Checkerboard Inn

Checkerboard Inn or Forshee - Jenkins House is the name for a arisen in timber frame construction building at Mansion Ridge Golf Club in Monroe, New York in the United States. Originally it was a house, which was built in 1802, converted to a guest tavern after the opening of the Orange Turnpike, an early toll road in New York. The name is based according to tradition, on the decision of a previous owner to paint the building in a checkerboard pattern to attract customers. Whether this tradition corresponds to the facts, is not fully understood.

In the 20th century the building was expanded to serve the New York cloth silk merchant Moses Migel family as a cottage. After a number of other owners and a prolonged period of neglect is now the Town of Monroe owner of the building, which is right next to the club house of the golf club. The city wants to use the unused building, which was registered on 29 November 2006 in the National Register of Historic Places as a museum of local history and seeks to finance the restoration.

Building Description

The house is built on a slope of a hill and offers views over the corresponding section of the New York-New Jersey Highlands and in the distance on the Shawangunk Ridge. At the north end of the building the establishment is visible. A group of trees surrounds the house on three sides, east of the remains of an old road are available.

The older main building is a eineinhalbstöckiger part of the building with five bays. The facade is made of aluminum plates over wooden shingles. In the middle of the home front is the main entrance, which is designed in the Federal style with fluted pilasters. These pilasters supporting a pediment above a cornice. From the shingled gable roof made ​​of asbestos protrude on both a per brick chimney outraged. The porch on the back of the house is pretty expire.

At the western end of the house a slightly recessed wing is attached, to the east leads another wing to the north. The easterly wing of which is the western similar, but a bit bigger. On the north side of the house both wings frame a terrace.

The floor plan of the house is arranged around the central hall; a fireplace at each end heats the house. The walls have been exported from plastered wooden slats and replaced most likely since its construction. The majority of the interior is original, with the exception of the bathroom and an adjacent cabinet, which built into the 20th century. The basement is not expanded.

History

Between 1790 and 1810 the main building was built as an anonymous architecture for a local farmer by the name of Bernard Forshee. The Orange Turnpike, which the State Routes 17 and 17M forms elsewhere in the County today, was built in 1802 behind the house past - a segment of the road bed is east of the house yet received, a milestone was stolen.

Sometime during the existence of the Turnpike as a toll road, the house was converted into an inn for travelers. Since it was located directly south of the present-day village Village of Monroe, where there were several other inns located Forshee his house probably decided therefore to checkerboard black and white coat. He sold it in 1823 to his son John, who ten years later sold it to Ira Jenkins. At that time, many of the early toll roads in the United States were converted into public ownership, as operators were not able to pay for their upkeep. It is believed that the use of the house was completed as an inn, the checkerboard paint was retained, and traces of it still existed at the beginning of the 20th century.

The New York silk merchant Moses Charles Migel bought the property and adjacent properties in 1916 to make his 230 acre farm Greenbraes (around 90 acres ) large residence. Because he intended to build a stone barn and a house near the Checkerboard Inn - today's clubhouse of the golf club - had to be moved to the property, the access road. This could also be defused the steep descent to Monroe. Migel paid the relocation of the road to its present location; Mary Harriman granted the right of way.

Three years later, Migels son Richard was now tall and married, two wings were added to the house to accommodate the growing family, and a shed roof at the rear, the only significant change to the building since its existence. The original cast-iron components whose maintenance the Migels intended, were mistakenly melted down as scrap during reconstruction.

The house remained until the extract of the last private owner of the mid-1990s a residential building. It then passed into the ownership of a construction company, Great Expectations. The company had the property Migel fully purchased to create here a golf course apartment complex. As part of the approval process, the company donated the Checkerboard Inn in 2003, the Town of Monroe. Three years later, the city, to try to convert the Checkerboard Inn in a local museum to government assistance began.