The Hammond House is located on Grasslands Road (
New York State Route 100C
New York State Route 100C (NY 100C) is an east–west spur route of NY 100 located in Westchester County, New York, in the United States. The road is entirely within the town of Greenburgh, running for as Grasslands Road between a ...
) in the
Eastview[Per the note below, the house has a Valhalla mailing address.] section of the
town of
Mount Pleasant, New York
Mount Pleasant is a Administrative divisions of New York#Town, town in Westchester County, New York, United States, in the New York metropolitan area. As of the 2020 United States Census, 2020 census, the town population was 44,436. The hamlet (N ...
, United States. It is a
wooden building whose oldest part dates to the 1720s, with latter additions during the 19th century. In 1980 it was added to the
National Register of Historic Places.
It is one of the oldest houses in
Westchester County, and one of only two remaining tenant houses from the
Philipsburg Manor.
It also has a rich
Revolutionary War history. Col. James Hammond, son of the original owner, commanded the
Patriot Westchester
Militia. Some historical evidence supports a legend that
George Washington
George Washington (February 22, 1732, 1799) was an American military officer, statesman, and Founding Father who served as the first president of the United States from 1789 to 1797. Appointed by the Continental Congress as commander of th ...
visited the house for a brief conference with Hammond in 1780, leaving just before the house was surrounded by
Loyalists.
During the war the Hammond family bought the land; they held on to it until the 1920s, when
New York City acquired the property to protect its
watershed
Watershed is a hydrological term, which has been adopted in other fields in a more or less figurative sense. It may refer to:
Hydrology
* Drainage divide, the line that separates neighbouring drainage basins
* Drainage basin, called a "watershe ...
. It was planning to demolish the structure,
when the county historical society bought the deteriorating house and
restored
''Restored'' is the fourth
studio album by American contemporary Christian music musician Jeremy Camp. It was released on November 16, 2004 by BEC Recordings.
Track listing
Standard release
Enhanced edition
Deluxe gold edition
Standard ...
it for use as a
historic house museum. It remained open in that capacity for another half-century. When the society shifted its focus to primarily serving as an
archive, it sold it to
New York Medical College, which used as a medical research laboratory for a decade.
It was again saved from potential
demolition
Demolition (also known as razing, cartage, and wrecking) is the science and engineering in safely and efficiently tearing down of buildings and other artificial structures. Demolition contrasts with deconstruction, which involves taking a ...
by two brothers who bought it in the 1990s. They have been restoring it.
Building
The house occupies a
lot
Lot or LOT or The Lot or ''similar'' may refer to:
Common meanings Areas
* Land lot, an area of land
* Parking lot, for automobiles
*Backlot, in movie production
Sets of items
*Lot number, in batch production
*Lot, a set of goods for sale togethe ...
on the east corner of a short, unnamed dead-end street that runs off Grasslands from the north roughly midway between Saw Mill River Road (
New York State Route 9A) and the
Sprain Brook Parkway in the
Eastview section of the
town of
Mount Pleasant.
[The National Park Service, the agency charged with keeping the National Register, used "Hawthorne vicinity" when it announced the property's listing in 1980 (). Why it chose to do so, when the NRHP application had explicitly used Eastview, is not known.]Had the agency based its description of the house's location on its mailing address, as it has for several other properties in the county where postal ZIP Codes and municipalities do not have exactly coterminous boundaries, the house would be described as being in the vicinity of Valhalla to the east, whose 10595 ZIP Code it lies within, like the
John Hartford House
The John A. Hartford House, now known as Hartford Hall, is a historic house on the campus of Westchester Community College. It was built in 1930–32 by John A. Hartford (1872–1951), company president of the Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Com ...
, a National Historic Landmark on the campus of nearby Westchester Community College, which was listed as being in Valhalla (). The house's current owner als
gives its address
as Valhalla. Consensus among editors was for this article to use the more historically accurate Eastview as the property's location rather than the NPS's continued use of Hawthorne. The terrain is gently rolling, with the land across the road sloping to the south towards
Mine Brook, a
tributary of the
Saw Mill River
The Saw Mill River is a tributary of the Hudson River in Westchester County, New York, United States. It flows from an unnamed pond north of Chappaqua to Getty Square in Yonkers, where it empties into the Hudson as that river's southernmost t ...
to the west.
