Stephen Hogeboom House facts for kids
Quick facts for kids |
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Stephen Hogeboom House
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North elevation and east profile, 2008
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 Location in New York
Location in the United States
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| Location | Claverack, NY |
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| Area | 1.1 acres (0.45 ha) |
| Built | 1780s |
| Architectural style | Georgian |
| MPS | The Architectural and Historic Resources of Claverack |
| NRHP reference No. | 97000944 |
| Added to NRHP | 1997 |
The Stephen Hogeboom House is an old house in Claverack, New York, United States. It was built in the late 1700s. The house has a special look called Georgian style.
Later, in the mid-1800s, it was updated with some Greek Revival features. But most of its original design is still there. In 1997, this historic house was added to the National Register of Historic Places. This list includes important places across the country.
Contents
Exploring the Stephen Hogeboom House
The Stephen Hogeboom House sits on a piece of land about one acre big. It is located at the corner of Route 23B and Stone Mill Road. The land gently slopes down towards Claverack Creek. Right across the highway is the First Columbia County Courthouse, another historic building.
There are also two smaller buildings on the property. These are a garage and a wellhouse. A line of tall, old trees stands on the east side of the property. The area around the house is mostly homes built at different times.
Inside the House
The house has two floors. It is wide with five sections of windows and doors. It is also two rooms deep. The outside walls are covered with narrow wooden boards called weatherboard. A wide, flat edge, called a cornice, runs under the roof. This cornice shows where the roof hangs over the walls.
The roof is steeply angled and has a pointed shape, known as a gable roof. Two brick chimneys stick out from the roof on each end.
Front and Back of the House
On the front of the house, which faces north, the main door is in the middle. A Greek Revival portico covers the entrance. A portico is a porch with columns. Here, two columns hold up a roof with a deep cornice. The front door has glass panels on the sides, called sidelights. It also has a glass window above it, called a transom, which is shaped like a flat arch. The window above the door has the same arch shape.
On the back of the house, facing south, there are two porches. One is a small, modern porch with a simple roof. The other is larger and more decorative. It has a scalloped cornice, which means its edge is shaped like waves or shells. It also has Regency-style latticework, which is a crisscross pattern. On the second floor, there are four small, oval windows called eyebrow windows. They are not placed evenly.
Rooms and Features Inside
When you enter the main door, you step into a wide central hallway. The doors and windows inside have decorative frames called pedimented arches. All the fireplaces in the house have Doric mantels. These are fireplace frames with a simple, classic design.
On the first floor, double doors separate the front and back rooms. Some doors slide open, and others swing on hinges. In the northeast living room, there is a tall, narrow cupboard built into the wall near the entrance.
Upstairs and Attic
A simple staircase leads to the second floor. On this floor, closets separate the front and back bedrooms. The original wooden doors from when the house was built open into the bedrooms. The chimney in the southeast bedroom was made for a stove, not a fireplace. All the other rooms have fireplaces.
Stairs that are enclosed lead up to the attic. The attic is one large open space. You can see the wooden beams and posts that support the roof. These are part of the post-and-beam framing. The chimneys are also visible in the attic. Stone supports called corbels hold them up. Two layers of old wallpaper on the back wall suggest that this space might have been used as servants' rooms a long time ago.
Basement and Kitchen Wing
The basement is also one big open space. The way the ceiling is framed suggests that the double fireplaces, which are now on the side walls, were once in the middle of the house. The floor also supports this idea.
Stairs from the basement and the second floor lead to the kitchen wing at the back of the house. The kitchen still has its original cooking hearth, which is a large fireplace for cooking. It even has a crane, a metal arm to hang pots over the fire. There's also a brick oven that sticks out a little from the back wall. A small pantry, a room for storing food, is in the hallway leading to the main part of the house. This pantry is made from old door panels and other reused wood. A steep, winding staircase goes up to the garret, which is a small attic space above the kitchen.
Other Buildings on the Property
There are two smaller buildings on the property. The larger one is a garage. It's a wooden building with an asphalt roof, located on the south side of the house. It's wide enough for one and a half cars and can be reached from Stone Mill Road. Because the garage is newer, it is not considered a contributing resource to the house's historic importance.
Closer to the house, near the kitchen door, is the wellhouse. This building is considered important to the property's history. It seems to have been built during the updates in the mid-1800s. It's a wooden building with a gabled roof. It has decorative beaded posts and wainscoting, which is wooden paneling on the lower part of the walls.
History of the Hogeboom House
Local stories say that Jeremiah Hogeboom built the house in 1784 for his son Stephen. Stephen was 40 years old at the time. However, old records like property tax lists tell a different story. Stephen Hogeboom had been married for 20 years to Hilletje Muller. Her father, Cornelius, had a house nearby that is also on the National Register.
Tax records from 1779 show Stephen living in a small house near that property. This small house was still on maps as late as 1799. So, it's more likely that the current, larger house was built after the courthouse across the street, which dates to 1786.
A Busy Crossroads
At that time, the intersection where the house stands was very important. It was the center of the small town of Claverack and also the center of Columbia County. Stone Mill and Old roads were part of the original Albany Post Road. This was the main north-south road in the county. Combined with the road now known as routes 23 and 23B, which was the main east-west road, it was the county's main crossroads. This made it the perfect spot for the courthouse. However, Hudson became the new county seat in 1805. The Hogeboom House was built to be as grand as the courthouse. This made it an important landmark too.
Stephen Hogeboom was active in local government. He was the town supervisor for Claverack in the late 1780s. This meant he was also on the county's Board of Supervisors. Later, he served in the state government as both an assemblyman (in the lower house) and a state senator (in the upper house). His son, Kilian, also became the county clerk.
Changes Over Time
When Stephen Hogeboom passed away in 1814, his will (his last wishes) stated that Kilian would receive a separate house. Stephen's daughters and their children lived in the house for another 40 years. In 1854, the property was sold to Peter Best from Stuyvesant for $4,000.
It is believed that Peter Best made the updates to the house in the popular Greek Revival style. The house's roof is steeper than usual for that style. Also, the narrow weatherboard siding is not common in Claverack. But otherwise, the house was well-suited for these changes. The fireplaces were moved from the center of the basement to the walls. Closets were added upstairs. The back porch and the wellhouse were also built. The kitchen wing, however, stayed the same. A front porch, similar to one added to the courthouse at the same time, was also put on the house.
The Best family lived in the house for the rest of the 1800s. Throughout the 1900s and 2000s, it has remained a private home with different owners. The garage was added, as well as the smaller, simple back porch. There have been no other major changes to the building.
