Van Cortlandt House

The Van Cortlandt House is located at the southwestern corner of Van Cortlandt Park, near the Riverdale neighborhood of the Bronx in New York City. It is surrounded by the park's Parade Ground to the north, the Memorial Grove to the west, a swimming pool and the Van Cortlandt Stadium to the south, and a burial ground and Van Cortlandt Lake to the east. The Van Cortlandt House's site was a salt marsh along Tibbetts Brook until the 1690s, when the nearby Van Cortlandt Lake was formed along the brook's course. When the house was built in 1748, it stood on the eastern slope of a set of hills along the eastern bank of the Hudson River. The house and surrounding landscape are preserved as part of Van Cortlandt Park, although the fields around the mansion date from the Parade Ground's construction in the late 19th century. The grounds overlooked the Spuyten Duyvil valley to the south, the Palisades to the west, and Tibbetts Brook to the east; the view to the south was interrupted by hills in Fordham, Bronx, and in Manhattan. Originally, there was a driveway from the side entrance to the front entrance. The driveway was paved with stones, so the house's occupants could hear visitors on the driveway before they arrived. The house's approach is flanked by gateposts that were once topped by wooden bird sculptures; There were horse chestnuts on either side of the gateposts. These included manmade terraces, large box trees, and water features such as fountains. In the early 1900s, a Dutch garden was built just south of the mansion, with a canal on three sides, a fountain in the center, and four square sections around it. The garden has since been replaced with trees and a herb garden. ==History==

Prior to European settlement, the Lenape Native Americans occupied the site of the Van Cortlandt Mansion, and there was a nearby Native American village known as Keskeskick. Adriaen van der Donck, a Dutch settler, was the first European to occupy the Van Cortlandt House's site, having bought the land from the Dutch West India Company in 1646. Van der Donck died in 1655. Following the takeover of New Netherland by the British in 1664, the claim to the estate was awarded to van der Donck's brother-in-law, Elias Doughty, who proceeded to sell off the portions of the property. When Philipse's wife died, he remarried the daughter of Dutch brewer Oloff Stevense Van Cortlandt, herself a widow. Philipse's daughter Eva later married Jacobus Van Cortlandt, who was Olof's son and Philipse's second wife's brother. Jacobus Van Cortlandt acquired parcels from Philipse through 1699 and dammed Tibbetts Brook to create Van Cortlandt Lake. The property's proximity to Tibbetts Brook, which drained into the Harlem River and Spuyten Duyvil Creek to the south, made it easy for Van Cortlandt to ship grain and timber products by water. The estate was passed in 1739 to Jacobus's son Frederick Van Cortlandt. When Frederick inherited the land, the site was considered part of lower Yonkers in Westchester County. Several slaves also worked on the plantation. Residential use The Van Cortlandt House is the oldest known surviving house in what is now the Bronx, as well as one of three surviving 18th-century buildings in the borough. Along with the Bartow–Pell Mansion, it is one of two remaining manor houses in the Bronx. 1740s to 1770s Frederick began developing the Van Cortlandt House on the property in 1748. According to the Van Cortlandt House Museum, Frederick likely did not build the house himself, despite being credited as the builder. Frederick's family used the Tippett house while their new structure was being built. The mansion was built in a vale that the historian Robert Bolton described as "about one mile north from Kings bridge", next to what is now Broadway. the foundation of Van der Donck's old house remained intact in front of the Van Cortlandt House. East of the mansion was a mill dam across Tibbetts Brook, a small mill, and the Van Cortlandts' previous residence. To the northeast of the mansion were woodlands. In Frederick's will, signed on October 2, 1749, he indicated that the house was almost complete. His bequest also included either 11 or 12 slaves who worked on the plantation. Vault Hill, the Van Cortlandt family burial ground to the north of the mansion, After its completion, the Van Cortlandt House was often called the manor house, although this was a misnomer, as the "manor" name applied to the Van Cortlandt Manor in Croton-on-Hudson, New York. The mansion was also called "Lower Cortlandt's" to reduce confusion with Frederick Van Cortlandt's farm, "Upper Cortlandt's", west of Broadway. The family used the grist mill and saw mill next to the lake. Within the house, the family salted the pork and beef; cured the ham and bacon; and stored the various fruits that grew on the premises. Slaves performed many of the tasks around the house, including laundry, cleaning, and cooking. during the American Revolutionary War and was used by both the Loyalists and the Patriots. On May 30, 1775, the New York Provincial Congress placed James Van Cortlandt on a committee to create a report on whether it was feasible to build a fort near his family's house. Although James was described as not having been "a very active loyalist", he was not fully committed to the Patriots' cause either, Some members of the Van Cortlandt family