The John Ballantine House is a

historic house museum A historic house museum is a house of historic significance that has been transformed into a museum. Historic furnishings may be displayed in a way that reflects their original placement and usage in a home. Historic house museums are held to a ...

at 49 Washington Street in the Washington Park section of

Newark Newark most commonly refers to: * Newark, New Jersey, city in the United States * Newark Liberty International Airport, New Jersey; a major air hub in the New York metropolitan area Newark may also refer to: Places Canada * Niagara-on-the ...

, Essex County,

New Jersey New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...

, United States. Built in 1884 to a design by

George Edward Harney George Edward Harney (1840–1924) was a late 19th-century American architect based in New York City. Biography George Edward Harney was born in Lynn, Massachusetts in 1840. He received his early training in the office of local engineer Alonzo L ...

and little altered since 1900, it was the home of Jeannette Boyd (1838–1919) and John Holme Ballantine (1834–1895), the son of

Peter Ballantine Peter Ballantine (November 16, 1791 – January 23, 1883) was the founder of Patterson & Ballantine Brewing Company in 1840 in Newark, New Jersey, United States. Early life He was born on November 16, 1791, in Dundee, Scotland. He decided t ...

, founder of the Ballantine beer brewery. The house was designated a

National Historic Landmark A National Historic Landmark (NHL) is a building, district, object, site, or structure that is officially recognized by the United States government for its outstanding historical significance. Only some 2,500 (~3%) of over 90,000 places listed ...

for its architecture, and for the completeness of the documentary record accompanying its construction and alteration. It is now owned and managed by the

Newark Museum The Newark Museum of Art (formerly known as the Newark Museum), in Newark, Essex County, New Jersey, United States, is the state's largest museum. It holds major collections of American art, decorative arts, contemporary art, and arts of Asia, Af ...

, and is open to the public for tours.

Description

The Ballantine House stands on the west side of Washington Street in Newark, facing Washington Park near its southern edge. It is a three-story masonry structure, built out of salmon-colored Philadelphia pressed brick with sandstone trim and a truncated hip roof. It has an asymmetrical five-bay facade, with a projecting central bay topped by a gable. The left bays have sash windows under shared lintels, while the upper-level right-side windows are set independently. The ground floor right side bay has a projecting polygonal window group. The center entrance is sheltered by a stone portico with rounded arches supported by granite columns with Corinthian capitals. The interiors were provided by the New York firm of D. S. Hess Company, "decorators and manufacturers of artistic furniture". The dining room was hung with part-gilded embossed panels imitating the "Spanish" leather hangings that were popular in Holland and England in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries.

History

John Holme Ballantine became president of the Ballantine Brewery in 1883 after his father died. Ballantine died in 1895 of throat cancer. The architect who provided designs for the house was

(1840–1924) of

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. At the time of its construction, it was one of the finest of a series of grand houses to face Washington Park. It is now the only one of those left. The family retained ownership of the house until 1920, and it was acquired by the Newark Museum in 1937. The museum also acquired a complete set of bills and records for the house's construction, decoration, and alteration.

As a museum

At Christmas season, the house is dressed with holly and other winter greens in traditional Victorian style. A brief history of the house, by its curator Ulysses Grant Dietz, ''The Ballantine House'', was published by the museum in 1994 to coincide with the reopening of the house, which has belonged to the Newark Museum since 1937, after a two-year four-million dollar renovation. The Ballantine House was declared a

in 1985. and

References

External links

Official Site
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ballantine, John House National Historic Landmarks in New Jersey Historic house museums in New Jersey Houses completed in 1885 Museums in Newark, New Jersey Houses in Essex County, New Jersey National Register of Historic Places in Newark, New Jersey

Description

History

As a museum

See also

References

External links