While the area is open and clear, there are no other residences nearby, with most
development taking the form of large building complexes.
New York Medical College and
Westchester Medical Center are to the north, across open space where new construction has gone up recent years. Across the road to the south is a large wooded area, with
office parks beyond.
Big-box retailers
A big-box store (also hyperstore, supercenter, superstore, or megastore) is a physically large retail establishment, usually part of a chain of stores. The term sometimes also refers, by extension, to the company that operates the store. The te ...
and associated
strip malls are located along Saw Mill.
A line of trees along the road and a wooden fence on the other bounds set off the lot, with the street serving as a driveway. The house itself is in three sections. The main block is a five-
bay
A bay is a recessed, coastal body of water that directly connects to a larger main body of water, such as an ocean, a lake, or another bay. A large bay is usually called a Gulf (geography), gulf, sea, sound (geography), sound, or bight (geogra ...
one-and-a-half-story structure with a
shingle
Shingle may refer to:
Construction
*Roof shingles or wall shingles, including:
**Wood shingle
***Shake (shingle), a wooden shingle that is split from a bolt, with a more rustic appearance than a sawed shingle
***Quercus imbricaria, or shingle oak ...
d
gabled roof pierced by a single brick chimney in the center. It is sided in
clapboard.
Running the full length of the south (front)
facade is a porch. The overhanging roof
eave is supported by six square wooden pillars. The main entrance, a paneled and glazed wooden door, is located the center. It has
wrought iron hardware and a glazed
transom
Transom may refer to:
* Transom (architecture), a bar of wood or stone across the top of a door or window, or the window above such a bar
* Transom (nautical), that part of the stern of a vessel where the two sides of its hull meet
* Operation Tran ...
above.
All the windows on the first story front and sides are 12-over-8 double-hung
sash flanked by wooden
shutters; those on the west facade are original to the house. The attic windows are six-over-six double-hung sash without shutters. On the north side, where
fenestration
Fenestration may refer to:
* Fenestration (architecture), the design, construction, or presence of openings in a building
* Used in relation to fenestra in anatomy, medicine and biology
* Fenestration, holes in the rudder of a ship to reduce the w ...
is less regular, two shed-roofed
dormer windows pierce the roof on the west side.
The two-bay west wing was built separately elsewhere, moved and later attached to the main block. Its roof is similarly gabled, but in a
saltbox style, lower in the north than the south. Like the main block, the roof and sides are clapboard and shingled respectively. However, a large section of the west wall is bricked in where the fireplace was, and the chimney is at the end, reflecting that alteration as well.
A small shed-roofed porch supported by a single square wooden pillar shelters the house's secondary entrance, protected also by a modern screen door. The other front bay has a 12-over-8 double-hung sash window like those on the main block. On the west elevation is one six-over-six double-hung sash north of the bricking, and two six-light
casement window
A casement window is a window that is attached to its frame by one or more hinges at the side. They are used singly or in pairs within a common frame, in which case they are hinged on the outside. Casement windows are often held open using a cas ...
s at the attic level, which does not rise as high as the main block.
The east wing is a two-story, two-bay addition. It has the same exterior treatment and gabled roof as the main block and west wing. The roof's slope is slightly gentler than the main block, and like the west wing its chimney is on the end. The first-story windows are six-over-six; the upper story has the same six-light casement seen on the west wing.
Inside, the main front entrance opens into a small front hall. On the west is the original parlor, with its original fireplace; opposite is the original kitchen. A large bedroom, with a fireplace, and several smaller rooms adjoin the kitchen. From the parlor is the western addition, now the kitchen wing, with two
antechamber
A vestibule (also anteroom, antechamber, or foyer) is a small room leading into a larger space such as a lobby, entrance hall or passage, for the purpose of waiting, withholding the larger space view, reducing heat loss, providing storage space ...
s on its kitchen. It, too, has a fireplace.
The rooms all have their original wideboard flooring. All rooms have plaster walls, except for two in the parlor, which are wood. Some of the original wooden doors remain as well. A main staircase in the rear and a secondary one in the kitchen lead up to the unfinished attics. There is no
basement
A basement or cellar is one or more floors of a building that are completely or partly below the ground floor. It generally is used as a utility space for a building, where such items as the furnace, water heater, breaker panel or fuse box, ...
.
