Gerard Crane House

The Gerard Crane House is a residential building on Somerstown Turnpike ( U.S. Highway 202) towards the Old Croton Falls Road in Somers, New York, United States. The stone building dates from the mid-19th century. A circus entrepreneur, it had built in his later years.

The house is largely in the state in which it was originally built. It is an unusually detailed executed building in classical style of architecture. The interior makes extensive use of ornaments, especially stucco decorations in the style of the English Renaissance ceilings that are not often represented in rural houses of classicism.

This built in 1849 home is in the center of an approximately 12 -acre estate, which includes not only the original outbuildings, but also a former part of the Somerstown Turnpike and one of his milestones. The property was registered in 1985 as a Historic District on the National Register of Historic Places.

Estate

The property is located on the western side of the road, about 1600 m north of the town center of Somers, directly opposite the Old Croton Falls Road. At the sharp crossing a grassy section of the old route of the Somerstown Turnpike over the grounds in front of the house and then about a length of about 250 m runs parallel to Route 202 north past the house before the road takes this route again. The house stands on a slight hill; Outbuildings and gardens are located to the south of it. In total there is on the premises ten other contributing properties, five of which are buildings and other structures are five. A portion of the Rhinoceros Brooks passes on its way to the East Branch reservoir through the property.

House

The salient details of the house and the fine stone carvings are the characteristics of a country estate in the classical tradition. The stucco work in the style of the English Renaissance ceilings on the first floor were common in urban residential buildings of this type, however, are rather rare in buildings in the rural environment and reflect Cranes cosmopolitan flavor resist. In the house there is a two and a half storey stone building with five bays on a slightly elevated foundation, whose flat roof with a small dome and identical fireplaces in the north and south is provided. The granite facade was won in a local quarry and has an unusual naturally - marbled appearance. The eaves is deducted from the simple frieze with the simple cornice with a rotor row.

The entrance on the east façade is located at a centrally located portico with classical Doric columns that support a pediment with gezäahntem cornice. The slightly recessed ten inches thick mahogany door is framed by a fighter windows, side light inlet slots and a decorated frontispiece. The door at the rear is designed less detailed and is under a similar portico.

The interior of the house is richly decorated. There are library and living room with high ceilings on the north side of the central hall. The stucco ceilings go on a tape with a fillet strip in the Ceiling cornices with foliage ornaments and a wide strip of flowers and leaves on. Underneath, on the wall with a frieze on exactly detailed plaster miniatures of famous literary figures who surrounded and joined by oak leaves and acorns. The passageways and windows are framed by Corinthian pilasters and a sheet-like main beams. in the library hangs a chandelier in the center of an ornamented stucco medallions. Can likewise be found in the library, a fireplace in Italian marble. The spark arrester made ​​of cast iron is decorated with a crane made ​​of brass; the English word for this species is crane, as the name of the owner.

The dining room on the south side of the house has below the ceiling similarly styled stucco bands. The former music room was later converted into a kitchen. A less ornate fireplace is on the south side. The staircase, which is also made of mahogany, has turned wooden balusters, newel post and a beveled ornate risers.

The second floor is divided similarly, but less heavily decorated. All bedrooms are equipped with cast-iron heating slider. The attic on the third floor served as a ball room. Four double post frame this panel under the skylight and be surrounded by the L- shaped arranged rooms of the servants on the north side and the east side.

The kitchen in the basement is ursprüunglich. It has a large chimney and bread ovens. Among them is a chamber with a stone, which reflects the date of the foundation stone, and the names of the builders, and includes a built-in safe.

Outbuildings and gardens

Apart from the house located on the property five other contributing buildings. Right on the back is the former garden kitchen, which has since been converted to a double garage. The one-story building with a flat roof and the facades of granite with tiered parapets built into the mountainside. A little further back, also built into the steep mountain at this point, is the stall with steinerndem base and mansard roof, the outer walls are paneled in vertical boards. In the eastern gable is located next to a non-uniform fenestration an elliptical window and on the northwest corner of a silo. Also adjacent is a deep stone foundations, which are probably the remains of the ice house.

A well-house post and beam construction is located on the south side and a single storey workshop of granite, which also has a garage today, is in the northwest. Directly on the southwest corner of the house is the outhouse of granite blocks with a flat roof and an overhanging wooden balustrade and mahogany doors and a Aufschiebfenster with six slugs.

Among the contributing buildings include the iron fence on the original plot, the stone wall between the kitchen garden and the barn and a stone bridge over the stream. The former route of the Somerstown Turnpike, which now forms part of the access road to the property is also contributing as one of the milestones of early stone road route.

History

Crane and his brother Thaddeus were descendants of a colonel in the American Revolutionary War. They came in 1823 from her hometown, the nearby North Salem, according to Somers. The two had a foothold in what was still a new profession in the exhibition of exotic species and records show that it has a lion brought three years earlier in the Carolina states. They acquired the property from Hachaliah Bailey, whose elephant Old Beit are in the building now known as the Elephant Hotel as the beginnings of the circus being in America.

The two extended their menagerie, were partners and were also by its local partners continue to the west, up to the Mississippi River. The brothers were among the founders of a trade organization for zoo animals, the Zoological Institute; this collapsed during the economic crisis of 1837. Crane himself had a happier hand and worked as a director and later director of a local bank. At the beginning of the panic Crane had a four -year term as town clerk behind.

After marrying Roxana Purdy, Crane Built in 1849 the house. The records from the United States Census 1850 show that the Crane family with their six children and another woman lived at this address. Crane died in 1872. Since the house and the land remained in private ownership. With the exception of Gambreldaches of the stable and the reconstruction of the music room in the main house into a kitchen in the 1980s, there were no significant changes to the property.