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Leland Castle

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Leland Castle
LocationNew Rochelle, NY
Built1855
ArchitectWilliam Thomas Beers
Architectural styleEnglish Gothic
NRHP reference No.76001291
Added to NRHP1979

Leland Castle (also known as Castle View) is a 19th century Gothic revival castle located on the campus of the College of New Rochelle in New Rochelle, New York.

The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1976 and the New York State Register in 1980.[1] [2] The castle was originally the residence of Simeon Leland, a wealthy New York City hotel proprietor. Mr. Leland began to assemble an estate as early as 1848, and in 1855 began the erection of a palatial mansion of sixty rooms.[3] It was completed in four years, taking fifty thousand days' labor. The home was designed by New York architect William Thomas Beers. A north and south wing were added to the castle in 1899 and 1902 respectively.[4]

In 1872, having had just over a decade in his "palace," Simeon Leland died deep in debt. Although the mortgage on Castle View was foreclosed, the new owner, Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, allowed Mrs. Leland and her children to live there until 1880. The Castle was then leased as a clubhouse for the Westchester Hunt Club which used the surrounding estate for hunting, coaching and polo sporting activity. For a while it was used as a hotel named the 'Castle Inn'. [5] When the Hunt Club did not renew their lease, the Castle briefly housed the Trinity School, which needed a temporary home due to a fire that had burned its old school building to the ground.

In 1884, Adrian Iselin, Jr., a prominent member of the community, purchased the Castle and its surrounding acreage for the purpose of developing the land into a residential park. He paved surrounding streets, including Castle Place, put in gas lines and planted many trees, and soon the 40-acre original estate was diminished to just two and a half acres, as Iselin's Residence Park came to occupy much of the former grounds of Leland's estate.

The New Rochelle Collegiate Institute, a school for boys, occupied the castle from 1889 to 1892. The principal was H.F Fuller, M.A., a brother of Chief Justice Melville F. Fuller of the United States Supreme Court. The building was damaged by fire in 1897 during the tenancy of Miss Morse's school, and, uninsured, Miss Morse was forced to leave. With the promise by Iselin of repairs to the fire damage, the castle was quickly purchased by the Ursuline Sisters who transferred their academy for young women to the building. [6] [7]

References

  1. ^ Inventory of Historic Places
  2. ^ National Register of Historic Places
  3. ^ New Rochelle History-Nineteenth Century
  4. ^ Leland Castle, College of New Rochelle National Register of Historic Places designation report. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of the Interior/National Park Service, 1976
  5. ^ Appleton's Dictionary of New York and Its Vicinity, By D. Appleton and Company, pg.45
  6. ^ ADRIAN ISELIN DEAD AT HIS CITY HOME, The New York Times, 1905
  7. ^ Leland Castle, Council of Independent Colleges Historic Campus Architecture Project
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