continued to reside at the mansion during most of the war. The grounds were used by Patriot militia leaders Comte de Rochambeau, Marquis de Lafayette, and George Washington. The house itself was Washington's headquarters after his troops were defeated in the 1776 Battle of Long Island, and Washington stayed at the house prior to the Battle of White Plains. placing it behind British-held ground. and Digby gifted Augustus Van Cortlandt a pair of wooden bird sculptures that had been taken from a Spanish privateer. American troops unsuccessfully tried to retake the house in 1777. A British captain surnamed Rowe was severely wounded in a battle nearby in 1780, and he died in the house just after his fiancée arrived, giving rise to rumors that Rowe's ghost haunted the house. Washington returned to the house in 1781 to strategize with Rochambeau while their troops waited outside on what is now the Parade Ground and Vault Hill. his troops instead headed south to Virginia, defeating the British in the siege of Yorktown. Washington used the house one final time in 1783 after the Treaty of Paris. The British had just withdrawn their troops from Manhattan, and Washington and George Clinton were getting ready to enter the island, stopping over at the house before doing so. Augustus Van Cortlandt continued to own the house until he died in 1823; As such, his son-in-law Henry White (who had married Augustus's daughter Anna) received his life estate, Augustus White Van Cortlandt moved the mill on the estate to the shore of Van Cortlandt Lake in 1823. The younger Augustus owned the house until his death on April 1, 1839, upon which he bequeathed the house to his brother Henry White Van Cortlandt, who had no children and survived only until October 1839. Augustus Bibby owned the house for four and a half decades; An account from the late 1840s described the house as having a front garden with box trees, which had been planted upon a set of fountains. The old mill and the Van Cortlandts' original house still existed on the estate, and the house's interior was decorated with various portraits. In June 1884, New York governor Grover Cleveland signed the New Parks Act into law, authorizing the creation of a system of parks in the Bronx, including what would become Van Cortlandt Park. The act gave the city the right to acquire from Augustus Bibby via eminent domain. The Van Cortlandt family did not fully vacate the house until 1888, and the mill next to Van Cortlandt Lake was in use until 1889. The New York Herald Tribune described the house and surrounding property as having "for generations symbolized the vast wealth in real estate amassed by Oloff and Jacobus Van Cortlandt". Use as museum A portion of the Van Cortlandt estate was sold to the government of New York City on December 12, 1888, and converted into Van Cortlandt Park; The majority of the grain fields were converted into a sprawling lawn dubbed the "Parade Ground", while the Van Cortlandt House was preserved. Parts of the mansion were repaired and repainted in 1889. For several years thereafter, the family of the house's caretaker were the only residents, and military officers used the house once a year during field day activities in the park. Until 1896, the mansion also served as a barracks for the New York State Police, which had been assigned to guard the bison that roamed Van Cortlandt Park. The park commissioners provided $187 for interior painting and papering in December, and they provided $250 for renovation work the next month. The city's Park Board voted in 1894 to add an inscription honoring Washington to the mansion. In early 1896, the Society of Colonial Dames of the State of New York applied to the park commissioners for permission to repair the mansion and operate it as a historic house museum. The Park Board agreed in December 1896 to lease the mansion to the society; the initial lease lasted for 25 years. The society then began renovating the house. The project, which cost between $4,000 and $5,000, At the time, the Van Cortlandt Mansion was one of a few old residences preserved on public grounds in New York City, along with Gracie Mansion. It was also one of the first historic house museums in the city; it was followed by other residences such as the Morris–Jumel Mansion, King Manor, and Dyckman House. The Van Cortlandt Mansion was one of the few mid-18th-century buildings in New York City that still retained its original carpentry. The museum was open to the public every day of the week and was free most of the time. On Saturdays, it charged each guest 25 cents to raise money for the house's maintenance. and announced to the public that July. and the New York City Board of Estimate allocated $15,000 that October for the garden. The Colonial Dames dedicated a tablet outside the mansion, which described the house's history, in late 1900. At the time, the museum had recorded more than 50,000 visitors over the previous four years. and the colonial garden adjacent to the mansion was completed in 1903. A window from the old Rhinelander Sugar House was brought to the Bronx in 1903 and installed next to the mansion. 