The original cellar, the size of one room, remains intact and abuts another cellar added later as the foundation of a larger house. A restoration contractor who had helped restore the home and had worked on similar homes for the National Parks Service told the owner that the house was built by Palatines who had immigrated to our country in the early 1700s from present-day Germany. With the promise of free land in the Colony of New York eleven ships carrying 3,000 Palatines arrived in New York in 1709 when the city’s population was only 6,000. Others followed. Many of the Palatines settled in the wilderness of the Hudson Valley. As the original family in the house grew so did the house expand which now has eleven rooms and three and a half baths. In the home’s various remodels many of the various 18th and 19th century architecture styles were incorporated into the house’s
construction, a pre-federal keeping-room, a federal style parlor, a late Victorian parlor, and adjoining both parlors a neo-classic Greco-Roman center hall.
Several rooms in the house are generously proportioned in length and width up to seventeen feet affording easy access from one room to another especially on the first floor's six rooms. The entire north wall of the house has adjoining kitchens, a settler’s keeping and dining room dominated by a large stone fireplace and built-in beehive oven, and a second modern kitchen equipped with new Jenn-Aire digital appliances and a six gas burner stove and open flame grill on a 22 foot long granite countertop. Both rooms together measure 45 feet in length.
The durability of this 300 year home is mostly hidden in the house’s superstructure--the large solid oak posts and beams--which are exposed in a few places, the large bearing wall support between the kitchen and the keeping room and on the second floor three ceiling cross support beams in the center bathroom and two 20 feet long ceiling support beams in the master bedroom.
The floors in all the rooms are one inch thick, wide-plank white pine or oak floor boards recently refinished and sealed in four coats of tong oil.
Other assets of the home, a national and state registered historic site, are too numerous to cite and include two unique antique wall hangings: a Persian Victorian style wallpaper in one parlor and a very rare 18th century copy of George Mason’s Virginia estate’s 1700s “Gunston Hall” wallhanging from the archives of Waterhouse Wallhangings of Boston. Two of the original center hall doors on the first floor are museum quality primitive wood grained mahogany. Three of the other doors in the center hall were missing and have been replaced with exact replicas.
Other appointments in the house include a hand painted Colonial floor cloth, several candle wall sconces, three valuable chandeliers, original and reproduction door locks, a Dutch door hung on hand forged iron hinges, a Colonial tin stove and many other period amenities.
Besides wide-board wood floors and tong oil there are many other lasting improvements in the house: Double paned insulated windows, newly insulated walls (first floor walls were re-plastered) and a recently installed composite slate roof carrying a fifty year warranty.
The seven rooms on the second floor were originally all bedrooms except the master bedroom and bathroom which were added by the owner in an unimproved wing of the house. The other six bedrooms were both adult and children’s rooms.
Three of the smaller rooms have been converted into a laundry room, bathrooms and a storage room.
The two and a half bathrooms upstairs are Victorian in style; two of the three second floor tiled Victorian bathrooms have enameled cast iron claw footed tubs.
The Master Bedroom seen here is the largest room in the house. Its ceiling rises eleven feet and is supported by two exposed axe-hewn oak beams. A small sitting area would easily fit into the room and include sofa, chairs, tables and desk.
In many homes (especially older homes) there is usually too little closet space while this house has three large walk-in closets and a 14 foot long storage room.
As specified in the website the home is located at 633 Ridgebury Road, Slate Hill, NY, a 70 minute drive to the George Washington Bridge and a five minute drive to a railroad commute in Middletown New York. Nearby shops and services are three to five miles away in Middletown.
FOR SALE BY OWNER, $590,000.00. Contact: 633ridgeburyroad@gmail.com.