Staatsburgh State Historic Site

 museum, park

 Upload a photo

In 1792, Morgan Lewis, a Governor of New York, purchased an estate covering about 334 acres (1.3 km²) and commissioned the construction of a colonial-style house on the site of the present day mansion. In 1832, this first house was destroyed by a fire said to be an act of arson committed by disgruntled tenant farmers. After the fire, Morgan Lewis and his wife, Gertrude Livingston, a sister of Robert Livingston, immediately replaced the structure with a Greek Revival mansion with 25 rooms.

In 1890, Ruth Livingston Mills, the great-grand daughter of Morgan Lewis and the mother of Ogden L. Mills, Secretary of the Treasury, inherited the estate. Not long afterward, Ruth Livingston Mills and her husband, the financier and philanthropist Ogden Mills, commissioned a remodeling and enlargement of the mansion to the architectural firm of McKim, Mead, and White. The principal architect was Stanford White. Work started in 1895 and when completed the following year, had turned the house into a Beaux-Arts mansion with 65 rooms, 14 bathrooms, and 23 fireplaces. The cost of the work is reported to have been about $350,000. As part of the process, a coal-powered electricity plant was constructed near the Hudson river to supply the electric lights in the mansion, which was also equipped with central heating. The mansion was used as a residence and for entertaining by the family, which owned five homes in total, mainly during the fall season between mid-September and the Christmas holidays. During this time, they hosted house parties, balls, and dinners. During the remainder of the year, the family stayed in one of their other residences in New York City, Paris, Newport, or California. Before her death, Ruth Livingston Mills began acquiring lands surrounding the estate. After her death in 1920, Mr. Mills continued to purchase surrounding property, enlarging the acreage of the property to total over 1,600 acres (6.4 km²), the size of the mansion grounds at the time that it was given to the State of New York.

In 1929, the property was passed on to Ogden L. Mills and upon his death in 1937, on to his sister Gladys Mills Phipps. In 1938, Gladys Mills Phipps donated the house and 192 acres (0.78 km2) of land to the State of New York as a memorial to her parents. As a State Historic Site, the estate is operated by the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation. In 1988, the Friends of Mills Mansion were organized to support the preservation and educational work at the site.

www.staatsburgh.org/