1910s to 1970s The Colonial Dames began raising money in the early 1910s for an expansion of the museum's collection. The Dames also announced plans to build an annex to the house, but Park Board landscape architect Charles Downing Lay vetoed these plans in April 1912. The New York City Department of Parks and Recreation (NYC Parks) received bids for the annex's construction in 1913 but initially rejected all of them. After a subsequent contract was approved, annex, consisting of a caretaker's apartment adjacent to the main house, was finished in 1916 or 1917, just before World War I. The Department of Parks awarded a contract for repairs to the house at the end of 1914. The architect Norman Isham was hired to renovate the mansion, which included restoring the fireplaces, adding paneling, moving the radiators, and installing interior shutters. By the early 1930s, the Van Cortlandt House saw 50,000 to 60,000 visitors each year, including many foreign-born visitors. A walnut tree was planted in front of the mansion in 1938, replacing an older tree underneath which Washington had once stood. The guns outside the Van Cortlandt House were scrapped in 1942 after then–parks commissioner Robert Moses found that the weaponry was "of neither historic nor esthetic value". The New York Herald Tribune reported in the mid-1940s that the Van Cortlandt House had 100,000 annual visitors. During the late 1950s, a group led by New York State Assembly member Mildred F. Taylor found that the building was still in good condition. After various members of the Colonial Dames provided donations "to make the mansion a more authoritative eighteenth-century home", the Colonial Dames closed the Van Cortlandt House in December 1960 for what was supposed to be a four-month renovation. The house's reopening was delayed by two months to June 1961. This renovation involved restoring the walls and the original floors, but was only open on weekends by the 1970s. It had several caretakers during this time. A poet, Hagop Yacoubian, began caring for the house in 1959, shortly after coming to the U.S. from Armenia. Robert and Ann Porter, who were hired as the museum's caretakers in 1973 following a chance meeting with one of the museum's directors, sometimes hosted private parties in the house when the museum was closed. although the Colonial Dames still operated the house and provided decorations and furniture. 1980s to present The grounds of the house were landscaped during 1980, and the house itself was closed in 1986 for a renovation. The work included a new 150-seat auditorium under the house; an expansion of the cellar for taller guests; new bathrooms; and mechanical, structural, and fire-safety upgrades. In addition, the parlors were repainted in their original colors. The Van Cortlandt Mansion was one of the founding members of the Historic House Trust, established in 1989. At the time, the house's roof needed to be replaced. Students from Brooklyn College conducted excavations around the house's site between 1990 and 1992. though the courts were approved anyway. By the mid-1990s, some rooms had peeling paint or water damage, and there were concerns that the furniture had bug infestations. The museum's director Laura Carpenter Correa wanted to renovate the house for $1 million, and the house's roof was to be repaired with $250,000 from the New York City Council and the Bronx borough president's office. However, there was no funding for further repairs, and the museum had only a $100,000 annual operating budget. The Colonial Dames was still operating the Van Cortlandt House Museum in the early 21st century. Brooklyn College students undertook further archeological excavations at the site in 2003, The house's dining room was restored in 2015; the work involved a restoration of the paneling, wallpaper, and fireplace tiles. The mansion was closed in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic in New York City, and it reopened next year for self-guided tours. and the fence around the house was rebuilt between 2024 and 2025. == Architecture ==

The house, designed by an unknown architect, is built in the Georgian style and is stories tall. The house has an L-shaped plan, with wings extending along the south and east sides. while a caretaker's apartment (adjacent to the main house) dates to before World War I. The windowsills were incorporated into the outer walls, and the sills on the second story are of a slightly different design from those on the first story. As built, the first story's southern wing had an entrance hall flanked by two parlors, while the eastern wing had a side hall and dining room on that story. Basement The kitchen is within the raised basement. There are two small windows near the top of the western wall, which may have been intended as defensive loopholes. The basement's ceiling has low wooden beams, and were hand-crafted out of cypress and cedar. First story The front hall is accessed from the main entrance on the south end of the building. Doorways with eared frames lead to parlors on the west and east walls. The stairway's high ceiling was intended as a symbol of wealth when the house was built. Pilasters separate the fireplace from an arched cupboard on either side; each cupboard has two paneled doors and a set of shelves for storing porcelain. The rest of the north wall is painted blue and is paneled, while the three other walls are made of white plaster with a baseboard, a dado rail, and a molding at the ceiling. The south wall has three windows. To the right (east) of the front hall is the eastern parlor, which was intended as a formal