During the 1920’s the estate known as Wayside was the summer home of Edwin S. Bayer and Laura Kayser Bayer. In addition to Wayside, they also owned a townhouse in NYC (recently featured in The New York Times) and a home in Paris. Two major sales of their art collection are noted in the Frick archives. (Galerie Charpentier, 1933, and Sotheby Parke Bernet, 1961, upon Laura’s death). Edwin passed in 1929. Laura moved to Paris, subsequently marrying the Count Antoine de Sala in 1931, and sold Wayside to Joseph and Bessie Gerber Glass.

Mr. and Mrs. Glass bought Wayside with many of the furnishings and Bessie stayed in the house many years after her husband’s passing. She eventually built another home just north of Wayside and sold the main house with enough land to conform to Bedford zoning. When it was time to sell the bulk of the land, she interviewed several builders. She wanted someone who would respect the property and build a quality development. A footnote: Mrs. Glass funded the building at Pace Law School. Her husband had been an attorney and she felt it was important to have a law school accessible to local students. You can see their names on the side of the building when driving up North Broadway in White Plains.

In addition to the main house, there were many outbuildings on the property. These included stables, a poultry house, a dairy barn, a creamery, a bull house, and greenhouses. In its day Wayside was a fairly self-sustaining country estate. There were even extensive grape arbors. The variety of crops produced increased during World War II as victory gardens were planted across the country. When purchased by Mr. and Mrs. Glass, the property stretched from McLain Street to Rte. 172 and down to Rts. 117, with certain parcels excepted. The original main house is on McLain Street. The “back” entrance to the estate is now the emergency exit for Guard Hill Manor. The stone pillars can still be seen at the top of Brookside Avenue.

There are three tenant homes from the original property still in use. Two are at the end of Leonard Street. One, formerly called “The Cottage”, was moved to its current location in approximately 1980. This happened just before the land upon which Guard Hill Manor was built went up for sale. The second was the home of Joseph and Bessie Glass’ daughter, Grace Glass Marwell, and her family. That home remains in the family to this day. The third house is the cream & white gambrel colonial on the hill at the end of our emergency exit road.