Tag Archives: Greek Revival

October 16, 2018

Land of the Livingstons

By daseger

This past weekend I toured six “country seats” built by various members of the venerable and prominent Livingston family of the Hudson River Valley in the later eighteenth and nineteenth centuries: most privately-owned, one owned by the state of New York. My brother and brother-in-law live in Rhinebeck, so I have visited this region quite a bit, but I find new old houses every single time I return, and this time was no exception. When we started off, I was thinking only 6 houses? we’ll be done in a flash and $60 for six houses! as our Christmas in Salem tour features more houses and a lower ticket price but it took us most of the day and was well worth it: I had an urban house tour in my mind where you just walk from place to place but these are rural county seats situated on vast acres of land—-mostly waterfront. The scale of both houses and land was much larger than your average house tour, and the tour was a bargain: I’m alway happy to support historic preservation in any case, and in this case it was Hudson River Heritage. I’m going to present the tour in the very order that we saw these houses and give you my impressions of each along the way: no interior photography was allowed except in the state-owned property, Clermont, but as one of the houses is currently for sale and others are included in the amazing (again, expensive but worth it) newly-published book by Pieter Estersohn titled Life Along the Hudson. The Historic Country Estates of the Livingston Family and other publications I can show you some interior views.

You will notice it getting progressively brighter; the day started out pretty dreary and ended with sun. Still all houses shone.

RICHMOND HILL, built in 1808

This federal—-no I think proper Palladian is more accurate–house was simply stunning: beautiful proportions and details. It is the most formal farmhouse I have ever seen as it sits in the midst of 58 acres and many outbuildings, including a period Dutch barn, also unlike anything I have ever seen (I’m such a New Englander!). It has not been lived in for some time and is currently for sale: the photographs on the real estate site (I’m including the west bedroom and basement kitchen below–there’s a modern kitchen too!) are not really doing it justice in terms of the details: one of the mantles had a pinecone design which (again) I have never seen before.

Hudson 1

Hudson 7

Hudson 6

Hudson 10

Hudson 11

Hudson 2

Hudson 8

Hudson 4

Hudson 5

CHIDDINGSTONE, Built in 1860

This is a “Bracketed Italianate” house which has recently been restored and redecorated with 15-foot ceilings and a stunning river view. The interior is all about height over width: the rooms were not all that large in terms of size but those high ceilings, along with the floor-to-ceiling windows and furnishings, made them seem positively grand.

Hudson CH 2

Hudson CH 3

The front parlor photographed by Pieter Estersohn

Hudson CH 4

CLERMONT, Built from 1779-82

Then it was on to the oldest Livingston house, Clermont, which was built in the 1730s but burned mostly to the ground by the British during the Revolutionary War and rebuilt between 1779 and 1782. Clermont is a state historic site with an informative visitors’ center and extensive grounds along the river. Here we had a proper (essentially genealogical) tour and were able to take photographs: the interiors are furnished in the Colonial Revival style adopted by the last Livingstons to live at Clermont in the 1930s.

HUDSON CL2

HUDSON CL 3

HUDSON CL 4

HUDSON CL 5

HUDSON CL 6

HUDSON CL 7

HUDSON CL

MIDWOOD, built in 1888

Midwood is a sprawling Colonial Revival house situated on 87 acres along the Hudson: it made quite the contrast from Clermont as it is a very much lived-in and lively house, furnished in an eclectic style that must reflect the spirit of its owner and felt very “Bloomsbury” to me: we spent quite some time there just because there was so much to see and we were not alone. You can take your own tour here, and I’m sharing two interior views below.

Hudson M3

Hudson M4

Side Parlors photographed by Christopher Baker

CLARKSON CHAPEL, built c. 1860

One of many board and batten Carpenter Gothic structures in the region, the Clarkson Chapel was built following a dispute–a schism, I suppose– at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in nearby Tivoli. Here we met a wonderful guide/steward who had made her own chart of the division of the original Livingston Manor. This was very helpful, and another informative source is here.

