Oliver Barrett House
Encyclopedia
The Oliver Barrett House is located on Reagan Road in the Town of North East, New York
, United States, south of the village of Millerton
. It is a frame
farmhouse built in the mid-19th century, possibly on the site or with materials from another, older house. In the early 20th century it underwent substantial renovations, particularly of its interior. Later in the century it was subdivided into rental units, a conversion reversed by more recent owners.
It combines the Federal and Queen Anne
architectural style
s. Barrett, a successful farmer who became the first postmaster of the small rural hamlet in the area. It has been a contributing property
to the Coleman Station
Historic District
since that was created in 1991, and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places
in its own right in 2000.
and a mile (1.6 km) west of the Connecticut
state line. It sits near the bottom of the topographical
bowl that forms Coleman Station, on an 11.8 acres (4.8 ha) parcel, mostly clear with some mature trees clustered south of the house, on the east side of the road. The surrounding land is gently rolling, with the house on a small rise that drops to a small pond in the rear formed by a tributary
of Webutuck Creek.
Opposite the creek the ground rises sharply again to Hiddenhurst
, the early 20th-century retirement estate of Thomas Hidden, now itself listed on the National Register as well. To the south, across Sheffield Hill Road, are some former worker housing from the former Sheffield Farm dairy
complex nearby. Across Reagan Road, to the northwest of the property, is the Victorian
Arthur Peck House, another contributing property to the district. The land to the southwest, across the rail trail, rises sharply into a woodlot
.
There are four resources on the property, two buildings and two sites. The house and the sites of an original barn and silo, as well as that of the post office
which served Coleman Station for a century, are considered contributing resources to the National Register listing. The garage, built around 1989, is not.
structure of hand-hewn heavy timber frame
on a foundation
of concrete and stone. It is sided
in weatherboard
and topped with an asphalt side-gable
d roof with slightly overhanging eave pierced by two brick chimneys. There is a projecting rear wing with extensions.
A wraparound porch with wooden guardrail and a flat roof supported by round wooden columns runs the length of the west and south elevations. A set of wooden steps lead up to the centrally located main entrance. Above it at the roofline is a pediment
with a small casement window
. All the other windows are double-hung sash
with louver
ed shutters
. The three-bay north and south elevations have a double window at the attic level, with the lower story windows slightly offset to the east and a smaller window between the two on the second story. Fenestration
on the rear is asymmetrical and irregular.
The kitchen wing, attached at the northeast, is a full two stories. From it another wing of one and a half stories projects further east. Both have identical treatments to the main block. At the east end of the second wing's north elevation there is an entrance with small porch.
ed glass opens into a wide center hallway, floored
in wide oak strips, with a large oak staircase. A paneled door on the north leads to a small parlor, with large double pocket door
s leading to a larger parlor and another small single pocket door opening into a large mourning room. In both of these rooms the oak strips on the floor are arranged in a pattern of concentric rectangles. A double pocket door separates them. On the south wall of the parlor is a brick fireplace, built later, with original wooden mantelpiece. The windows have heavy oak trim, raised panels beneath them and a beveled-edge mirror between the two on the west wall.
The room on the north side of the hall has a brick corner fireplace with an oak mantel
and beveled mirror above. One of the original cranes remains in the fireplace. Flooring is medium-width oak strip original to the house.
On the south side of the central hall, is another double pocket door leading to the dining room and a small closet built into the paneling below the stairs. All doors on the central hallway have raised panels and brass hardware original to the early 20th century, when they were installed. A door leads from this room to the dining room, in the rear wing.
The main entrance to the dining room is the pair of pocket doors at the east end of the center hall. It has diagonal maple-strip flooring and an oak and glass china cupboard
. The south wall has an exterior door of oak paneling with a beveled glass window, flanked by two large windows with raised panels below.
Another door leads into the kitchen wing, which includes a full bathroom and pantry, the latter now used as a laundry room. It is floored in large terra cotta
tiles. An original staircase, with rounded pine handrail and square newel
s and baluster
s leads upstairs.
The second floor is laid out similarly to the first, on a center hall plan. Its hallway turns toward the rear to access the backstairs to the attic, with risers slightly steeper than those on the other stairs. There is a small kitchenette
in the south room. Many doors are original, with one having an original thumb latch. The floor is wideboard pine, most of it original.
