Philipse Manor Hall State Historic Site

Philipse Manor Hall
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
U.S. National Historic Landmark
The Manor house
Location	Yonkers
Coordinates	40°56′08″N 73°53′59″W
Built	c.1682
Architect	Frederick Philipse
NRHP reference No.	66000585
Significant dates
Added to NRHP	October 15, 1966
Designated NHL	November 5, 1961

Philipse Manor Hall State Historic Site is a historic house museum located in the Getty Square neighborhood of Yonkers, New York. Originally the family seat of Philipse Manor, it is Westchester County’s oldest standing building. It is located at Warburton Avenue and Dock Street, and is currently owned and operated by the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation.

History

The southwest corner, the oldest part of the structure, was built around 1682 by Dutch-born merchant and trader Frederick Philipse and his wife Margaret Hardenbroeck. Philipse, who by his second marriage became a a son-in-law of Stephanus Van Cortlandt, by the time of his death had amassed a 52,000-acre (21,000 ha) estate along the Hudson River that encompassed the entire modern city of Yonkers and much of lower Westchester County.

During Philipse's life, the building was used primarily as a stopover point on the long journey up and down the river between his home in New Amsterdam and the northern parts of his estate. His grandson, Frederick Philipse II, and his great-grandson, Frederick Philipse III, successively enlarged and enhanced the building, making it the primary family residence.

On November 28, 1776, nearly five months after the signing of the Declaration of Independence and the start of the American Revolution, Frederick Philipse III and over 200 of his contemporaries signed a document declaring their allegiance to the British crown and their unwillingness to support the Revolutionary cause. Because of his Loyalism, Philipse was branded a traitor and placed under arrest on orders signed by General George Washington. He was held in Connecticut for a time, but was given special permission to travel back to Yonkers to settle his affairs on the condition he was not to aid the British cause. In violation of his parole, he and his family fled to British-occupied New York City and later to Great Britain, leaving their estate and Philipse Manor Hall behind to be attained.

Map of Philipsburg Manor with current borders overlaid on the property

Philipse family holdings, which included the Philipse Patent, a 250 square mile tract that became today's Putnam and part of Dutchess counties, were sold at public auction by New York's Commissioners of Forfeitures following the Revolution. Philipse Manor Hall was occupied by various families throughout the 19th century. In 1868, the building became Yonkers' municipal center (as Village Hall, and later, as City Hall) and remained such until 1908. During this period, an elaborate monument to those Yonkers natives who had died during the American Civil War was installed on the east lawn (1891).

By 1908, the growing complexity of city government had made the building nearly obsolete as a government center. Public meetings were held, and options such as adding wings onto the building and tearing it down outright were discussed. The question became moot when Eva Smith Cochran, matriarch of a wealthy local carpet milling family, stepped in and donated $50,000 to the city as a nominal reimbursement for their care of the building during the previous 40 years. This allowed the City to turn ownership of the building over to the State of New York. Between that time and the 1960s, the building was owned by the state but cared for by the American Scenic and Historic Preservation Society. Since the dissolution of the Society, the building is owned, maintained and curated by the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation.

From 1911 to 1912, the most intense restoration project in the building's history brought the house back to a semblance of its colonial appearance. The building has been open as a museum of history, art and architecture since 1912.

The building was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1961.

Collections

The house is home to a ca. 1750 papier-mâché and plaster Rococo ceiling, one of two in-situ ceilings of its type in the United States. The elaborate ceiling is covered in designs and motifs relevant to Frederick Philipse III’s lifestyle. For example, his love of music is represented by lute players, bagpipers and singers; his enthusiasm for hunting is represented by hunting dogs and game birds; and his education in the arts and sciences is represented by busts of Alexander Pope and Sir Isaac Newton.

Also of architectural significance is the 1868 City Council Chamber, designed by John Davis Hatch. The Chamber’s high, vaulted ceiling and woodwork are intentionally reminiscent of a typical English manor house’s great hall.

Throughout the house are paintings from the Cochran Collection of American Portraiture. This collection was put together by agents of Alexander Smith Cochran (son of Eva Smith Cochran and owner of the family’s carpet mills) and features works by Charles Willson Peale and John Trumbull. Represented among the 60 paintings are nearly all of the Presidents of the United States, from Washington to Calvin Coolidge, as well as war heroes, historical figures, and members of the Philipse family.

Further reading

• Great Houses of the Hudson River, Michael Middleton Dwyer, editor, with preface by Mark Rockefeller, Boston, MA: Little, Brown and Company, published in association with Historic Hudson Valley, 2001. ISBN 0-8212-2767-X.

See also

• Philipsburg Manor House
• Yonkers, New York
• List of National Historic Landmarks in New York
• List of the oldest buildings in New York

External links

• Friends of Philipse Manor Hall
• Philipse Manor Hall State Historic Site at the New York Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation