Use as hotel One of the few remaining pre-1800 buildings in Manhattan, the house was originally planned in 1795 as an estate for Colonel
William S. Smith and his wife,
Abigail. The Smiths never completed the building; it was ultimately built as a
carriage house and
stable in 1799 for the nearby estate of William T. Robinson.
Joseph Coleman Hart bought the house and converted it into a day hotel in 1826. The Mount Vernon Hotel operated in a city experiencing huge commercial growth after the opening of the
Erie Canal. Its location offered guests a respite from the dirt, noise, and bustle of city life. In the 1830s, the commercial shipping and business districts of New York City lay below
City Hall, while private residences extended as far north as modern-day
Chelsea, and it was common for upper- and middle-class residents and visitors to take day trips to the then-rural setting that is now
midtown Manhattan. One of over 50 day hotels in or near New York City, the Mount Vernon attracted middle-class guests with leisure activities such as boating trips, tours of unusual exhibitions and social events. In a city without public parks or public libraries, these day hotels offered "gentlemen and their families" an escape from the explosive growth of New York City's population and ensuing urbanization (the population of New York City, 123,706 in 1820, had grown to 202,589 by 1830). They could spend a quiet day near the river and be home downtown by sunset.
Frances Trollope and James Stuart, a Scottish diarist, are two foreign travelers who visited New York City during the time when the Mount Vernon Hotel operated under Hart. Stuart recorded his 1829 stay at the Mount Vernon Hotel in his
Three Years in North America (1833). The Mount Vernon Hotel operated until 1833, when it was purchased by Jeremiah Towle, who converted it to a private residence. His daughters continued to live in the house through 1905, when the
Standard Gas Light Company bought the house and erected gas tanks nearby.
Use as museum In 1939, the house opened to the public as the Abigail Adams Smith Museum. The planting plan for the Abigail Adams Smith Museum gardens was by New York landscape designer
Alice Recknagel Ireys and
Georgian landscape designer Kate Basilashvili. In the early 2000s, there was an unsuccessful attempt to
rebrand the area around the museum as "Mount Vernon". At the time, the surrounding blocks were not given a specific name (unlike other parts of the
Upper East Side), and much of the former Mount Vernon estate had been demolished to make way for the
Queensboro Bridge, which had opened in 1908. This area is considered part of the Upper East Side or
Lenox Hill. ==Current management==