Benjamin Ten Broeck House

The Ten Broeck Benjamin House, also known as Felten Ten Broeck Chmura House, a residential building in the Flatbush Road is (New York State Route 32) in the Town of Ulster north of Kingston, New York in the United States. It is a stone house that was built in three stages in the years before the American Revolution.

The owner was Benjamin Ten Broeck, a wealthy landowner on whose ground it was built. It was used to house his staff. Since its building was stopped, the house is the only remnant of his property. The design of the building is on the whole of Dutch origin, but the design of the kitchen suggests that the house was inhabited by Palatine immigrants. Vandalism and theft have led to some of the original interior is no longer present, but the overall historic integrity of the building is preserved. The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2005.

Building

The house is located on a 0.54 acre lot on the east side of Flatbush Road just south of the access ramps to the New York State Route 199 and the western entrance to the Kingston- Rhinecliff Bridge. The area consists largely of fields and forest land, some more houses are about 500 m further south on the same side of Flatbush Road. The house is about 60 meters from the road, from which it is shielded by tall trees. A non- paved driveway leads from the street to the house where it ends at a small roundabout.

The building is a one and a half floors scoring structure of fractured limestone blocks, which are whitewashed. The gable roof is covered with shingles of roofing felt, the pediments are covered with wood shingles. On the roof there are two fireplaces made ​​of brick and in the middle of the southern side of the roof two dormer windows.

The front of the house reflects the three phases of construction of the house. At the eastern end there is a veranda with half roof and the main entrance. In the central part there are two Aufschiebfenster with twelve stained glass windows, a pair of smaller windows follows the western end a side entrance. All windows are fitted with solid shutters that are painted in green and red. On the west side there are two windows, one for each floor, east facing, there are twice as many windows. At the back of the house, located to the north, there are only two windows are located at the west end and in the middle.

Each section of the building was formed in the interior through an open space. The central part has been divided into smaller spaces, and the level of the east side is located slightly lower than the rest of the house. The parts of the building to the east and the middle have open fireplaces, the latter. Having a Georgian fire surround Cropped ceiling beams support the attics above. The western and central part of the house are connected by a door planks with wrought-iron strap hinge and fittings.

History

1751-1770: original building

Benjamin Ten Broeck I, who built the house, was the great grandson of Wessel Ten Broeck, who with Peter Minuit arrived in the colony of New Netherland in 1626. Ten Broeck built in 1748 subsequently aborted his first residence on the land on which he built the first part of the house three years later, which should serve the tenant farmers on his land as a dwelling. A family named Felten, probably the descendants of the early 18th century by immigrants who had fled from the Palatinate were the first inhabitants.

Ten Broeck built the house in the style of the Dutch anonymous architecture, as applied by the Dutch settlers in the area. This also included an open, post free hearth in the center of the room that was used for cooking and heating. This part of the building was divided later. The western section of the house was built in 1765 in the second phase and continued the Dutch style.

The installation of removable beams on the western wall suggests that the original plan on this side an open hearth envisaged, but there is no such foundation exists. Therefore, it is likely that the plan was changed during construction to make a cast iron stove on a brick base course, which was heated with coal. This arrangement is typical of houses of German immigrants that time, pointing out that the residents of the house were of this origin.

In the last phase probably originated around 1770 the eastern part of the building; However, the style of contemporary additions in the middle part can also be a creation later than 1790 appear possible. The change from the open fireplace in the middle part was probably the result of the use of the new wing as a kitchen.

1777 - present: conversions and conservation

1777 British ships fired on the Hudson River on the Ten Broeck House, as Kingston was burned. The family sought refuge in the farmhouse, while the main house was repaired.

After the revolution, most of the Grundbesitztes remained the property of the Ten Broeck family, and this did not change until the beginning of the 20th century. Whether the family continued to live on the property, however, is not certain. According to one version lived Elizabeth Maraquat, the granddaughter of Benjamin Ten Broeck I, to 1820 in the main house, the earliest document which documents the owner of the land, from the year 1803 and indicates that it is from a locust Snyder from Kingston to William Prince from the Fairfield County, Connecticut been sold. From Snyder, who lived according to the document at that time on the property, it is believed that he was the younger brother of Mary Felten. This suggests that the previous tenant had already become owner of the land at the time.

The main house was demolished in 1904, so the House of tenant farmers is the only remnant of the once great manor house tenants. 1936, the house for the Historic American Buildings Survey ( HABS ) was documented. The photo documentation shows that the house was not yet surrounded by trees.

Fewer years later, in 1939, the house was visited by an antique dealer from Kingston. This collected artifacts for the Winterthur Museum in Delaware, and he managed to swap one of the original window by a historical simulation. He wanted to acquire the inner door, but the farmer Steven Chmura, who owned the house at the time, refused.

Since then, the house was in times of vacancy when changing the owner often subject to theft and vandalism. In this way, the original shutters and the door between the central part and western wings of the house were lost. Around 1990, the western door was bricked up and the floorboards were replaced by similarly designed new wood. The current owner had to replace the window frames.