You Know the Famous Phrase. See the House That Inspired It

A dilapidated New York mansion believed to have inspired the phrase "Keeping up with the Joneses" sold at auction this week for $120,000, reports AP. The 24-room Wyndclyffe Castle was built in 1853 in Rhinebeck as the country house of Manhattan socialite Elizabeth Schermerhorn Jones, a member of a wealthy family and aunt of American novelist Edith Wharton.

The property's elegance is said to have prompted owners of nearby Hudson Valley estates to build even bigger mansions, giving birth to the idiom "Keeping up with the Joneses." Wyndclyffe fell into disrepair under various owners and was abandoned in the 1950s. It was bought in 2003 and was put up for sale by its owner. (More real estate stories.)