Architectural Traditions in the Hudson River Valley Hudsonrivervalley.Com
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106884d_A_Architecture.qxp 8/3/16 7:42 AM Page 1 Map & Guide Series Hudson River Valley Architectural Traditions National Heritage Area, New York hudsonrivervalley.com in the Hudson River Valley he Hudson River Valley is known not only for its natural beauty but its architectural heritage. It was here that architects developed early residential Tstyles, created mountain resorts, and designed spectacular riverside estates. America’s first travel guides touted these architectural wonders 150 years ago. The invitation still holds: Visit the farmhouses of Dutch and French Huguenot settlers; tour the mansions and grounds along the river; and marvel at the creations of some of the country’s greatest 19th-century architects. Staatsburgh State Historic Site, photi by Andrew Halpern Dutch, Huguenot Influences neighbors. Huguenot Street, arguably the Origins of the Great Estates Clermont established a new standard for The houses built by Dutch colonists oldest street in America with its original As second- and third-generation the country house and the prominence during the 17th and early 18th centuries houses, includes three with portions that colonists became more prosperous, of the Livingston family. Federal-era are the only examples of Dutch architec- date back to the 1690s: the Bevier-Elting, many early landholdings expanded. mansions, such as Ten Broeck Mansion ture in North America. Farmhouses, such Jean Hasbrouck, and Abraham Hasbrouck Frederick Philipse I, a Dutch carpenter (1789) in Albany, Boscobel (1804-07) in as Pieter Bronck’s brick residence (1663) houses. The buildings are of local stone, who emigrated in the 1650s, successfully Cold Spring, and Locust Lawn (1814) in in Coxsackie, feature distinctive pitched with steeply pitched shingled roofs and acquired a large amount of land and two New Paltz, demonstrated the increasing roofs with gable ends, prominent roof Dutch jambless fireplaces. mill sites, the Lower Mills in Yonkers wealth of the Hudson River Valley. beams, and open fireplaces. and the Upper Mills on the Pocantico Today, the legacy of the Dutch colonial River in the village of Sleepy Hollow. After the English took charge of the vernacular is kept alive in more contem- The core of Philipse Manor dates back colony in 1664, Dutch building traditions porary historic buildings, many of which to the 1680s, but its transformation into continued and can still be seen at the Madam Brett Homestead, were influenced by Franklin Roosevelt. a country estate began under Frederick Philipse Manor Hall, Yonkers Beacon Steve Turner, AerPhoto, courtesy Charles Davey design LLC Madam Brett Homestead (1709) in Steve Turner, courtesy In the 1930s, FDR was involved in the Philipse III, who remodeled it into a Charles Davey LLC Beacon and the Luykas Van Alen House design of six regional post offices, Georgian-style mansion in the 1750s. After the Revolutionary War, Americans (1737) in Kinderhook. three schools, his own presidential celebrated their independence through library, and Top Cottage, his retreat Farther up the river, Robert Livingston a new style of architecture that attempt- The French Huguenots who emigrated at Hyde Park. By promoting native acquired a royal patent for a vast tract ed to shed the colonial trappings of the to the banks of the Wallkill Creek and fieldstone construction and using of land in Columbia County, and one of past, but they still clung to the neoclassi- founded the settlement of New Paltz historical models for new designs, his sons built a Georgian-style country cism inherited from England. Several built stone houses that combined FDR helped to preserve an impor- house he named Clermont. important houses were destroyed during Northern European and medieval build- Bevier-Elting House, Huguenot Street, New Paltz tant architectural tradition in the the war and rebuilt in the Federal style. In Clermont, Germantown ing traditions with those of their Dutch Hudson River Valley. its elegant post-war reincarnation, Boscobel, Cold Spring James Vanderpoel House, Kinderhook Lyndhurst, Tarrytown Steve Turner, courtesy Charles Davey LLC Dutch Reformed Church, Newburgh Martin Van Buren Home, Kinderhook Tom Daley Residential Architecture: Together, Davis and Downing were Carpenter Gothic: an the Cottage and the Villa responsible for developing the two key American Church Style building types that would define the During the first half of the 19th century, By mid-century, the romantic ideals of nation’s residential architecture: the American architects experimented with a Downing and Davis were common cottage and the villa. The bracketed style variety of styles, and it was during this knowledge, and the board-and-batten was an answer to the