A Revolutionary War Widow's Estate Becomes a Preservation Battleground
Robert Stolarik for The New York Times
Montgomery Place, a house and a 434-acre estate held by one family for
generations, is now owned by Historic Hudson Valley, a nonprofit group.
By STEPHANIE STROM
Published: November 16, 2009
ANNANDALE-ON-HUDSON, N.Y. - In the mid-1980s J. Dennis Delafield and his
cousins faced a hard fact: They could no longer afford to maintain the
estate established in 1802 by their distant ancestor, Janet Livingston
Montgomery, widow of Gen. Richard Montgomery, a hero of the Revolutionary
War.
A view of the Hudson and the Catskills from Montgomery Place, an estate
established by Janet Livingston Montgomery in 1802.
"It was eating us up alive," Mr. Delafield said of Montgomery Place, a
majestic house overlooking the Hudson River that is but one small part of
the 434-acre property here. "We had to let it go, though it broke our
hearts."
They decided to turn the house and its grounds, with working orchards and
more than a dozen outbuildings, into a museum. So they sold it to what is
now Historic Hudson Valley, a nonprofit group founded by John D. Rockefeller
Jr. that owns Washington Irving's house, Sunnyside, in Tarrytown, N.Y., and
several other properties.
"We made a bargain sale in the belief that that way the house would be
protected," Mr. Delafield said.
Now, though, Mr. Delafield and others are worried about the fate of
Montgomery Place. The house was closed to the public in 2006 - though the
grounds were available for weddings, photo shoots and other events - until
August, when it was hastily reopened for four hours on Fridays after a state
official began inquiring about its status. Under the terms of a state
financing package, the house must be open at least 12 days a year.
Rumors have run rampant this fall that Historic Hudson Valley plans to sell
the house, vexing public officials who have sought definitive information
from the group's leader, Waddell W. Stillman. "I've dealt with him on a
number of occasions, and I've never felt we always got the full story," said
Marcus J. Molinaro, the New York state assemblyman who represents the area.
In a recent interview at Montgomery Place, Mr. Stillman denied that the
organization's board planned to sell all or any part of the property. "We
have not discussed a sale," he said.
However, minutes of board meetings obtained by The New York Times make it
clear that the board discussed just that on several occasions. "Mr. Herbert
E. Nass asked whether we could sell Montgomery Place in parts, and whether
doing so could yield a better price over time," the minutes of a March 10
meeting state.
At the same meeting the board chairman, Michael Hegarty, raised concerns
about rebuilding the organization's endowment, which like many others was
hard hit by the economic downturn. "To do this, Mr. Hegarty believes we must
consider the sale of assets, such as the president's house adjacent to the
Philipsburg Manor" - another of the organization's historic houses - "and
some or perhaps all of the property at Montgomery Place," the minutes say.
The board even formed a committee to explore "existing conditions and
constraints" at Montgomery Place; at a June meeting its members described
several potential buyers, according to notes by board members.
Asked about the discrepancy, Mr. Stillman said the minutes represented "old
news." "The board's March meeting coincided exactly with the nadir in the
financial markets," he wrote in an e-mail message. "Everyone was distressed
about the decline in our endowment, and economic prospects were grim. A
wide-ranging discussion ensued about the sale of assets, including
Montgomery Place, and nothing was decided or acted upon, then or since."
"The topic is no longer on the board's agenda," he wrote.
A draft resolution to offer to sell some of the land to a state agency that
holds an easement on part of the estate had been floated for consideration
at a meeting on Wednesday.
Mr. Stillman said the resolution had not been considered by or proposed to
the board and would not be taken up on Wednesday. He also said the reopening
of the house on Fridays was unrelated to the state official's inquiries.
Mr. Stillman, who joined Historic Hudson Valley in 1992, said his group
could not afford the $500,000 in annual operating costs for Montgomery
Place, let alone pay for necessary renovations. Nor would it be possible to
reopen the house next year, as originally planned, he said. Indeed, he said,
the decision to buy the house in the first place had been a bad one. "We
broke some of the textbook rules for not getting ahead of yourself," he
said. "We didn't have the money to buy it, we didn't have the money to
maintain it, and we way underestimated how much it would take to restore
it."
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But several former board members, led by the Wall Street financier Richard
Jenrette, said they had proposed ways to support Montgomery Place, including
offers to help Historic Hudson Valley cover some costs.
Because of its continuous ownership by descendants of Mrs. Montgomery,
Montgomery Place is a rare example of an intact Hudson Valley estate.
Alexander Jackson Davis, the influential 19th-century architect who designed
many of the area's prominent houses, redesigned Montgomery and designed
several other structures on the property. The landscape architect Andrew
Jackson Downing provided advice on the design of the grounds and designed
one garden himself.
The house plays an important role in the community, too, Mr. Molinaro said,
attracting tourists and helping to educate students in the area's history.
Mr. Jenrette has proposed that Historic Hudson Valley donate the property to
the Classical American Homes Preservation Trust, a foundation to which he
has donated six historic houses. He and others have offered to create a
friends group to raise money to support Montgomery Place. Most recently, he
and John S. Dyson, another former board member and a venture capitalist,
offered to put up $100,000 a year for five years to keep it open. "We think
we can get at least another $100,000 to match that, and if we could create a
friends group, we could raise a lot more money," Mr. Jenrette said.
In a meeting earlier this month, however, Mr. Stillman and Mr. Hegarty
rejected that offer. Mr. Stillman said in the interview that he did not want
to create another nonprofit group that would do the same thing as Historic
Hudson Valley.
In addition to owning three other historic houses and a church in the
region, Historic Hudson Valley recently broke ground on a regional history
center in Pocantico Hills, N.Y., on nine acres donated by Laurance
Rockefeller.
The center will provide offices for the organization, as well as space for
scholars and researchers seeking access to its extensive archives and
records.
Mr. Stillman envisions creating a digital archive of the contents of
Historic Hudson Valley's houses to provide virtual tours and other
activities to attract a new breed of tourists.
Although the group does not yet have the $15 million it needs to build the
center, it began construction last month because it would otherwise lose a
$6 million grant from a state financing agency.
In their meetings, according to the minutes obtained by The Times, Historic
Hudson Valley board members discussed their concerns that public officials
and others would assume they were using proceeds from the sale of Montgomery
Place to finance the construction of the center.
"They will deny that, but money is fungible," said John H. Dobkin, a
preservation expert who was the organization's executive director from 1984
to 2000. "They'll say it's to replenish the endowment, but you don't sell a
unique asset like Montgomery Place to do that."
As chairman of the New York Genealogical and Biographical Society, Mr.
Stillman put through a plan ending that organization's membership structure,
selling its historic home and handing over its archives to the New York
Public Library, keeping only a digitized version of them. "Historic house
museums are in the same place as classical music orchestras," he said.
Historic Hudson Valley's endowment fell to $45 million last spring from
about $70 million and now stands at roughly $49 million, according to Rob
Schweitzer, spokesman for the organization.
By the standards of organizations supporting historic homes, that is a
handsome sum even at its depleted level. The Classical American Homes trust,
for example, operates six houses with $9 million in liquid assets.
"There's a pact between nonprofits and the people because we extend to them
certain tax benefits and, in the case of Historic Hudson Valley, millions of
dollars in public grants," Mr. Molinaro, the assemblyman, said.
"If they have a desire to divest of this asset, they certainly shouldn't
benefit financially from all that public investment."
