Sadly, after Tiffany's death in 1933 the family deemed Laurelton Hall too costly and impractical to maintain. It became derelict and in the late 1940's, it was sold for a mere $10,000. Forty years before, the estate had been conservatively valued at nearly $2 million. Its exquisite objects d' art and stained glass windows were auctioned off for a fraction of their original worth.

 

In 1957 the home was finally destroyed by fire and any priceless works of art remaining were to be bulldozed over in the rubble. Fortunately, neighbors Jeannette and Hugh McKean rescued the remnants of the estate and placed them in the Morse Museum in Winter Park, Florida. The museum holds a treasure trove from the Tiffany family's lavish life and is well worth a trip to Florida to see.

 

THE ENDING

 

How could one man go from international fame to virtual obscurity within his lifetime? While his family name remained famous via Tiffany & Co. Jewelers, Louis Comfort Tiffany's name and stained glass empire did not.  

 

The horrors of the Great War, (WWI, 1914-1918) ushered in a new century of radical change. Gone was ostentatiousness and sentimentality to be replaced by minimalism and good times ahead. Unfortunately for Tiffany his ideals remained in the past. His glassworks were no longer in fashion. In 1932 his once fabulously successful studios went into bankruptcy. He had squandered away most of his wealth. This once dynamic man became introverted and isolated. 

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​He had little contact with his family and friends. His only companion was a young Irish woman, Sarah Hanley who had gone to Laurelton Hall to nurse him through an illness and stayed on to become his protégée. He built her a house on the estate and this odd couple would wander around the grounds painting pictures of flowers and of each other. Sarah was with him until the end. Tiffany died on January 17, 1933, a month before his 85th birthday, mourned by Sarah and a handful of loyal friends but scarcely at all by his family.