Remains of the Tioronda Hat Factory

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Beacon was apparently once known as the hat capital of the United States. These are the ruins of one of the factories that made the hats. Demolition was supposed to have started in 2012, but if that’s the case it doesn’t seem to have progressed very far.

According to Tom Rinaldi and Rob Yasinsac’s Hudson Valley Ruins site:

The Tioronda Hat Works on the Fishikill Creek in Beacon has been undergoing demolition since September 2011 (or earlier). Begun in 1879, the mill, like many in the area, expanded with new construction in the following decades. The last mill to occupy the brick buildings was the Merrimac Hat Company. In 1949, Merrimac sold the property to Beacon Terminals Corporation, which used the buildings for warehousing. In 1997, real estate developer William S. Ehrlich formed a different company under the name of Beacon Terminal Associates and acquired the former Tioronda Mill and about 20 other properties in Beacon, NY, many of which have remained vacant.

The Tioronda Working Group says that Tioronda means “place of the council fire where the two rivers meet”

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Mount Gulian

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I was looking for somewhere to walk the dog in Beacon, NY and missed my turning. As I was trying to find it I saw a sign to Mount Gulian, which I’d vaguely heard of, and decided to see what it was. You go through a housing development and then suddenly there’s this house overlooking the Hudson.

According to Wikipedia:

Mount Gulian is a reconstructed 18th century Dutch manor house on the Hudson River in the town of Fishkill…The original house served as the headquarters of Major General Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben during the American Revolutionary War…

The original mansion was destroyed in a fire laid by an arsonist in 1931. After this, the ruin of the house was left unattended until 1966, when Bache Bleecker, a descendant of the Verplanck family, and his wife Connie founded the Mount Gulian Society, as a nonprofit, private organization. The goal of the society was restoration of Mount Gulian which was completed in 1975. The restoration reconstructed the house to the state it was in when it served as von Steuben’s headquarters. Later additions were left out. Since then, the building has been accessible to the public as a museum. Also on the site is an 18th-century Dutch barn, which was moved to this location from Hopewell Junction.

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Assuming the part facing the Hudson is the front of the house, this is the rear porch.

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Front of the house overlooking the Hudson.

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View of Hudson from the front porch.

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View of the house from the Garden

Vanderbilt Mansion, Hyde Park, NY

by Posted in Landscapes, Places Leave a comment
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Yesterday we went to the Vanderbilt Mansion in Hyde Park, NY. We were going to do the garden tour, but decided to take a look at the house first. Afterwards we were hot, tired and hungry so we just took a quick look at the garden – we’ll go back another day. For a Vanderbilt pile this one is quite modest. Afterwards we had a late lunch at Pho Max Vietnamese restaurant in Wappingers Falls. Recently opened. A good find.

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Staircase in the mansion.

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Statue in the entrance hall.

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In the gardens.

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View of the Hudson from the mansion.

Tree Roots

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Roaring Brook Lane is a couple of minutes away from the house. A dirt track goes down the left side of a stream (Roaring Brook?), over a small wooden bridge and ends up at a wooden dock. The Boy Scouts have done a great job renovating the path, building a new bridge and adding a seating area with picnic table. I usually just walk down to the dock and back and have never explored the right side of the stream so I decided to take a look. There are lots of interesting tree roots. They roots were in shade and were pretty much monochromatic so I thought black and white would work well. I love the shapes and the textures.

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