Montgomery Place facts for kids
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Montgomery Place
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U.S. National Historic Landmark District
Contributing Property |
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Front (east) elevation, 2008
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 Location in New York
Location in the United States
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| Location | Annandale-on-Hudson, NY |
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| Nearest city | Kingston |
| Area | 379 acres (153 ha) |
| Built | 1803 |
| Architect | Alexander Jackson Davis; Peter Harris |
| Architectural style | Federal, Italianate |
| Visitation | 30,000 (1998) |
| NRHP reference No. | 75001184 |
Quick facts for kids Significant dates |
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| Added to NRHP | May 2, 1975 |
| Designated NHL | April 8, 1992 |
Montgomery Place, now called Bard College: The Montgomery Place Campus, is a beautiful old estate near Barrytown, New York, in the United States. It was built in the early 1800s and is so important that it's been named a National Historic Landmark. This means it's a place with special historical value for the whole country. It's also part of the Hudson River Historic District, which is another National Historic Landmark.
The main house was first built in the Federal style, a popular design after the American Revolution. Later, a famous architect named Alexander Jackson Davis added more to it. This estate is unique because it's the only house from that time in the Hudson Valley that still looks mostly the same. It also shows how wealthy families like the Livingston family started to use French ideas in their home designs, moving away from only English styles.
The famous landscape designer Andrew Jackson Downing admired the gardens and grounds of Montgomery Place. He even gave some informal advice on the design. The southern part of the estate, about 70 acres (28 ha), is called the Wilderness or South Woods. It has the oldest oak forest in the Hudson Valley! The whole estate has grown to 380 acres (150 ha) and includes many smaller buildings. There are trails and paths that let you explore quiet woods and enjoy amazing views of the Hudson River and Catskill Mountains.
Montgomery Place was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1975. Later, in 1992, it became a National Historic Landmark. In 2016, Bard College bought the estate. You can visit the grounds of Montgomery Place from morning until evening all year round. Tours of the main house are offered during certain seasons.
Contents
Exploring the Estate
The estate is bordered by Annandale Road on the east, the Saw Kill creek on the north, and the Hudson River on the west. A tree-lined driveway leads from the road to a visitor center and parking area near an orchard. From there, a short walk through trees brings you to an open lawn in front of the main house. This house sits on a bluff, offering great views of the river and the Catskill Mountains far away.
Five important parts of the estate are recognized for their historic value. These include the main house, three other buildings designed by Alexander Jackson Davis, and the beautiful old landscapes.
The Main House
The main house is a two-and-a-half-story building with five sections on the front and four on the sides. It's covered in stucco over stone, with two wooden wings on the north and south. The south wing was once sanded to make it look more like stone. A veranda (a covered porch) is on the back side of the house. The metal roof is sloped and has two pairs of brick chimneys on the sides.
The outside of the house is very decorated. There are fancy designs on the chimneys and railings around most of the roof. Above the main entrance, there's a central pillar topped with a decorative urn. The double front doors have fancy designs above them and are protected by a round porch supported by fluted Corinthian columns.
The back of the house has a similar porch with urns on its railing. The wings have flat pillars supporting a decorative band, and the south wing has columns forming an arcade (a series of arches).
Inside, the main entrance leads to a rectangular hall. Doors from this hall open into two parlors (living rooms) on either side. The hall is partly divided by an arch supported by two wooden columns. The library is to the north, and a staircase is on the south. Much of the beautiful wooden decoration inside is original.
Other Buildings
Near the main house, mostly around a garden, are five other buildings. These include the Lodge (covered in shingles), its wooden shed, the Court (covered in clapboard), a wrought iron greenhouse, and the coach house. The coach house is the only one of these buildings you can see from the main house. It's a one-and-a-half-story wooden building with a cross-gabled roof and a small tower called a cupola on top. The inside still has much of its original wooden details.
To the east, closer to the road, is the barn area. It has an 1861 barn, along with other wooden buildings like a farm office and storage sheds. There's also an eight-sided stone building that used to be a reservoir (for water storage). The farmhouse has a cross-gabled roof and a special three-part window called a Palladian window on the back.
Just downhill from the farmhouse are some cottages. Most are simple wooden houses, but one, the Swiss Cottage, was designed by Alexander Jackson Davis. It has a low, sloped roof with decorative trim and balconies on the back. Another house, the Thompson House, has a fancy cornice (a decorative molding) with tooth-like designs.
There are a few other buildings scattered around, like the modern visitors' center. A cement power station is at the mouth of the creek, with dams. Some small cottages from the 1900s are in the orchards. Some buildings mentioned by past visitors, like a conservatory (a glass room for plants), are no longer there.
Beautiful Landscapes
The northern and southern parts of the property, called the North and South Woods, are still heavily forested. The South Woods, about 70 acres (28 ha), is the oldest oak forest in the Hudson Valley. The North Woods slopes down to the deep valley where the Saw Kill creek flows. Winding paths and trails go through both wooded areas. In the North Woods, they lead to a waterfall; in the South Woods, they go to the edge of the river.
On the east side are the property's orchards, which are still used today by Montgomery Place Orchards. The farm grows over 60 different kinds of apple and pear trees, as well as berries, vegetables, grapes, and peaches. They also make Annandale Atomic hard cider from old American and English apple varieties. The produce is sold at the Montgomery Place Orchards market. Black locust trees line the 0.5-mile (0.80 km) unpaved driveway and surround the lawn of the main house. The lawn on the west side of the house slopes down to a pond at the edge of the wooded shore.
