The Verbeck House is located on Church Street (
NY 50) just south of downtown
Ballston Spa, New York, United States. It is a
frame
A frame is often a structural system that supports other components of a physical construction and/or steel frame that limits the construction's extent.
Frame and FRAME may also refer to:
Physical objects
In building construction
*Framing (con ...
house built in the late 19th century.
It was one of the last buildings designed by regionally important architect
Marcus F. Cummings. The building is one of the few houses he designed late in his career, and one of his few in the
Queen Anne architectural style
An architectural style is a set of characteristics and features that make a building or other structure notable or historically identifiable. It is a sub-class of style in the visual arts generally, and most styles in architecture relate closely ...
. It retains much of its ornate period interior decorations.
In 1983 it was listed on 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 ...
. It was used for a time afterwards as the
National Bottle Museum
The National Bottle Museum is located on Milton Avenue (New York State Route 50, NY 50/New York State Route 67, 67) in downtown Ballston Spa, New York, Ballston Spa, New York, United States. Established in 1978, it has a collection of over 3,700 an ...
, which obtained a state
matching grant to
restore it. The museum later moved to larger quarters in the village's downtown following a legal dispute with its parent organization. Today the house is home to some professional offices.
Building
The house sits on a small
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 west side of the street, just south of High Street (
NY 67
New York State Route 67 (NY 67) is an east–west state highway in eastern New York in the United States. The western terminus of the route is at an intersection with NY 5 in the town of St. Johnsville. Its eastern terminus is a ...
), partially shaded by tall trees. A parking lot has been built on the south side to serve the offices. The surrounding neighborhood is mostly residential.
It is a two-and-a-half-story, four-by-six-
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 ...
house on a stone
foundation, mostly
sided in narrow
clapboard with bands and panels emphasizing the structural supports. The slate roof is surrounded by a modillioned
cornice
In architecture, a cornice (from the Italian ''cornice'' meaning "ledge") is generally any horizontal decorative moulding that crowns a building or furniture element—for example, the cornice over a door or window, around the top edge of a ...
. There are projecting two-story bays on the south and east, with a one-story raised
balustrade
A baluster is an upright support, often a vertical moulded shaft, square, or lathe-turned form found in stairways, parapets, and other architectural features. In furniture construction it is known as a spindle. Common materials used in its con ...
d porch on the east at the main entrance. Windows have decorative lintels. A
corbel
In architecture, a corbel is a structural piece of stone, wood or metal jutting from a wall to carry a superincumbent weight, a type of bracket. A corbel is a solid piece of material in the wall, whereas a console is a piece applied to the s ...
ed brick chimney rises on the south end.
The main entrance is a six-panel wooden door with
stained glass
Stained glass is coloured glass as a material or works created from it. Throughout its thousand-year history, the term has been applied almost exclusively to the windows of churches and other significant religious buildings. Although tradition ...
sidelight and
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 ...
. It opens onto a central hall, decorated with early
Art Nouveau
Art Nouveau (; ) is an international style of art, architecture, and applied art, especially the decorative arts. The style is known by different names in different languages: in German, in Italian, in Catalan, and also known as the Modern ...
style
wallpaper
Wallpaper is a material used in interior decoration to decorate the interior walls of domestic and public buildings. It is usually sold in rolls and is applied onto a wall using wallpaper paste. Wallpapers can come plain as "lining paper" (so t ...
in an
embossed floral pattern, running nearly the length of the house, giving access to parlors and other rooms
paneled in
cherry
A cherry is the fruit of many plants of the genus ''Prunus'', and is a fleshy drupe (stone fruit).
Commercial cherries are obtained from cultivars of several species, such as the sweet ''Prunus avium'' and the sour ''Prunus cerasus''. The nam ...
. A
walnut staircase with
turned balusters rises to the second floor. Doors at the west end of both hallways have stained glass in the pattern of the hall decoration.
On the floor, the oak in a
parquet pattern is original. The house also has rare
chandelier
A chandelier (; also known as girandole, candelabra lamp, or least commonly suspended lights) is a branched ornamental light fixture designed to be mounted on ceilings or walls. Chandeliers are often ornate, and normally use incandescent li ...
s that can support either
gas
Gas is one of the four fundamental states of matter (the others being solid, liquid, and plasma).
A pure gas may be made up of individual atoms (e.g. a noble gas like neon), elemental molecules made from one type of atom (e.g. oxygen), or ...
or electric lights, functional
steam radiators and an intact butler's pantry. It does not appear to have ever had any outbuildings.
History
The house was designed for James Verbeck, a prominent local attorney. It was one of the last houses built by Cummings, an architect known primarily for his commercial buildings in
downtown Troy, before he retired in 1891. Most of his previous houses were built before 1869, in the wake of a devastating fire in Troy, and those were in the
Italianate and
Second Empire styles. His use of elements of the Queen Anne style here is a strong contrast to his earlier residential work.
Verbeck's descendants owned the house until 1978, maintaining it and its furnishings near their original state. The next year, it was donated to the Federation of Historical Bottle Clubs,
and
converted
Conversion or convert may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media
* "Conversion" (''Doctor Who'' audio), an episode of the audio drama ''Cyberman''
* "Conversion" (''Stargate Atlantis''), an episode of the television series
* "The Conversion" ...
into the
National Bottle Museum
The National Bottle Museum is located on Milton Avenue (New York State Route 50, NY 50/New York State Route 67, 67) in downtown Ballston Spa, New York, Ballston Spa, New York, United States. Established in 1978, it has a collection of over 3,700 an ...
.
In 1989, the museum obtained a $46,000 state
grant to restore the house,
repainting it in the original colors, ascertained through
paint chip analysis.
The museum celebrated its ten-year anniversary in the house and the house's centenary with several events, including a bottle collectors' gathering and auction.
Three years later, during a dispute between the federation and the museum, run by the National Bottle Museum Society, the museum was
evicted
Eviction is the removal of a tenant from rental property by the landlord. In some jurisdictions it may also involve the removal of persons from premises that were foreclosed by a mortgagee (often, the prior owners who defaulted on a mortgage ...
.
A
covenant in the
deed
In common law, a deed is any legal instrument in writing which passes, affirms or confirms an interest, right, or property and that is signed, attested, delivered, and in some jurisdictions, sealed. It is commonly associated with transferring ...
by which the Verbecks donated the house provided that if it were not used as a museum, ownership would revert to the family. As a condition of the grant that restored the house, which required that the house continue to be used as a museum for at least 23 years, the covenant was lifted.
The federation put the house on the market.
It is now the offices of a local insurance agency.
and financial management firm.
See also
*
References
{{National Register of Historic Places in New York
Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in New York (state)
Houses completed in 1889
Queen Anne architecture in New York (state)
Houses in Saratoga County, New York
National Register of Historic Places in Saratoga County, New York