When Eliza died on July 16, 1865, she left the estate to her sister’s children, Eliza Chase (pictured in the largest portrait in the hallway), leaving the other sibling William Chase out of the will. A highly contentious and publicized battle over the estate ensued, and lasted 17 years, ultimately reaching the Supreme Court. The Chases sold the house in 1887.
In 1889, the home became the residence of the early French photographer and filmmaker Augustine Le Prince (1841- aprx. 1890) and his family. Le Prince was a trained chemist and inventor; he rented the mansion with the intention of debuting the first moving motion picture at the residence. However, in 1890, Le Prince and the film disappeared before the film could be publicly shown. His family remained at the house for a short time after while pursuing the circumstances of his disappearance, but Le Prince was never found.
General Ferdinand Earle, his wife Lillie, and their children resided in the home from 1894 until 1903, referring to the estate as Earle Cliff. Following Ferdinand’s death in 1903, Lillie campaigned for the home to be preserved as an historic site, and the City of New York purchased the building and almost two acres for $235,000.
Today, the Mansion and its neighboring buildings are a part of the Jumel Terrace Historic District due to the structures’ historic significance and representations of housing from three centuries. In the 1940s, the neighborhood surrounding the Mansion became home to many luminaries of the Harlem Renaissance. The apartment buildings located at 409 and 555 Edgecombe were among the first complexes in Upper Manhattan to be desegregated. Tenants such as Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Joe Lewis, Andy Kirk, Canada Lee, Kenneth Clark, and Paul Robeson resided in the neighborhood. Artist Elizabeth Catlett, and musicians Lena Horne and Dr. May Edward Chinn (pianist) also lived in these buildings, as did W.E.B. Du Bois, Thurgood Marshall, and Walter White (President of the NAACP). The Mansion, a member of the Historic House Trust of New York City, was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1966, followed by its designation as an Individual Landmark in 1967 and Interior Landmark in 1975 by New York City’s Landmark Preservation Commission. During the Bicentennial Celebrations in July 1976, Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip of England visited the Mansion and toured the grounds and historic gardens. In 2014, writer and composer Lin Manuel Miranda sat in Aaron Burr’s Bedchamber and wrote songs for his hit musical, Hamilton.
The Mansion today serves as a community space, featuring unique arts, theater, and educational programming to connect the past history of the house and its inhabitants to the present.