A Look Back in Time
Archaeologists have found signs that Native Americans used this area as a hunting ground at least 5,000 years ago. These discoveries continue, and the estate's historic status also recognizes its importance for understanding this ancient history.
After Europeans settled in the 1700s, the Saw Kill creek was used to power various mills. Janet Livingston Montgomery bought about 242 acres (98 ha) of land in the late 1770s. This was shortly after her husband, General Richard Montgomery, died in the Battle of Quebec. Janet and Richard had been building another estate nearby, but after the American Revolutionary War, she moved into that one.
Janet had plans drawn up for a Federal style mansion on the riverfront property and hired a local builder. She named the house Chateau de Montgomery in honor of her late husband and moved in after it was finished in 1805. She started a working farm on the property, planting trees from samples her friends sent her from many places. She lived there until she passed away in 1828, and the property was left to her brother.
Her brother, Edward Livingston, had spent summers there with his wife Louise. He had moved to Louisiana after facing difficulties in his jobs as U.S. Attorney for New York and mayor of the city. He returned to New York and was serving in the House of Representatives when his sister died. Later, he became a Senator, then the 11th Secretary of State, and finally ambassador to France before leaving public service in 1835. Edward and Louise renamed the estate Montgomery Place.
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Edward died the next year, leaving the house to his wife Louise. In 1844, she hired Alexander Jackson Davis to change the grand mansion into a more decorative villa. This was popular during the time of Romanticism, a movement that valued emotion and nature. Davis added the two wings and the fancy decorations on the outside. A row of columns that was originally on the front entrance was moved inside, which was one of the few changes to Janet Livingston's original design.
With some informal help from Andrew Jackson Downing, a friend of Louise's and a mentor to Davis, Louise began to develop the landscapes. Her daughter, Cora Barton, worked with the architect to design a garden and a conservatory (a glass room for plants). Davis also drew plans for other buildings on the estate.
In 1860, after Louise died, Cora and her husband hired Davis again to build some of the outbuildings they had planned earlier. These included the Coach House, Swiss Cottage, and farmhouse. They also expanded the landscaping. Their goal was to make the house and its "pleasure grounds" (the beautiful gardens) more separate from the farm operations, which they also started to reduce.
From Cora's relatives, the estate eventually passed to another Livingston family member, John Ross Delafield, in 1921. He added modern heating and plumbing to the main house. He and his wife, Violetta White Delafield, made the last big additions to the property by extending the landscaping and adding small gardens before World War II.
After John Ross Delafield died in 1964, his son John White Delafield and his wife moved in. They created two companies to own and manage the property. In 1975, it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Eleven years later, it was sold for $3 million to Sleepy Hollow Restorations, which later changed its name to Historic Hudson Valley. After five years and another $3 million spent on restoration, the house was named a National Historic Landmark in 1992.
Bard College bought the property in 2016.
Design and Style
Janet Livingston's original home showed the style of her time. Her family got most of their wealth from farming. So, their homes were often built on high ground where they could see their lands, which for the Livingstons included parts of the Catskills across the river. The straight lines of the Federal style and Greek Revival styles showed their power and control over the land.
In the early to mid-1800s, things started to change. Andrew Jackson Downing from nearby Newburgh promoted villa and cottage-style houses. These styles, later known as Carpenter Gothic and Picturesque, were smaller and often made of wood. They had steeply sloped roofs, often with decorative gables, and fancy cornices. These designs were meant to blend in with nature, making the house feel like a cozy place to live. Downing's design books were very popular and used for many homes across the country.
Janet's family asked Downing's friend Alexander Jackson Davis to expand and update the house over 20 years. He used curved shapes in the railings and wings to soften the strong straight lines of the original building. The arched porch became a wing of its own. Many decorations with flower designs were added to the surface. All these features helped connect the house more closely to its surrounding landscape. A scholar who studied Davis's work, Jane Davies, called it his best country house.
The farmhouse also shows how Davis adapted a popular Downing design called "Bracketed Cottage with Veranda." Davis updated it to the Italianate style, which was more popular then, adding the Palladian-style window.
Downing's influence can also be seen in Davis's Swiss Cottage. This design was widely published but rarely built. Davis changed it by adding more entrances because it was meant to have multiple renters, but four of these entrances were hidden to look like windows. The main features of Downing's design, like its floor plan, the low, wide roof, and its placement on a hillside to expose the basement on one side, along with many balconies offering views of a nearby stream, remained.
The landscapes were inspired by popular European garden trends. The Bartons had traveled to France with Edward Livingston and saw many famous European gardens. Cora Barton had a full set of copies of Joseph Paxton's The Magazine of Botany sent to her when she moved in. Downing, a friend, visited in 1847 and wrote good things about the landscapes for his own magazine, The Horticulturist. He praised "the deep and mysterious wood" with "dark, intricate and mazy walks" in the "Wilderness" near the Saw Kill creek. He called it "the most complete estate in America."
- Great Houses of the Hudson River, Michael Middleton Dwyer, editor, with preface by Mark Rockefeller, Boston, MA: Little, Brown and Company, published in association with Historic Hudson Valley, 2001. ISBN: 0-8212-2767-X.
Images for kids
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Front (east) elevation, 2008
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The Coach House
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The Lower Falls, Montgomery Place
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Orchards planted by Janet Livingston Montgomery
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HABS photo of Montgomery Place north profile, showing arcaded pavilion added by Davis in 1840s
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Historic Hudson Valley visitors' center
