Owl's Nest, also known as the Edward Eggleston Estate, is a historic estate property located on the shore of
Lake George in
Queensbury, New York
Queensbury is a town in Warren County, New York, United States. The population was 27,901 at the 2010 census.
It contains the county seat of Warren County, located at a municipal center complex on U.S. Route 9 south of the village of Lake George ...
. Developed in the 1870s and 1880s, it was the home of
Edward Eggleston
Edward Eggleston (December 10, 1837 – September 3, 1902) was an American historian and novelist.
Biography
Eggleston was born in Vevay, Indiana, to Joseph Cary Eggleston and Mary Jane Craig. The author George Cary Eggleston was his brother. A ...
(1837-1902), one of America's first
realist writers. He began summering there in the 1870s and it was his permanent home from the mid-1880s until his death. The property was declared 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 ...
in 1971.
[ and ]
Description and history
Owl's Nest is located on the east side of Lake George, in the area known as Joshua's Rock, overlooking Dunham Bay northeast of
village of Lake George. The property is about in size, and includes three historic buildings and a family graveyard in which Edward Eggleston is buried. The main house, known as "The Homestead", is a two-story clapboarded frame structure with a hip roof, which was built in 1879 for Eggleston's daughter and son-in-law, Elizabeth and Elwin Seelye. Eggleston's house, built in the late 1880s, is a -story stone structure, to which a frame wing was added about 1890. It is connected by a breezeway to "Mellowstone", another stone structure built in 1883 to serve as Eggleston's library.
Eggleston first summered in the Lake George area in about 1875, and this property became his only permanent address after the Seelyes developed it in the late 1870s. He lived here during most of the year except for the winter months, which were typically spent in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...
,
Washington, D.C.
)
, image_skyline =
, image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...
, and
Madison, Wisconsin
Madison is the county seat of Dane County and the capital city of the U.S. state of Wisconsin. As of the 2020 census the population was 269,840, making it the second-largest city in Wisconsin by population, after Milwaukee, and the 80th-lar ...
. He did most of the writing of his later years here, and it remained his home until his death in 1902. The property remained in the hands of his descendants for many years thereafter.
See also
*
*
List of National Historic Landmarks in New York
References
{{National Register of Historic Places in New York
Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in New York (state)
National Historic Landmarks in New York (state)
Houses completed in 1881
Houses in Warren County, New York
National Register of Historic Places in Warren County, New York
1881 establishments in New York (state)
New York State Register of Historic Places in Warren County