Hudson Chapel

Hudson Chapel 2

EDGEWATER, Built in 1825

Our last stop was at Edgewater, a magnificent Greek Revival mansion perched on the Hudson shore in Barrytown, the long-time home of Richard Jenrette, who died earlier this year. My first house was a Greek Revival, and so I studied and bought everything I could about this iconic architectural style, and Mr. Jenrette’s Adventures with Old Houses (1995) became a bible of sorts: my copy is coffee-cup stained, page-marked, and well-worn. Edgewater is preserved, polished, and furnished to perfection, and signs of Mr. Jenrette were all around within: notes, cards, the lift on the magnificent stairs, the program to his memorial service. Of course the whole house is a memorial to him, as is the foundation which now owns Edgewater and his other homes: the Classical American Homes Preservation Trust. I had pored over pictures of Edgewater so many times that when I finally found myself inside, I felt like I was returning to it, which is the first time I’ve had that experience. That said, it’s even more beautiful than its photographs and is a very real, much-loved house indeed.

Edgewater

Edgewater 2

Edgewater 3

Edgewater 7

Photographs of the Music Room and Dining Room by Dorothy Hong for the Wall Street Journal (above); the Edgewater guesthouse (below) was built in 1996.

Edgewater 6

Edgewater 4

Edgewater 5

15 Comments | tags: Architecture, books, Greek Revival, Historic Interiors, Historic Preservation, House Museums, House Tours, Hudson River Valley, road trips, travel | posted in Architecture, History, Houses, Travel

July 24, 2015

Greek Revival Salem

By daseger

I think I’ve covered just about every architectural style represented in Salem over the past few years: lots of variant Colonial houses, the very dominant Federal style, and many of the nineteenth-century styles, including Gothic Revival, Italianate, Queen Anne and Second Empire. But I haven’t featured many houses built in the so-called “National Style”: Greek Revival, which dominated public and domestic architecture across the United States in the mid-nineteenth century. The very first house I lived in in Salem was assertively Greek Revival (built in the 1840s, the peak of the style) and my present house (built in 1827) should probably be classified as such too but it’s such a miss-mash it doesn’t really feel classical. That’s a bit early for the Greek Revival in Salem, which held onto its Colonial and Federal styles longer, I think. For that reason, as well as the Great Salem Fire of 1914, it always seems like Salem has fewer Greek Revival structures than it should have: many of the public buildings, including the “new” City Hall, are Greek Revival, but you don’t find too many domestic structures as they would have been built in the “newer” neighborhoods along Lafayette Street, the center of the conflagration. Some of the most poignant “postcards from the Fire” show Greek Revival houses being devoured. Yet there are Greek Revival houses on nearly every street in the older sections of Salem too, signs of success in the mid-19th century city, no long a center of a global commerce, but still bustling. Two such houses, located on Winter Street, are now for sale, which prompted my long-overdue Greek Revival post.

Walker Evans’ photograph of Salem City Hall, taken in the early 1930s when he visited Salem and shot only Greek and Gothic Revival structures–no Federal! (Collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, more here) These were clearly his architectural preferences, and he captured similar structures wherever he went. Quite contrarily, Salem’s own Frank Cousins was quite condescending about the Greek Revival, probably because such structures replaced his beloved Colonial houses in downtown Salem. The now-mothballed Greek Revival courthouse on Federal Street.

Winter Street Greek Revivals presently for sale: The Captain John Bertram House at number 24, built in 1842-43 by Salem’s greatest philanthropist. The black & white MACRIS photo is from 1998 (An absolutely stunning house: check it out), and the Payson-Fettyplace House at number 16, built in 1845, which has been operating as an inn for some time. Below: more Salem Greek Revivals, by no means an exhaustive collection! A Greek Revival “cottage” on Northey Street, a recently-revived Greek Revival on Bridge, a row of Greek Revivals on Federal, a Greek Revival with many additions on Essex, and the stately Lee-Benson Mansion on Chestnut, all built in the 1840s.