About Hutton House Lectures

Lorber Hall, located on the south end of LIU Post Campus, was built in 1927 for H.W. Lowe. Architect John Russell Pope designed the mansion in a composite of New England and Mid-Atlantic Federal forms. A corner stone located on an upper section of the rear of the Lorber Hall declares that the house was built in 1927 after another house in the same location was destroyed by fire in 1926.

Financier William E. Hutton II (second cousin of E.F. Hutton of Wall Street brokerage fame) purchased the mansion and its 26 acres in 1940. The Hutton’s named the estate "Mariemont". Edward F. Hutton purchased the house directly east of "Mariemont" (currently the LIU Post Fine Arts Center) after his 1936 divorce from second wife, cereal heiress Marjorie Merriweather Post.

Long Island University purchased "Mariemont" from the Huttons in 1965 for $400,000. The house was renamed Hutton House by the University and became the home of the Hutton House Lectures series and the School of Professional Accountancy. Thanks to the generosity of Howard M. Lorber, CEO of Nathan’s Famous, Inc. and Chairman Hallman & Lorber Associates, Inc., the building was restored to its original magnificence during a three-year period from 1997-2000.

In 2001 numerous photographic negatives of the house as it appeared in the 1940s were discovered in the basement of the LIU Post campus administration building. The views below are a wonderful glimpse of how the house appeared when it was a private residence.