In the basement, under the entire house except for the rear extension, the original hand-hewn timber is visible. The beams below the front parlor with the corner fireplace are half-round with bark still attached, and the walls there mortared
-over stone instead of the concrete elsewhere in the basement. The heavy board-and-batten
doors between the three rooms and their hardware are original. The sub-flooring under the parlor and mourning room runs on a diagonal to support the unusual pattern above it.
. Ezra also bought land from two other farmers in the area, increasing the total landholding to over 150 acres (60.7 ha) at its greatest extent.
Oliver Barrett, born in 1819, was the youngest of the couple's five children. He grew up and became a successful farmer, eventually becoming one of the largest producers of fluid milk in an area gradually transitioning from diverse animal farming to dairy farming
. In the late 1840s the New York and Harlem Railroad
, the state's first, was built through the area. A neighbor, John Wheeler, petitioned the Post Office to open a branch in the area, then known as Oblong due to its location in a thus-shaped region at the center of colonial-era land dispute between New York and Connecticut.
In 1853 the post office was designated. Ten months later Barrett was appointed its first postmaster
. He served in the position for 14 years, during which he was also a local justice of the peace
.
maps do not show a house at the location until 1867, but the house's initial architectural style
, combining a basic Federal appearance with some late Greek Revival
touches, strongly suggests a construction date prior to the Civil War
. It would have been common for a prosperous young farmer to move into a new house with his bride at the time of their wedding, as well.
The house's interior suggests either the expansion or reconstruction of an existing house, possibly after a fire. The first story's corner fireplace, and the stone foundation beneath one of the parlors, may be the remnants of an older, prior structure. It has also been suggested that a smaller house elsewhere was moved to the current site and used as the basis for an expanded house.
A railroad station
was built nearby in the late 1860s. It would eventually lead to the area being known as Coleman's Station after Amasa Coleman, the local entrepreneur who lobbied what was by then the New York Central Railroad
for a station that could serve the dairy farmers primarily, since the Sharon
station several miles to the south was handling both their produce and passenger traffic from wealthy summer vacationers heading to and from New York City and the town of the same name
across the state line. In 1872 the Post Office officially changed the name of the local office to Coleman's Station from Oblong.
Oliver Barrett resumed the postmaster's duties with the name change. His wife had died two years earlier, so he remarried. Julia Elizabeth Pulver became his wife in 1874. His son Ezra Lathrop Barrett, known professionally as E. Lathrop Barrett, became the railroad's station agent
, a job complementary to his father's. Barrett would remain postmaster until retiring in 1892. He came out of retirement in 1895 and served until his death the following year.
The next year Rhoda Louise Barrett bought out her siblings' share of the estate. They sold a small parcel of land across the street to Arthur Peck, a businessman who owned a tavern
in nearby Millerton
, by then established as the commercial and civil center of the Town of North East. The deed
allowed him to build a house on the property but prohibited him from building another tavern in Coleman Station's small commercial area around the rail depot.
styles, particularly the Queen Anne
style. The wraparound porch was added to the exterior, and much of the current interior was remodeled in this style at that time.
Starting in the 1920s, the Schutts began to break up the farm. Eventually all but 55 acres (22.3 ha) was sold to Sheffield Farms, a large corporate farm
that had acquired all or most of some of the surrounding family farms. It would, by the middle of the century, become one of New York City's largest suppliers of milk.
After Rhoda's death in 1941, the farm and house were sold to a Meyer Sutter. He in turn sold to William Greenberg in 1947, who sold it to Stanley Duncan, husband of a descendant of another nearby 19th century farmer. At some point afterwards, the house was converted into a three-unit rental property and more land sold until the land reached its present size and was no longer used as a farm. The Post Office closed the Coleman Station post office in 1954, and the only remaining barn and silo from the original farm burned down sometime before 1970. The remains of both are the property's other two contributing resources.
In 1986 the Duncan family sold the house again. The new owners restored it to single-family use. In 1990 they added the mourning room fireplace and a third chimney, and the pond west of the house. There have been no other changes made to the house and property since then.
North East, New York
North East is a town in Dutchess County, New York, United States. The population was 3,002 at the 2000 census.The Town of North East is in the northeastern part of the county...