room. the overmantel depicts Adam and Eve, a serpent, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The dining room is in the eastern wing, separated from the eastern parlor by the rear hall, The walls are made of light plaster above dark buff wainscoting, and a chimney occupies the north wall. Atop the wall was a ceiling molding, which likely dated from the 19th century. Upper stories On the second floor, there is a hallway in the center of the southern wing, which connects with the house's main stairway. At the south end of the hallway is a sash window with inward-facing shutters and a seating area. These bedrooms both contain white walls; doorways with molded frames; fireplaces with paneling and white tiles; windows with internal shutters; cornices above the windows. The western room was known as the Washington bedroom The north wall of the Washington bedroom has a fireplace flanked by closets, similar to the cupboards on the first-floor western parlor. A third bedroom to the northeast has a fireplace with allegorical Dutch tiles. One of the bedrooms was named the Monroe room because one of the family's maids had married a man surnamed Monroe. On the third floor were two smaller rooms for servants, one of which was in an incomplete condition. == Operations ==

The New York City Department of Parks and Recreation owns the Van Cortlandt House. Collections When the house opened as a museum, the western parlor was set aside specifically as a museum, while the other rooms displayed memorabilia from Colonial Dames and their friends. In the eastern parlor were furniture such as chairs, a writing desk, a candle stand, and four chalk artworks. The western bedroom on the second story featured furniture from Washington's time at the house, such as his bed, a mahogany footrest, a carved clock, and bed steps. The eastern bedroom had a chest, printing press, and cradle, while the spinning room featured several tools used for needlework. In the 20th century, several objects were added to the collection, such as handmade liquor bottles that had been excavated in 1902. and one parlor was cited as having a Chippendale mirror and a secretarial desk. The upstairs rooms retained their old four-poster beds with tapestries. In the modern-day dining room, there is a set of drawers, six chairs, and a table. The museum's other early exhibits included displays of antique pewter, miniatures of Colonial portraits, and needlework portraits. The museum hosted exhibits of colonial documents, paintings, and books in the 1920s, and it showed glass, silverware, china, and pottery from the 17th and 18th centuries during the 1950s. The Colonial Dames has hosted live performances on the museum's behalf; for example, it staged a play at the Alvin Theatre in 1960 to raise money for the house. By the 1970s, the house presented St. Nicholas Day performances, the Bronx Arts Ensemble's weekend concerts, Bronx Bicentennial activities, and demonstrations of Revolutionary-era military activities. In the late 20th century, the house continued to present events such as concerts, St. Nicholas Day carols, children's programs, and historical lectures. The museum gives tours throughout the year, including both self-guided tours and those led by docents. The house also hosts special events. == Impact ==

Critical reception and media In 1889, one reporter described the building as "solid, substantial, massive", having been preserved "in splendid condition". A writer for Town and Country said in 1901 that the house preserved "all the glory of that interesting era dear to those who love to read the history of New York before it was so cosmopolitan", Conversely, a writer for The American Architect said in 1919 that the house displayed too many objects that "are not relevant to the house or its history and are misleading in suggestion". One critic, writing in 1927, said the Van Cortlandt House, along with the Gracie Mansion and the Morris–Jumel Mansion, were among the few old houses in New York City that "retain some of their former dignity and beauty of surroundings". Another writer in 1964 described the house as having "interior paneling and furnishings of the first rank", while a reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer said in 1984 that it was the Bronx's "most prestigious house". Bronx historian Lloyd Ultan characterized the house in 1995 as being "highly significant to the history of the nation" due to its use during the American Revolutionary War. The Van Cortlandt House was also depicted in a mural painted in the Bronx County Courthouse in 1934. In addition, a depiction of the house was displayed at the City Gallery at 2 Columbus Circle in 1981, and the mansion stood in for an Irish house on an episode of the TV series Boardwalk Empire. Landmark designations The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) designated the Van Cortlandt House as a city landmark in March 1966, and the Board of Estimate ratified the landmark designation that August. This made the mansion one of the first residences in the Bronx to be designated as a city landmark. The mansion was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1967 and became a National Historic Landmark in 1976. The LPC designated the interiors of the Van Cortlandt Mansion as a city landmark in July 1975; the designation covered several Georgian-style rooms. == See also ==