quest for a native period of eclecticism that the valley’s church had become the natural style for architectural style, particularly because it most whimsical and exuberant houses Gothic revival church architecture in could be adapted to a range of incomes. were created. Sunnyside, a “cottage” in America. The light and vertical wooden Tarrytown designed by writer Washington buildings stood in sharp contrast to the In 1837 Davis introduced this new, Irving in the 1830s, evokes this romantic heavy stone Gothic structures of England. romantic style in his landmark book, spirit with its fanciful combination of Rural Residences, which included the Dutch, Scottish, and Spanish architecture. The architect Richard Upjohn earned a Locust Grove, Poughkeepsie Blithewood gatehouse, the first published Sunnyside, Tarrytown reputation as the most talented designer example of a board-and-batten cottage Foremost among professional architects As tastes changed during the 1840s, of board-and-batten churches. Upjohn The Knoll was considered the first in America. Over the next 15 years, was Alexander Jackson Davis, a young accomplished architects like Davis and was so busy by the 1850s that he published picturesque villa in America, and in the Davis’ picturesque ideals were interpreted New Yorker who was a partner in the Richard Upjohn were called upon to Upjohn’s Rural Architecture, which 1860s it became the heart of Lyndhurst, a for the public in Downing’s widely country’s first architectural firm, Town remodel outdated federal-style houses included “do-it-yourself” church plans. much larger, more spectacular residence. distributed books, Cottage Residences and Davis. By the 1830s, Davis had com- into more fashionable Italianate or A typical example of his work, St. Luke’s and The Architecture of Country Houses. pleted the Custom House in New York Tuscan villas. Davis worked with Samuel Chapel (1857) in Clermont, displays It was through the commission for When Davis remodeled Montgomery St. Luke’s Chapel, Clermont Tom Daley City and the Greek Revival Dutch F. B. Morse to create Locust Grove in the bell cote and intricate woodwork the Blithewood estate in Annandale-on- Place, the Federal-style estate in Reformed Church in Newburgh. He also Poughkeepsie, while Upjohn designed characteristic of this style, an important Hudson that Davis met landscape Annandale-on-Hudson, Downing served received a commission for a Hudson Lindenwald, a 36-room mansion in contribution to the history of American architect Andrew Jackson Downing. as an adviser on the gardens and grounds. River estate, the Knoll in Tarrytown. Kinderhook commissioned by President architecture. Martin Van Buren. Montgomery Place, courtesy of Historic Hudson Valley State Capitol, Albany Wilderstein, Rhinebeck Vanderbilt Mansion National Historic Site, courtesy of Bill Urbin Kykuit, Sleepy Hollow A Tradition of Rural Leisure At the same time, Frederick Clarke Withers Visit the Hudson River Valley today and The 1870s were an exciting time in the began creating the monumental Hudson immerse yourself in the area’s fascinating valley. The renowned New York architect River State Hospital in Poughkeepsie, the architectural history. Richard Morris Hunt designed the Stick country’s first use of the High Victorian Style Howland Library in Beacon, and Gothic style for an institutional design. Calvert Vaux, Andrew Jackson Downing’s his equally famous colleague, Henry Trailside Museum, Bear Mountain State Park Hobson Richardson, was working with a successor, and Frederick Law Olmsted group of other designers on the New designed the innovative hospital grounds. York State Capitol. A fire at the Albany Hudson River families called on the gardens and impressive collections of art City Hall nearby resulted in a new archi- During the second half of the 19th New York architectural firm McKim, and sculpture. Bear Mountain Inn (NPS) tectural commission, and Richardson century, some of the country’s greatest Mead and White to remodel their was built in 1915 and is among the earliest created another impressive civic building. architects brought new residential styles estates—Vanderbilt in Hyde Park and examples of a monumental rustic park At Poughkeepsie James Renwick, Jr., to the valley and renovated the old- Mills in Staatsburg—into more fashion- lodge. It was designed by Tooker and designed the mansard-roofed main fashioned estates of their predecessors. able countryseats. Marsh and has been completely restored building for Matthew Vassar’s new college Vaux updated the landscape plan for and is now open as a restaurant, inn, and for women. Wilderstein, the Queen Anne estate in Two early 20th-century sites represent conference center. And in 1917, a little Rhinebeck, and worked with Frederic E. the extent to which the Hudson River known architect named Herbert