Jacob P. Perry House facts for kids
Quick facts for kids |
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Jacob P. Perry House
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North profile and west elevation of main block, 2008
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 Location in New York
Location in the United States
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| Location | Pearl River, NY |
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| Nearest city | Paterson, NJ |
| Area | 5 acres (2.0 ha) |
| Built | 1796 |
| Architectural style | Colonial |
| NRHP reference No. | 03000594 |
| Added to NRHP | July 3, 2003 |
The Jacob P. Perry House is a special old home located on Sickletown Road in Pearl River, New York. It was built around the late 1700s. This house is one of the last homes in Rockland County that was built in the Dutch Colonial style. This style was very popular before the American Revolution.
The house is made of stone and has a very detailed inside from that time period. A later owner updated it in the 1930s, and a new part was added in the late 1970s. There are also other buildings on the property that used to be part of a farm. In 2003, the house, along with a well and its small house, were added to the National Register of Historic Places. This means they are important historical sites.
Contents
Exploring the House and Property
The Jacob P. Perry House sits on a 5 acres (2.0 ha) piece of land. It is located where Sickletown Road and Gilbert Avenue meet in an area of Pearl River called Nauraushaun. The land is mostly flat, but it drops down steeply nearby because Lake Tappan and the Hackensack River are close. Large trees grow around the property, making it feel like a quiet suburban area. All the homes around it are also houses.
The main part of the house is near the north side of the property. An unpaved driveway leads to the west side, which is now the front of the house. The main building is one and a half stories tall. It has five windows on the front and two on the side. It is built from red sandstone blocks that are laid in rows. The roof is a wide, sloping gambrel roof with edges that flare out. It is covered with split cedar shingles. There are long, low dormer windows on both sides of the roof, and brick chimneys rise from each end. A connecting part joins the main house to a newer wooden addition on the south side.
On the east side, which was the original front of the house, there is a main entrance in the middle. It has two windows on each side, and more windows in the dormer above. Shrubs and an awning cover most of this side. The front door is a double Dutch door with its original metal hinges. On the west side, which is now the main entrance, there is a small wooden porch with two benches. This entrance is surrounded by sets of three casement windows on each side. The north and south sides of the house look similar, even with the addition on the south. There are two windows on the attic level and round, louvered windows high up in the gables. The only difference is on the first floor. The south side has a wooden door leading to the new addition and a French door to the outside. The north side has two windows with wooden shutters.
Inside the House
Inside, the Jacob P. Perry House has a central hallway. Many of its original features are still there. From the old main entrance, there are doors with six panels that lead to different rooms. These doors have fancy moldings around them. One door leads to the parlor (a living room) on the north side, another to the dining room on the south, and the third to the other part of the entrance hall on the west. This hall also leads to a small bathroom and a closet. A staircase with a newel post and square balusters is against the south wall. The walls and ceilings are made of plaster and have a molded chair rail (a decorative strip of wood).
In the parlor on the north side, there is a large fireplace. It has a very detailed Federal style mantelpiece (the frame around the fireplace). It has thin moldings, a decorated strip above, and fluted (grooved) columns. There are three large hearthstones in front of the fireplace. Next to the chimney, there is a cabinet for dishware with glass doors and a rounded arch. Below, it has paneled doors. Long tulip beams, about 30 feet long, run across the ceiling.
The dining room fireplace is part of a large chimney that sticks out. It has a simple wooden mantel and similar hearthstones in front. A small separate room might be original to the house; it is now used as the kitchen. Its entrance door has a molded frame and a filled-in opening above it, which might have been an old outdoor door. French doors lead from here into the new addition.
Upstairs, the second floor has five rooms and two bathrooms. They also have Federal style details, like doors similar to those in the main entrance hall. In the attic, you can see the original hand-cut wooden beams that support the roof. The rafters (sloping roof beams) connect to a horizontal beam where the roof angle changes. A vertical beam connects to a horizontal collar beam using a special joint called a mortise and tenon. The cellar (basement) has stone arches that support the fireplaces above and a cold storage area.
Other Buildings on the Property
Just south of the main house, there is a modern wooden cottage. There is also a barn made of stone and wood on the property. These, along with the new addition to the house, are the other three buildings here. However, these buildings are not considered part of the historic listing on the National Register.
To the east, there is a stone-lined cistern (a tank for collecting rainwater). It is covered by a round wellhouse made of red sandstone and wood. Both the cistern and the wellhouse are from the same time period as the house and are considered important historical structures. Another feature, an ornamental pond, was added more recently and is not part of the historic listing.
History of the Jacob P. Perry House
The land where the Jacob P. Perry House stands was originally part of a large land grant from the late 1600s called the Kakiat Patent. This patent covered parts of what are now Rockland County and nearby Bergen County, New Jersey. After the Revolutionary War, Michael Salyer, who had built a house nearby, sold the western part of his land to Peter Perry.
It's not completely clear if the house was built in two parts or all at once. A history written in 1936 by Rosalie Bailey suggests it was built in two parts. If so, Peter Perry might have built the west half of the house by 1796, though it's not certain he ever lived there. It's also possible, like another similar house nearby, that it was built as one complete structure.
Peter Perry's will left the house to his son Jacob. Jacob Perry finished the main house (if it was built in parts) in 1801. The house's walls are made of local red sandstone, and its wide gambrel roof with flared edges shows a Dutch Colonial building style. This style was much more common in houses built before the Revolutionary War. The Perry house is one of the last homes built in this style from that time.
The inside of the house, as it was built and improved over the next few decades, shows the popular Federal style of that time. Jacob P. Perry passed away in 1839 and left the house to his son, Jacob J. Perry, who died ten years later. After that, the house had several different owners until Clarence and Athens Chester bought it around 1930.
By that time, the house had become a bit run down. The Chesters decided to fix it up and restore it. During this process, they made some changes. The biggest changes on the outside were adding casement windows and replacing single windows on the west side with groups of three. On the south side, they added the front windows. Inside, they put in doors that matched the other decorations and laid down oak flooring over the original wide wooden planks.
In 1955, a small half-bathroom was added on the first floor. Outside, separate dormer windows were combined into the long, continuous band you see today. Twenty years later, in 1978, the connecting part and the south addition were built. No other changes have been made to the house since then. It is still a private home today.
