This collection contains letters, photos, documents, manuscripts, records and newspaper clippings concerning the Bech family history and businesses in the United States. It was compiled by Viggo Bech Rambusch through his creation of a monograph on the Bech family and life in Duchess County. This collection also contains material on Danish architect Lineau Detlef and his plans for the Rosenlund estate as well as a Daguerreotype of Edvard Bech’s estate.
Viggo Bech Rambusch donated his records concerning the history of Edvard Bech and Rosenlund to Marist College.
Edvard Bech was born May 4th, 1812 in Denmark. He was educated at the University of Copenhagen and his father Jorgen Bech was a prominent merchant. Bech emigrated to New York in 1838 where in 1842 he formed a trading firm which would run for forty seven years. After the death of his father Jorgen Peter Bech in 1848 he was left a large inheritance which he used to invest in the Tuckerman iron trade company which was then renamed Tuckerman and Bech. Bech became the Danish Consulate in New York from 1842 until 1858. He married Elizabeth Hossack in 1846 and moved to Poughkeepsie in 1851 where he lived for about ten years. During the Civil War Bech became very wealthy due to his business in the iron works.
In 1863 he purchased a sixty-five acre farm along the Hudson River which he named “Rosenlund” and hired Danish architect Detlef Lineau to design the estate. Construction was started and completed on a carriage house, a gate house, and a gardner’s cottage. Plans for a main house were created but not built due to Bech’s death in 1873. Lineau was commissioned to build the Bech Family Mausoleum in the Poughkeepsie cemetery for Edvard. His son, George Bech, continued to run Bech’s businesses until his own death in 1890. The order of the Marist Brother’s bought the estate in 1908. The three buildings designed by Lineau, now called Greystone, St. Peters and Kieran Gatehouse continue to be maintained by Marist College and gained historical recognition in 1991.
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