Mapleton, also known as St. Joseph House, is a historic building located at White Plains,

Westchester County, New York Westchester County is located in the U.S. state of New York. It is the seventh most populous county in the State of New York and the most populous north of New York City. According to the 2020 United States Census, the county had a population o ...

. It was added to the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

in 1976.

Description

"Mapleton" is a large, -story five-bay residence with

Second Empire Second Empire may refer to: * Second British Empire, used by some historians to describe the British Empire after 1783 * Second Bulgarian Empire (1185–1396) * Second French Empire (1852–1870) ** Second Empire architecture, an architectural styl ...

and

Italianate The Italianate style was a distinct 19th-century phase in the history of Classical architecture. Like Palladianism and Neoclassicism, the Italianate style drew its inspiration from the models and architectural vocabulary of 16th-century Italian R ...

-style design details. It features a large

verandah A veranda or verandah is a roofed, open-air gallery or porch, attached to the outside of a building. A veranda is often partly enclosed by a railing and frequently extends across the front and sides of the structure. Although the form ''veran ...

, a central pavilion tower capped with a small dome, and a

mansard roof A mansard or mansard roof (also called a French roof or curb roof) is a four-sided gambrel-style hip roof characterised by two slopes on each of its sides, with the lower slope, punctured by dormer windows, at a steeper angle than the upper. The ...

with

slate Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade regional metamorphism. It is the finest grained foliated metamorphic rock. ...

tiles. Also on the property is a polygonal frame

gazebo A gazebo is a pavilion structure, sometimes octagonal or turret-shaped, often built in a park, garden or spacious public area. Some are used on occasions as bandstands. Etymology The etymology given by Oxford Dictionaries (website), Oxford D ...

History

Built in 1867, for William Franklin Dusenbury, a carriage manufacturer, it was purchased in 1884 by Nathan H. Hand. In 1890, Mary Caroline Dannat Starr (Mother Mary Veronica) was looking for a place to relocate and expand the work of her recently approved religious institute, the

Sisters of the Divine Compassion The Sisters of the Divine Compassion (also known as Religious of Divine Compassion (RDC)) are a Roman Catholic religious institute founded in New York City in 1886 by Mother Mary Veronica (formerly Mary Dannat Starr), Thomas Scott Preston, Msgr. Tho ...

. She purchased from James Tilford, a fourteen-acre estate on Broadway in

White Plains, New York (Always Faithful) , image_seal = WhitePlainsSeal.png , seal_link = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Country , subdivision_name = , subdivision_type1 = U.S. state, State , su ...

, including a three-story frame house built in 1856 by Eugene T. Preudhomme for John M. Tilford of Park and Tilford. She renamed it Good Counsel Farm. In 1894, in anticipation of the construction of the congregation's chapel on the site of the Tilson mansion, she bought the adjoining "Mapleton" from Nathan Hand. From 1894 to 1925, it housed the

convent A convent is a community of monks, nuns, religious brothers or, sisters or priests. Alternatively, ''convent'' means the building used by the community. The word is particularly used in the Catholic Church, Lutheran churches, and the Anglican ...

of the

. (The Tilford house was moved elsewhere on the property and became Our Lady of Good Counsel Academy Elementary School.) In 1924, the Sisters opened Good Counsel College, and the following year "Mapleton" was put to academic use. It became known as "Alumnae House'. While Good Counsel College became the College of White Plains, and merged with Pace University in 1976, the Religious of the Divine Compassion retained title to "Mapleton", as well as, most of their property. "Mapleton" has been used a conference center. In November 2015 The Sisters of Divine Compassion sold the 16-acre property to WP Development NB LLC, a group of investors led by George Comfort & Sons, but retain the use of the Chapel of Divine Compassion and Mapleton/St. Joseph. The latter houses the congregation's administrative offices and the RDC Center for Counseling & Human Development.Gouveia, Georgette. "Sister Acts", ''WAG Magazine'', November 2018
/ref>"Annual Report 2016", Sisters of Divine Compassion
/ref> It was added to the

in 1976. In 1997, it was included as part of the

Good Counsel Complex Good Counsel Complex, also known as Convent of the Sisters of the Divine Compassion, is a national historic district located at White Plains, Westchester County, New York. The district consists of 10 contributing buildings, including the separate ...

national

historic district A historic district or heritage district is a section of a city which contains older buildings considered valuable for historical or architectural reasons. In some countries or jurisdictions, historic districts receive legal protection from c ...

Description

History

See also

References

Sources