Lyndhurst

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For those who don’t know the area:

Lyndhurst is a Gothic Revival country house that sits in a 67-acre park beside the Hudson River in Tarrytown, New York. The house was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1966. The home was designed in 1838 by Alexander Jackson Davis and owned in succession by New York City mayor William Paulding Jr., merchant George Merritt, and railroad tycoon Jay Gould. Paulding named his house “Knoll”. Its limestone exterior was quarried in present-day Ossining, New York. Merritt, the house’s second owner, doubled the size of the house in 1864–1865 and renamed it “Lyndenhurst”. His new north wing included an imposing four-story tower, a new porte-cochere, a new dining room, two bedrooms and servants’ quarters. Gould purchased the property in 1880 to use as a country house. He shortened its name to “Lyndhurst” and occupied it until his death in 1892. In 1961, Gould’s daughter Anna Gould donated it to the National Trust for Historic Preservation. The house is now open to the public.

I went there just before Christmas with my friends George and Martha. Although I’ve been to, and through the property many times I’ve never actually been inside. It was good to see the interior. As you can see they had put a lot of effort into preparing for Christmas. Maybe too much. Very festive, but maybe a Christmas tree (sometimes more) it every room was a bit too much

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Taken with a Sony RX100 M3

Three Sisters

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I’d taken pictures of all three of these houses (singly i.e. three separate pictures). I’d always wanted a picture of all three of them in a single image, but every time I passed by the road in front of them was covered with parked cars, which obscured and messed up the view. This time, when I passed and noticed there were no cars, I rushed over to get this picture.

According to the Village of Ossining Significant Sites and Structures Guide (Page 169):

Property Name(s): The Three Sisters
Street Address: 43, 45 and 47 Ellis Place
Section, Block, and Lot: Section 89.20, Block 3, Lots 29, 28 and 27, respectively
Architect/Builder: John O’Brien, Builder
Date of Construction: 1877
Architectural Style: Carpenter Gothic (1840s-early 1900s). Carpenter Gothic architecture, a subtype of the larger Gothic Revival movement, was a style that applied some of the forms typically associated with Gothic Revival architecture to cottage residences. This style was known for its use of board and batten siding, steeply pitched roofs, and elaborate ornamental features known as gingerbread that were made possible by the newly invented scroll saw, which allowed carpenters to cut wooden shapes that had been impossible previously.

The Three Sisters are each two- and one-half stories in height with a raised basement level and have a rectangular, side-hall plan. As originally built, the houses had their kitchens and dining rooms in the basement and a double parlor with side hall on the main floor level. The main façades contain two bays of pedimented one over one sash windows, with a pair of windows on the left side of each story and a single window on the right side of each story. The front porches that extend the full width of the façades contain a gable with a star motif that is repeated on the front-facing gable of each structure, each of which utilizes board and batten siding and contains a pair of small attic windows. All three structures contain asphalt shingle roofs with two side dormers and clapboard siding on all facings.

The Three Sisters are architecturally significant as examples of late 19th-Century Carpenter Gothic-style houses.

The Three Sisters, located at 43, 45, and 47 Ellis Place respectively, were built by John O’Brien, a local entrepreneur who owned and operated a stone and monument factory on Water Street. O’Brien built the houses from 1875-1877 for his three daughters: Birdie, Margaret, and Edith. All three houses have had a series of private owners since their construction and each is painted a different color: Number 43 is painted pink, Number 45 is blue, and Number 47 is gray.

Taken with a Sony RX100 MVII.

By the Ossining Boat and Canoe Club

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I went down to the river the other day. It was really too cold to take photographs. I had to take a few photographs, put my camera and my hands in pocket (luckily, I was using a very small, pocketable camera). Wait until my hands warmed up. Then take a few more quick pictures and repeat the whole process until I’d taken as many pictures as I could.

The pictures were taken around the Ossining Boat and Canoe Club. According to the Club’s website:

The Ossining Boat and Canoe Club was founded in 1915. At first it doesn’t sound like it was that long ago, but then we realize that cars were not all that common and that the highways in our area were not yet built. There were no malls or shopping centers and all goods where bought on Main Street or from a catalogue. The Tappan Zee Bridge would not exist to take us to the other side of the river for another forty years. Canoeing was an active national sport in those days and the club put a group in the water called the “Black Hawks”. This team competed as far away as Canada in a four-man racing canoe.

Building. The original clubhouse was erected by the members on the present site, just south of the Ossining RR Station on Westerly Road, in 1921. With the exception of some minor changes to the façade, the structure remains identical to its original frame. Some recent renovations to the club property include: a newly constructed ramp from the clubhouse to the docks, ample docking space for visitors and boaters in distress, and a completely refurbished upper deck offering magnificent views of the Hudson River and its shores. In addition to these, heating and air-conditioning were added to the club building.

Today the clubhouse is owned by the Town of Ossining and is exclusively licensed to the boat club.

Function. The boat basin itself is not so different from the days of the original site though modern moorings have replaced the wooden tree poles of the past. The club’s location on the east bank of the Tappan Zee has always provided sailors with miles of open water and fishermen with ample fishing spots. The club was conceived so that members could have access to the river at a reasonable rate. In order to maintain these reasonable rates all clubhouse maintenance and repairs are completed by the membership. There have always been two classifications of membership – working and associate. To accommodate schedules that do not allow for volunteer work hours, a third status was added as non-working. Our application form requests that the applicant list his or her skills and professions – in that way we make use of an invaluable pool of resources.

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Taken with a Sony RX100 M3