, United States, south of the village of Millerton
Millerton, New York
Millerton is a village in Dutchess County, New York, United States. The population was 925 at the 2000 census. It is part of the Poughkeepsie–Newburgh–Middletown, NY Metropolitan Statistical Area as well as the larger New York–Newark–Bridgeport, NY-NJ-CT-PA Combined...
. It is a frame
Framing (construction)
Framing, in construction known as light-frame construction, is a building technique based around structural members, usually called studs, which provide a stable frame to which interior and exterior wall coverings are attached, and covered by a roof comprising horizontal ceiling joists and sloping...
farmhouse built in the mid-19th century, possibly on the site or with materials from another, older house. In the early 20th century it underwent substantial renovations, particularly of its interior. Later in the century it was subdivided into rental units, a conversion reversed by more recent owners.
It combines the Federal and Queen Anne
Queen Anne Style architecture
The Queen Anne Style in Britain means either the English Baroque architectural style roughly of the reign of Queen Anne , or a revived form that was popular in the last quarter of the 19th century and the early decades of the 20th century...
architectural style
Architectural style
Architectural styles classify architecture in terms of the use of form, techniques, materials, time period, region and other stylistic influences. It overlaps with, and emerges from the study of the evolution and history of architecture...
s. Barrett, a successful farmer who became the first postmaster of the small rural hamlet in the area. It has been a contributing property
Contributing property
In the law regulating historic districts in the United States, a contributing resource or contributing property is any building, structure, or object which adds to the historical integrity or architectural qualities that make the historic district, listed locally or federally, significant...
to the Coleman Station
Coleman Station Historic District
The Coleman Station Historic District is located around the former New York Central Railroad Coleman's station in the Town of North East, New York, United States, a short distance south of the village of Millerton. It is a rural area including several large farms in the southeastern corner of the...
Historic District
Historic district (United States)
In the United States, a historic district is a group of buildings, properties, or sites that have been designated by one of several entities on different levels as historically or architecturally significant. Buildings, structures, objects and sites within a historic district are normally divided...
since that was created in 1991, and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...
in its own right in 2000.
Buildings and grounds
The house is north of the three-way intersection of Coleman Station, Reagan and Sheffield Hill roads, just east of the Harlem Valley Rail TrailHarlem Valley Rail Trail
The Harlem Valley Rail Trail is a paved rail trail on an abandoned portion of the New York and Harlem Railroad, north of the Metro-North Railroad Harlem Line terminus in Wassaic. It is owned by the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation...
and a mile (1.6 km) west of the Connecticut
Connecticut
Connecticut is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, and the state of New York to the west and the south .Connecticut is named for the Connecticut River, the major U.S. river that approximately...
state line. It sits near the bottom of the topographical
Topography
Topography is the study of Earth's surface shape and features or those ofplanets, moons, and asteroids...
bowl that forms Coleman Station, on an 11.8 acres (4.8 ha) parcel, mostly clear with some mature trees clustered south of the house, on the east side of the road. The surrounding land is gently rolling, with the house on a small rise that drops to a small pond in the rear formed by a tributary
Tributary
A tributary or affluent is a stream or river that flows into a main stem river or a lake. A tributary does not flow directly into a sea or ocean...
of Webutuck Creek.
Opposite the creek the ground rises sharply again to Hiddenhurst
Hiddenhurst
Hiddenhurst is the former estate of businessman Thomas Hidden, on Sheffield Hill Road in the Town of North East, New York, United States, south of the village of Millerton. It is an elaborate frame house built at the beginning of the 20th century in the neo-Georgian architectural style.Hidden...
, the early 20th-century retirement estate of Thomas Hidden, now itself listed on the National Register as well. To the south, across Sheffield Hill Road, are some former worker housing from the former Sheffield Farm dairy
Dairy farming
Dairy farming is a class of agricultural, or an animal husbandry, enterprise, for long-term production of milk, usually from dairy cows but also from goats and sheep, which may be either processed on-site or transported to a dairy factory for processing and eventual retail sale.Most dairy farms...
complex nearby. Across Reagan Road, to the northwest of the property, is the Victorian
Victorian architecture
The term Victorian architecture refers collectively to several architectural styles employed predominantly during the middle and late 19th century. The period that it indicates may slightly overlap the actual reign, 20 June 1837 – 22 January 1901, of Queen Victoria. This represents the British and...
