Lewis Mumford House facts for kids
Quick facts for kids |
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Lewis Mumford House
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South profile and east elevation, 2008
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| Location | Amenia, NY |
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| Nearest city | Poughkeepsie |
| Area | 13.6 acres (5.5 ha) |
| Built | 1837 |
| Architectural style | Federal |
| NRHP reference No. | 99001209 |
| Added to NRHP | October 15, 1999 |
The Lewis Mumford House is a historic home located on Leedsville Road in Dutchess County, NY. It is a white building built in the 1830s. The house is designed in the Federal architectural style.
Lewis Mumford was a famous writer and thinker. He was a social philosopher, historian, and cultural critic. He and his wife bought this house in the late 1920s. They first used it as a summer house. By the mid-1930s, they decided to make it their permanent home. They lived there for over 50 years, for the rest of Mumford's life! Living in the countryside helped Mumford think about cities and how they should be designed. In 1999, a few years after he passed away, the house was added to the National Register of Historic Places.
Contents
Buildings and Grounds
The property listed on the National Register includes two connected areas. One is a 1.9-acre (7,700 m2) lot with the main house and a carriage house. The other is a larger 11.7-acre (4.7 ha) open field. This field stretches back to Webutuck Creek. Both parts are on the west side of Leedsville Road. This road has many large homes that used to be part of bigger farms.
The Mumford property is about half a mile (1 km) south of NY 343. It is also about the same distance west of the Connecticut state line. The house, carriage house, and the way the land is designed are all important parts of this historic site.
The House
The front part of the main house faces east. It has three bays and two stories. It is built on a stone foundation and covered with clapboard siding. The roof has a side-gable design and is covered with asphalt shingles. Two brick chimneys are at each end of the roof. A back wing extends from the main house. It is one and a half stories tall. It has side entrances and a single-story sunroom added to the back.
A small porch with an arched pediment and two round columns covers the main entrance. This entrance is at the northern end of the front facade. All the windows have solid wooden shutters. The semicircular windows in the attic on the sides have been covered up.
The main entrance has Federal-style crown moldings, pilasters, and side panels. Inside, a small main hall leads to a living room with exposed ceiling beams. The first floor also has a study, kitchen, pantry, bathroom, and the sunroom. The floors are made of wide pine boards. The brick kitchen fireplace has a large mantel and a bake oven.
Two staircases lead to the second floor. The front staircase has been opened up to let in more light. The kitchen stair is narrow and steep. The basement has a dirt floor and its original, unfinished stone walls.
Carriage House and Landscaping
Behind the main house, at the end of the driveway, is the old carriage house. It has been changed to be used as a garage for cars. It is a single-story building made with post and beam wood. It is covered in clapboard and has an asphalt-shingled roof. Inside, it has a low loft. A northern addition was built to fit a car. There are three windows on the south side.
Stone paths lead from the driveway south to the house. The outdoor areas also have mature plants, including pretty shrubs around the house. There are also curved flower beds in the backyard. Other paths go through the woods to the open field in the back.
History of the House
There is some debate about exactly when the house was built. In his 1982 book Sketches of Life, Lewis Mumford said it was built in 1837. However, research suggests it might be up to ten years older.
Mumford grew up in New York City and was mostly self-taught. He and his wife Sophia lived in Greenwich Village and Queens after they got married in 1921. After his book Sticks and Stones became popular, a critic named Joel Elias Spingarn invited him to his estate in Amenia. The Mumfords spent the summer of 1926 there and kept coming back.
By 1929, they decided to buy their own summer place. They found this house just down the road from Spingarn's estate. They bought the house and its "weedy acre" for $2,500. After seven more summers, the family decided to live there all year in 1936. They started buying more land and adding things like electricity and heating to make the house comfortable in winter.
This was a big change for the Mumfords, who had always lived in cities. Living in the countryside helped Mumford understand rural life better. He started gardening seriously. The Mumfords also began to improve the land around their home. They added paths that opened up views across the Webutuck valley. They even bought their first car, a used 1932 Chevrolet. Mumford tried to learn to drive but almost crashed, so he let his wife do all the driving after that!
The Mumfords mostly spent time with their friends, the Spingarns. But they also liked how their neighbors helped them. Neighbors would lend them tools and watch their house when they were away. This experience made Mumford believe that good city neighborhoods should feel a bit like a "village."
They told their friends they only planned to stay in Amenia for a few years. But Lewis found the quiet countryside a great place to write. He wrote many of his important books about cities and how industries grew in his downstairs study. In the early 1940s, his son Geddes was killed during World War II. Mumford wrote a book called Green Memories about his son's childhood in the house.
Mumford later said, "We gradually fell in love with our shabby house." He felt it became "the house of our realities." He believed the house helped shape their family.
Throughout their lives, the Mumfords sometimes lived elsewhere for Lewis's teaching or research. But they always came back to what they called the "Great Good Place." Mumford's biographer, Donald Miller, wrote that the house became like a person to them. They grew to love it more as they got to know it better.
They made some changes to the house over time. They added bookcases to almost every wall. In the 1980s, Lewis could no longer write because of his age. He spent his final years in the house. He passed away there in 1990 at age 94. Sophia, his wife, died seven years later.
After Sophia's death, the house was sold to a local carpenter. He decided to restore it to its original look. He removed all the bookcases and nine layers of linoleum from the kitchen floor! Later changes brought back the original siding and chimney.
In 1999, after being added to the National Register, the house was put up for sale for $375,000. Even though it was historic, the restorations made it harder to sell. It still didn't have all the modern features some buyers wanted. But it eventually sold and is now a home again.
Images for kids
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1966 watercolor by Mumford of house from rear.jpg
1966 watercolor by Mumford of house from rear
