03/18/2019
On Thursday March 21st at 7:00 pm The Beacon Sloop Club’s 2018 Winter Lecture Series Presents: From Feudalism to Commuters, 300 Years of Hudson Valley Communities. Architectural historian James Kelly will illustrate how the great estate communities of the Hudson River Valley developed and evolved, using historic maps, illustrations and photos.
The Hudson River Valley is lined with hamlets, villages and suburbs such as Garrison, New Hamburg, Balmville and Rhinecliff, that were largely comprised of unbroken strings of estates and mansions, with contributing outbuildings and landscaped grounds. Symbiotic economic relationships existed between the estates and their neighboring farms and hamlets. Many factors contributed to their development, valuable arable land with access to river shipping and transportation and later the picturesque movement in art, architecture and landscaping.
Beginning with the Dutch and English land grants of the 17th & 18th centuries, followed by the estate building boom made possible by the railroads, through the decline of the Hudson River Valley as a fashionable destination of the wealthy in the early 20th century, to the present day, we will trace evolution of the area.
We will also examine how many estate properties were repurposed beginning in the early 20th century as religious institutions and schools, as well as the development of house museums, land trusts and the revival of many estates as seasonal homes of the extremely wealthy from the late 20th century through the present.
James Kelly is an architectural historian and a member of the City of Newburgh’s Architectural Review Commission.
This free event is an invitation to explore the rich history of the Hudson River Valley.
For more information visit our website www.beaconsloopclub.org or call (845) 463-4660, (914) 879-1082