Arthur Peck House, another contributing property to the district. The land to the southwest, across the rail trail, rises sharply into a woodlot
Woodlot
A woodlot is a term used in North America to refer to a segment of a woodland or forest capable of small-scale production of forest products such as wood fuel, sap for maple syrup, sawlogs, as well as recreational uses like bird watching, bushwalking, and wildflower appreciation...
.
There are four resources on the property, two buildings and two sites. The house and the sites of an original barn and silo, as well as that of the post office
Post office
A post office is a facility forming part of a postal system for the posting, receipt, sorting, handling, transmission or delivery of mail.Post offices offer mail-related services such as post office boxes, postage and packaging supplies...
which served Coleman Station for a century, are considered contributing resources to the National Register listing. The garage, built around 1989, is not.
Exterior
The main block of the house is a two-story, five-bayBay (architecture)
A bay is a unit of form in architecture. This unit is defined as the zone between the outer edges of an engaged column, pilaster, or post; or within a window frame, doorframe, or vertical 'bas relief' wall form.-Defining elements:...
structure of hand-hewn heavy timber frame
Timber framing
Timber framing , or half-timbering, also called in North America "post-and-beam" construction, is the method of creating structures using heavy squared off and carefully fitted and joined timbers with joints secured by large wooden pegs . It is commonplace in large barns...
on a foundation
Foundation (architecture)
A foundation is the lowest and supporting layer of a structure. Foundations are generally divided into two categories: shallow foundations and deep foundations.-Shallow foundations:...
of concrete and stone. It is sided
Siding
Siding is the outer covering or cladding of a house meant to shed water and protect from the effects of weather. On a building that uses siding, it may act as a key element in the aesthetic beauty of the structure and directly influence its property value....
in weatherboard
Weatherboarding
Weatherboarding is the cladding or ‘siding’ of a house consisting of long thin timber boards that overlap one another, either vertically or horizontally on the outside of the wall. They are usually of rectangular section with parallel sides...
and topped with an asphalt side-gable
Gable
A gable is the generally triangular portion of a wall between the edges of a sloping roof. The shape of the gable and how it is detailed depends on the structural system being used and aesthetic concerns. Thus the type of roof enclosing the volume dictates the shape of the gable...
d roof with slightly overhanging eave pierced by two brick chimneys. There is a projecting rear wing with extensions.
A wraparound porch with wooden guardrail and a flat roof supported by round wooden columns runs the length of the west and south elevations. A set of wooden steps lead up to the centrally located main entrance. Above it at the roofline is a pediment
Pediment
A pediment is a classical architectural element consisting of the triangular section found above the horizontal structure , typically supported by columns. The gable end of the pediment is surrounded by the cornice moulding...
with a small casement window
Casement window
A casement window is a window that is attached to its frame by one or more hinges. Casement windows are hinged at the side. A casement window (or casement) is a window that is attached to its frame by one or more hinges. Casement windows are hinged at the side. A casement window (or casement) is a...
. All the other windows are double-hung sash
Sash window
A sash window or hung sash window is made of one or more movable panels or "sashes" that form a frame to hold panes of glass, which are often separated from other panes by narrow muntins...
with louver
Louver
A louver or louvre , from the French l'ouvert; "the open one") is a window, blind or shutter with horizontal slats that are angled to admit light and air, but to keep out rain, direct sunshine, and noise...
ed shutters
Window shutter
A window shutter is a solid and stable window covering usually consisting of a frame of vertical stiles and horizontal rails...
. The three-bay north and south elevations have a double window at the attic level, with the lower story windows slightly offset to the east and a smaller window between the two on the second story. Fenestration
Building envelope
The building envelope is the physical separator between the interior and the exterior environments of a building. Another emerging term is "Building Enclosure". It serves as the outer shell to help maintain the indoor environment and facilitate its climate control...
on the rear is asymmetrical and irregular.
The kitchen wing, attached at the northeast, is a full two stories. From it another wing of one and a half stories projects further east. Both have identical treatments to the main block. At the east end of the second wing's north elevation there is an entrance with small porch.
