sleeping accommodations that include eight bedrooms, nine private bathrooms, a daytime sleeping porch, a yoga/dance studio, children’s playroom and children’s library and art studio, a conference room and 3 offices. The beautiful exterior grounds have been restored using the original topography from 1928 aerial images.
Relax & Enjoy your stay at The Philip Cheney Mansion
Arriving at the Philip Cheney Mansion, one is invited to step back in time. Walking through the doorways of history, one can relax, unwind and dream of new tomorrows.
Check availabilityWe have a long History
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The Visionary
Charles A. Platt
Platt was born in New York City, the son of Mary Elizabeth (Cheney) and John Henry Platt. Platt trained as a landscape painter, and as an etcher with Stephen Parrish in Gloucester, Massachusetts in 1880. He attended the National Academy of Design and the Art Students League in New York, and later in Paris the Académie Julian, with Gustave Boulanger and Jules Joseph Lefebvre. At the Paris Salon of 1885 he exhibited his paintings and etchings and gained his first audience. In the decade 1880–1890 he made hundreds of etchings of architecture and landscapes. He received a bronze medal at the Paris Exposition Universelle of 1900. The home, completed in 1928, was once owned by Philip Cheney, a member of the Cheney family of silk manufacturers, and designed by Charles A. Platt, a renowned architect who built homes for the Vanderbilts, Cheneys and other wealthy families of the era.
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1838 - 1954
Cheney Silks Legacy
Cheney Silks was a silk manufacturing family company in Manchester CT over the span of many decades. The company was a leader in both innovation and creativity in both the technological and design realms. Above are images of some the imaginative Cheney Silk advertisements of the time, also exquisitely displayed around the Mansion.
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The Artist
Russell Cheney
Russell Cheney was the eleventh and youngest child of Knight Dexter Cheney and Edna Smith Cheney of South Manchester CT, Philip Cheney’s brother. He was born in 1881 and grew up in the midst of the prosperous years of the Cheney Brothers silk industry. Russell was a prolific American painter from still life, to portraits and landscapes, he painted about what pleases him about life, giving his paintings interest and unity as a body of work. The Philip Cheney Mansion has a collection of 25 of Russell Cheney’s works displayed throughout the house.
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1838 - 1954
Cheney Brothers Silk Mills
The Cheney Silk mills are in the 175-acre Cheney Brothers National Historic Landmark District and are a short walk from the Philip Cheney Mansion.
The mills today are renovated apartments and also house the Loom exhibits of the Manchester Historical Society.
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2003
Viscogliosi Restoration begins
Anthony and Paula Viscogliosi embarked a a full 13 year restoration project of the house, the interiors and the exterior landscape and gardens.
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2016
Restored to its glory
In a Georgian style, with red brick, white wood and limestone trim, round and arched windows, and prominent gables, dormers, and chimneys.
The mansion is now fully restored and the estate is peacefully enjoyed by all.