History
After two relatively stable centuries, the house's more recent history has seen more periods of uncertainty.
1719–1860: Construction and expansion
Bermuda-born William Hammond came to the
colonial
Colonial or The Colonial may refer to:
* Colonial, of, relating to, or characteristic of a colony or colony (biology)
Architecture
* American colonial architecture
* French Colonial
* Spanish Colonial architecture
Automobiles
* Colonial (1920 a ...
Province of New York in the early years of the 18th century. He eventually earned enough to lease
of farmland on the
Philipsburg Manor, the colonial
land grant that took up what is today most of eastern
Westchester County. He began building a house there in 1719, now the main block of the existing building, and finished it the following year.
The house is architecturally noteworthy for several reasons. First, its full-length front porch under the overhanging roof is similar to that on the
Elijah Miller House
The Elijah Miller House is a historic home in North White Plains in Westchester County, New York. The house is an 18th-century Rhode Island-style farmhouse that was used during the Revolutionary War by General George Washington as a headquarte ...
, also listed on the
National Register, in nearby
North White Plains, built a few years later. Second, Hammond built the house without a basement
and with its structural beams
dovetailing with each other, so that the house could easily be dismantled, moved and reassembled in another location if he lost his lease (it has been described as an early version of a
mobile home
A mobile home (also known as a house trailer, park home, trailer, or trailer home) is a prefabricated structure, built in a factory on a permanently attached chassis before being transported to site (either by being towed or on a trailer). Us ...
).
Third, of the approximately 200 homes known to have been built by
tenant farmers on the manor, it is one of only two that have survived.
Hammond would never need to move. He became a fixture of the community, serving as captain of the local
militia from 1755 on. He also became an
elder
An elder is someone with a degree of seniority or authority.
Elder or elders may refer to:
Positions Administrative
* Elder (administrative title), a position of authority
Cultural
* North American Indigenous elder, a person who has and tr ...
of the
Old Dutch Church of Sleepy Hollow, the oldest church in New York and today a
National Historic Landmark.
Upon William's death in 1762, his eldest son, James, inherited the house and leasehold. James Hammond followed his father into the local militia, serving as its captain as well when it fought on the
Patriot side during the
Revolutionary War shortly after he was promoted to lieutenant colonel. In August 1776, he was promoted to full colonel shortly before leading his troops into the
Battle of White Plains.
Some recently discovered evidence supports a long-retold legend that, minutes after
George Washington
George Washington (February 22, 1732, 1799) was an American military officer, statesman, and Founding Father who served as the first president of the United States from 1789 to 1797. Appointed by the Continental Congress as commander of th ...
left a brief meeting with Hammond at the house in 1780, it was surrounded by opposing
Loyalists. Seeking to capture Washington, they instead settled for Hammond, and he was held prisoner on a ship on the
Hudson River for a year and a half, then released at the end of the war.
With the end of the war and the beginning of
American independence came the end of the
manor
Manor may refer to:
Land ownership
*Manorialism or "manor system", the method of land ownership (or "tenure") in parts of medieval Europe, notably England
*Lord of the manor, the owner of an agreed area of land (or "manor") under manorialism
*Man ...
system. Hammond was able to buy not only the land the house stood on but the surrounding ,
where he continued growing wheat and flax.
He further followed his father's footsteps to the leadership of the Old Dutch Church in Sleepy Hollow, where he was elected a
trustee in 1786.
James Hammond died in 1810. His family inherited the house; it stayed in their ownership for several generations over the course of the 19th century. Several of his descendants distinguished themselves in the military as well.
Twice during their ownership, the house was expanded. In 1835 a small detached cottage on the property was moved and attached to the house, becoming the west wing. A quarter-century later, in 1860, the east wing was built.
1861–present: Ownership changes and preservation
The Hammonds eventually departed, and the house was left unoccupied. By the early 20th century it came into the ownership of the
New York City Bureau of Water Supply. It was the only improvement on a parcel surrounding the important junction of the
Catskill and
Delaware aqueducts. To better protect
the city's water supply, the bureau planned to demolish the neglected and deteriorated structure.
In 1926, however, the Westchester County Historical Society persuaded the city to sell them just the house for $50 ($ in modern dollars). As part of the transaction, the city retained the right to demolish the structure and the society retained the right to move it, as well as use the acre around the house for its purposes. The society
restored
''Restored'' is the fourth
studio album by American contemporary Christian music musician Jeremy Camp. It was released on November 16, 2004 by BEC Recordings.