Interior
At the main entrance, an oak paneled door with original bevelBevel
A beveled edge refers to an edge of a structure that is not perpendicular to the faces of the piece. The words bevel and chamfer overlap in usage; in general usage they are often interchanged, while in technical usage they may sometimes be differentiated as shown in the image at right.-Cutting...
ed glass opens into a wide center hallway, floored
Flooring
Flooring is the general term for a permanent covering of a floor, or for the work of installing such a floor covering. Floor covering is a term to generically describe any finish material applied over a floor structure to provide a walking surface...
in wide oak strips, with a large oak staircase. A paneled door on the north leads to a small parlor, with large double pocket door
Pocket door
A pocket door is a sliding door that disappears, when fully open, into a compartment in the adjacent wall. Pocket doors are used for architectural effect, or when there is no room for the swing of a hinged door. They usually travel on rollers suspended from an overhead track, although some also...
s leading to a larger parlor and another small single pocket door opening into a large mourning room. In both of these rooms the oak strips on the floor are arranged in a pattern of concentric rectangles. A double pocket door separates them. On the south wall of the parlor is a brick fireplace, built later, with original wooden mantelpiece. The windows have heavy oak trim, raised panels beneath them and a beveled-edge mirror between the two on the west wall.
The room on the north side of the hall has a brick corner fireplace with an oak mantel
Fireplace mantel
Fireplace mantel or mantelpiece, also known as a chimneypiece, originated in medieval times as a hood that projected over a grate to catch the smoke. The term has evolved to include the decorative framework around the fireplace, and can include elaborate designs extending to the ceiling...
and beveled mirror above. One of the original cranes remains in the fireplace. Flooring is medium-width oak strip original to the house.
On the south side of the central hall, is another double pocket door leading to the dining room and a small closet built into the paneling below the stairs. All doors on the central hallway have raised panels and brass hardware original to the early 20th century, when they were installed. A door leads from this room to the dining room, in the rear wing.
The main entrance to the dining room is the pair of pocket doors at the east end of the center hall. It has diagonal maple-strip flooring and an oak and glass china cupboard
Cupboard
A cupboard or press is a type of cabinet, often made of wood, used indoors to store household objects such as food, crockery, textiles and liquor, and protect them from dust,vermin and dirt....
. The south wall has an exterior door of oak paneling with a beveled glass window, flanked by two large windows with raised panels below.
Another door leads into the kitchen wing, which includes a full bathroom and pantry, the latter now used as a laundry room. It is floored in large terra cotta
Terra cotta
Terracotta, Terra cotta or Terra-cotta is a clay-based unglazed ceramic, although the term can also be applied to glazed ceramics where the fired body is porous and red in color...
tiles. An original staircase, with rounded pine handrail and square newel
Newel
A newel, also called a central pole, is an upright post that supports the handrail of a stair banister. In stairs having straight flights it is the principal post at the foot of the staircase, but it can also be used for the intermediate posts on landings and at the top of a staircase...
s and baluster
Baluster
A baluster is a moulded shaft, square or of lathe-turned form, one of various forms of spindle in woodwork, made of stone or wood and sometimes of metal, standing on a unifying footing, and supporting the coping of a parapet or the handrail of a staircase. Multiplied in this way, they form a...
s leads upstairs.
The second floor is laid out similarly to the first, on a center hall plan. Its hallway turns toward the rear to access the backstairs to the attic, with risers slightly steeper than those on the other stairs. There is a small kitchenette
Kitchenette
A kitchenette is a small cooking area.In motel and hotel rooms, small apartments, college dormitories, or office buildings a kitchenette usually consists of a small refrigerator, a microwave oven or hotplate, and, less frequently, a sink...
in the south room. Many doors are original, with one having an original thumb latch. The floor is wideboard pine, most of it original.
In the basement, under the entire house except for the rear extension, the original hand-hewn timber is visible. The beams below the front parlor with the corner fireplace are half-round with bark still attached, and the walls there mortared
Mortar (masonry)
Mortar is a workable paste used to bind construction blocks together and fill the gaps between them. The blocks may be stone, brick, cinder blocks, etc. Mortar becomes hard when it sets, resulting in a rigid aggregate structure. Modern mortars are typically made from a mixture of sand, a binder...
-over stone instead of the concrete elsewhere in the basement. The heavy board-and-batten
Batten
A batten is a thin strip of solid material, typically made from wood, plastic or metal. Battens are used in building construction and various other fields as both structural and purely cosmetic elements...
doors between the three rooms and their hardware are original. The sub-flooring under the parlor and mourning room runs on a diagonal to support the unusual pattern above it.
