Hudson Valley Real Estate

 

In 1682, when Colonel Thomas Dongan was appointed Governor of the Province of New York, he established twelve counties, including Dutchess County, for the English king. By 1697, as the Dutch and English battled for control of the province’s largest city, the British granted 100,000 acres in the Hudson Valley to nine well-connected New York gentlemen in what would become known as The Great Nine Partners Patent. Incumbent upon these nine was the responsibility to find English settlers for the land and thus claim it decisively for Great Britain. In this way, the property that is now Evertson Hill came into the hands of John Evertson and his heirs.


Residential real estate in the Millbrook area falls into several categories. The oldest existing homes in the region date to the end of the seventeenth century and were built by the Dutch who pioneered European settlement in the area. The steeply pitched roofs, covered porches and gable windows of these first homes still influence designs today. Seeking religious freedom, a number of French Huguenots settled in what is now New Paltz, and their stone homes, including the Jean Hasbrouck House and the Bevier-Elting House, are famous throughout the region. The English brought their tradition of grand country houses, scaled down for the rural gentry of colonial New York, to the banks of the Hudson River. These homes were generally two stories high with a central passageway and four rooms per floor. The Italian style, with a tall central facade, was also popular in the eighteenth century. The region’s heyday during the 1830s-1850s coincided with the popularity of the Greek Revival style, and the white clapboard siding and neoclassical detailing promoted by Asher Benjamin (and echoed in Evertson Hill’s design) are characteristic of the region. In the twentieth century, inspired by the magnificent natural landscape of the Hudson River Valley, architects like Marcel Breuer designed homes with large plate-glass windows to bring the outside indoors. Today, the large horse farms that dot the countryside and make the area an equestrian mecca are often converted dairy farms, heirs to Dutchess County’s proud agricultural heritage.


Evertson Hill is a new old house, designed in harmony with the region’s architectural legacy. It combines the wide windows of Breuer’s Wolfson Trailer House with the graceful symmetry of Asher Benjamin’s classically inspired designs. Detailing in the Colonial Revival style anchors the design and 1920s-inspired lighting provides a sense of historical continuity. However, it is the view across the rolling hills of John Evertson’s estate which is truly timeless. This is a landscape that has been home to many generations of Americans.