Track listing
Standard release
Enhanced edition
Deluxe gold edition
Standard ...
the house and reopened it three years later, operating it as a
historic house museum, with a "hodge-podge" of displays that inaccurately represented early 19th century farm life as being authentic to the period of the house's construction.
During the next half-century, the house would become known around the county for its museum use. The society did some minor repairs, replacing some floorboards and replastering some walls. After the 1960s, however, it limited its work to routine maintenance, neglecting the building's
structural system
A structure is an arrangement and organization of interrelated elements in a material object or system, or the object or system so organized. Material structures include man-made objects such as buildings and machines and natural objects such as ...
. The house's 1976 listing coincided with a change in the society's mission from
historic preservation to historical research, to the detriment of the house and its contents. Potentially valuable artifacts and records languished in unorganized, insufficiently protected conditions within the house.
By the early 1980s it was obvious that some more work needed to be done. With a
grant from the
Norcross Wildlife Foundation, the society commissioned a historic structure report.
It turned out that repairs would cost $500,000. Since they could not justify that level of spending without assurances that the city would not invoke its right to tear down the house, the society's board tried to persuade the city to donate the underlying acre or sell it to the society at a token price.
Those discussions were unsuccessful, and in 1984 the board turned to another Westchester-based historic preservation organization,
Historic Hudson Valley (HHV), which operates and maintains several historic homes, including some
National Historic Landmarks, as far north as
Annandale-on-Hudson
Annandale-on-Hudson is a hamlet in Dutchess County, New York, United States, located in the Hudson Valley town of Red Hook, across the Hudson River from Kingston. The hamlet consists mainly of the Bard College campus.
Municipal services
Emerge ...
in
Dutchess County
Dutchess County is a county in the U.S. state of New York. As of the 2020 census, the population was 295,911. The county seat is the city of Poughkeepsie. The county was created in 1683, one of New York's first twelve counties, and later organ ...
. The board hoped that HHV would help them with moving the house, the city's preferred option, to the main
Philipsburg Manor house in
Sleepy Hollow, a site managed by that organization. HHV was interested, but only found the main block worth preserving, as it was the original house.
The society's board was unwilling to sacrifice the wings. So, in 1989, it went public with its predicament and put the house up for sale. It hoped to be able to keep it on the original site, but said it would talk with anyone who had a viable plan for
adaptive reuse. The poorly stored artifacts and records were moved to the county's newly built Records Center in
Elmsford
Elmsford is a village in Westchester County, New York, United States. It is part of the New York metropolitan area. Roughly one mile square, the village is fully contained within the borders of the town of Greenburgh. As of the 2010 census, the ...
.
At the end of that year it announced that it had found a buyer—nearby
New York Medical College, which was starting to expand in the area to the north of the house, along with
Westchester Medical Center, the former Grasslands Hospital. The sale price was undisclosed at the time, but it was reported that the college would pay $50,000 to update the house's electrical and heating systems, as well as repaint both the interior and exterior. The house became its center for
field research on
Lyme disease, then a growing
public health problem during Westchester's summer months.
By 1995, however, the house was again facing the threat of demolition or relocation.
Antique
An antique ( la, antiquus; 'old', 'ancient') is an item perceived as having value because of its aesthetic or historical significance, and often defined as at least 100 years old (or some other limit), although the term is often used loosely ...
s dealer Frederick Rock and his younger brother Michael were able to put together the money to buy it, and spent several years fixing it up so he could live there. A
folk music enthusiast, he began hosting regular
hootenannies
A hootenanny is a party involving music in the United States. It is particularly associated with folk music.
Etymology Placeholder
Hootenanny is an Appalachian colloquialism that was used in the early twentieth century U.S. as a placeholder name ...
in 1999. These grew into a series of backyard performances featuring artists like
The Kennedys,
Jack Hardy and
Terre and Maggie Roche.
See also
*
National Register of Historic Places listings in northern Westchester County, New York
Notes
References
External links
Owner's website
{{National Register of Historic Places in New York
Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in New York (state)
Houses completed in 1720
Houses in Westchester County, New York
Mount Pleasant, New York
National Register of Historic Places in Westchester County, New York
1720 establishments in the Province of New York