History
Although its own origins are murky, the Barrett House's history is intertwined with the development of Coleman Station from a remote farm community in the early days of settlement to a dairy production center today. Its existence and renovation correspond with changes in its community.1808–1853: Development of Barrett farms
The Barrett name's presence in Coleman Station dates formally to 1808, when Caleb Dakin, the son of an early landowner in the area, sold 50 acres (20.2 ha) to his son-in-law Ezra Barrett. When Ezra died in 1819, his daughter Rhoda inherited more land and an interest in her father's estateEstate (law)
An estate is the net worth of a person at any point in time. It is the sum of a person's assets - legal rights, interests and entitlements to property of any kind - less all liabilities at that time. The issue is of special legal significance on a question of bankruptcy and death of the person...
. Ezra also bought land from two other farmers in the area, increasing the total landholding to over 150 acres (60.7 ha) at its greatest extent.
Oliver Barrett, born in 1819, was the youngest of the couple's five children. He grew up and became a successful farmer, eventually becoming one of the largest producers of fluid milk in an area gradually transitioning from diverse animal farming to dairy farming
Dairy farming
Dairy farming is a class of agricultural, or an animal husbandry, enterprise, for long-term production of milk, usually from dairy cows but also from goats and sheep, which may be either processed on-site or transported to a dairy factory for processing and eventual retail sale.Most dairy farms...
. In the late 1840s the New York and Harlem Railroad
New York and Harlem Railroad
The New York and Harlem Railroad was one of the first railroads in the United States, and possibly also the world's first street railway. Designed by John Stephenson, it was opened in stages between 1832 and 1852 between Lower Manhattan to and beyond Harlem...
, the state's first, was built through the area. A neighbor, John Wheeler, petitioned the Post Office to open a branch in the area, then known as Oblong due to its location in a thus-shaped region at the center of colonial-era land dispute between New York and Connecticut.
In 1853 the post office was designated. Ten months later Barrett was appointed its first postmaster
Postmaster
A postmaster is the head of an individual post office. Postmistress is not used anymore in the United States, as the "master" component of the word refers to a person of authority and has no gender quality...
. He served in the position for 14 years, during which he was also a local justice of the peace
Justice of the Peace
A justice of the peace is a puisne judicial officer elected or appointed by means of a commission to keep the peace. Depending on the jurisdiction, they might dispense summary justice or merely deal with local administrative applications in common law jurisdictions...
.
1853–1915: First version of house
Barrett married his first wife, Catherine Hornfager, in late 1854, a year after assuming the postmaster's responsibilities. It is believed the house was built sometime before his wedding, though its origins are unclear. Local taxProperty tax
A property tax is an ad valorem levy on the value of property that the owner is required to pay. The tax is levied by the governing authority of the jurisdiction in which the property is located; it may be paid to a national government, a federated state or a municipality...
maps do not show a house at the location until 1867, but the house's initial architectural style
Architectural style
Architectural styles classify architecture in terms of the use of form, techniques, materials, time period, region and other stylistic influences. It overlaps with, and emerges from the study of the evolution and history of architecture...
, combining a basic Federal appearance with some late Greek Revival
Greek Revival architecture
The Greek Revival was an architectural movement of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, predominantly in Northern Europe and the United States. A product of Hellenism, it may be looked upon as the last phase in the development of Neoclassical architecture...
touches, strongly suggests a construction date prior to the Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
. It would have been common for a prosperous young farmer to move into a new house with his bride at the time of their wedding, as well.
The house's interior suggests either the expansion or reconstruction of an existing house, possibly after a fire. The first story's corner fireplace, and the stone foundation beneath one of the parlors, may be the remnants of an older, prior structure. It has also been suggested that a smaller house elsewhere was moved to the current site and used as the basis for an expanded house.
A railroad station
Coleman's (NYCRR station)
Colemans was a former NYCRR train station that served the residents of North East, New York.Colemans operated primarily as a freight stop, but began accepting passengers by the late 1950s. Today it is located along the Harlem Valley Rail Trail in the middle of the Coleman Station Historic District....
was built nearby in the late 1860s. It would eventually lead to the area being known as Coleman's Station after Amasa Coleman, the local entrepreneur who lobbied what was by then the New York Central Railroad
New York Central Railroad
The New York Central Railroad , known simply as the New York Central in its publicity, was a railroad operating in the Northeastern United States...
for a station that could serve the dairy farmers primarily, since the Sharon
Sharon (NYCRR station)
Sharon is a former NYCRR train station that served the residents of Amenia, New York.-History:This station served the nearby town of Sharon, Connecticut. Despite its name, Sharon Station is not actually located in Sharon, Connecticut but is located over the state border and catered to the residents...
station several miles to the south was handling both their produce and passenger traffic from wealthy summer vacationers heading to and from New York City and the town of the same name
Sharon, Connecticut
Sharon is a town located in Litchfield County, Connecticut, in the northwest corner of the state. It is bounded on the north by Salisbury, on the east by the Housatonic River, on the south by Kent, and on the west by Dutchess County, New York...
across the state line. In 1872 the Post Office officially changed the name of the local office to Coleman's Station from Oblong.
Oliver Barrett resumed the postmaster's duties with the name change. His wife had died two years earlier, so he remarried. Julia Elizabeth Pulver became his wife in 1874. His son Ezra Lathrop Barrett, known professionally as E. Lathrop Barrett, became the railroad's station agent
Station agent
In many countries, the station agent is the person in charge of a railway station Variants of station agents can also work at other transit terminals such as airports, ferry terminals, etc....
, a job complementary to his father's. Barrett would remain postmaster until retiring in 1892. He came out of retirement in 1895 and served until his death the following year.
The next year Rhoda Louise Barrett bought out her siblings' share of the estate. They sold a small parcel of land across the street to Arthur Peck, a businessman who owned a tavern
Tavern
A tavern is a place of business where people gather to drink alcoholic beverages and be served food, and in some cases, where travelers receive lodging....
in nearby Millerton
Millerton, New York
Millerton is a village in Dutchess County, New York, United States. The population was 925 at the 2000 census. It is part of the Poughkeepsie–Newburgh–Middletown, NY Metropolitan Statistical Area as well as the larger New York–Newark–Bridgeport, NY-NJ-CT-PA Combined...
, by then established as the commercial and civil center of the Town of North East. The deed
Deed
A deed is any legal instrument in writing which passes, or affirms or confirms something which passes, an interest, right, or property and that is signed, attested, delivered, and in some jurisdictions sealed...
allowed him to build a house on the property but prohibited him from building another tavern in Coleman Station's small commercial area around the rail depot.
1915–present: Renovations and conversions
Rhoda married the following year. Her new husband, Howard Schutt, became postmaster in 1908. He held this job for another ten years. Near the end of that period, in 1915, they embarked on a substantial renovation of the family homestead. Many of their changes were in the last phases of the VictorianVictorian architecture
The term Victorian architecture refers collectively to several architectural styles employed predominantly during the middle and late 19th century. The period that it indicates may slightly overlap the actual reign, 20 June 1837 – 22 January 1901, of Queen Victoria. This represents the British and...
styles, particularly the Queen Anne
Queen Anne Style architecture
The Queen Anne Style in Britain means either the English Baroque architectural style roughly of the reign of Queen Anne , or a revived form that was popular in the last quarter of the 19th century and the early decades of the 20th century...
style. The wraparound porch was added to the exterior, and much of the current interior was remodeled in this style at that time.
Starting in the 1920s, the Schutts began to break up the farm. Eventually all but 55 acres (22.3 ha) was sold to Sheffield Farms, a large corporate farm
Corporate farming
Corporate farming is a term that describes the business of agriculture, specifically, what is seen by some as the practices of would-be megacorporations involved in food production on a very large scale...
that had acquired all or most of some of the surrounding family farms. It would, by the middle of the century, become one of New York City's largest suppliers of milk.
After Rhoda's death in 1941, the farm and house were sold to a Meyer Sutter. He in turn sold to William Greenberg in 1947, who sold it to Stanley Duncan, husband of a descendant of another nearby 19th century farmer. At some point afterwards, the house was converted into a three-unit rental property and more land sold until the land reached its present size and was no longer used as a farm. The Post Office closed the Coleman Station post office in 1954, and the only remaining barn and silo from the original farm burned down sometime before 1970. The remains of both are the property's other two contributing resources.
In 1986 the Duncan family sold the house again. The new owners restored it to single-family use. In 1990 they added the mourning room fireplace and a third chimney, and the pond west of the house. There have been no other changes made to the house and property since then.