Mar 21, 2023
Merchant'S House Museum
Built 1832, for Joseph Brewster (1787-1854) who lived here for two years before selling to Seabury Tredwell (1780-1865) with whom it is best associated, his family having occupied it for just over an hundred years. This magnificent portal to the past is New York's oldest townhouse, its first ever designated landmark, and the only Historic House Museum in Greenwich - it also has the reputation of being among the most haunted houses in Manhattan. Pulitzer Prize-winning architecture critic Ada Louise Huxtable called it "the real thing" - the only remaining house if its kind that gives a first-hand reflection into the world of early Gilded Age society in New York, so often portrayed in the literature of Henry James and Edith Wharton. Despite all of this, today the house finds itself under threat from property developers and needs support more than ever. Seabury Tredwell, of Tredwell, Kissam & Co., was a prosperous merchant who in partnership with his cousin imported marine hardware from England. He retired in 1835 and the following year paid Joseph Brewster (1787-1854) $18,000 for the house Brewster had made his home out of the six new houses he'd put up on Fourth Street. Having already purchased a 600-acre farm that neighboured Bingham Hill in New Jersey for his summer retreat, this was to be Tredwell's townhouse for the winter season.
Merchant'S House Museum
Built 1832, for Joseph Brewster (1787-1854) who lived here for two years before selling to Seabury Tredwell (1780-1865) with whom it is best associated, his family having occupied it for just over an hundred years. This magnificent portal to the past is New York's oldest townhouse, its first ever designated landmark, and the only Historic House Museum in Greenwich - it also has the reputation of being among the most haunted houses in Manhattan. Pulitzer Prize-winning architecture critic Ada Louise Huxtable called it "the real thing" - the only remaining house if its kind that gives a first-hand reflection into the world of early Gilded Age society in New York, so often portrayed in the literature of Henry James and Edith Wharton. Despite all of this, today the house finds itself under threat from property developers and needs support more than ever. Seabury Tredwell, of Tredwell, Kissam & Co., was a prosperous merchant who in partnership with his cousin imported marine hardware from England. He retired in 1835 and the following year paid Joseph Brewster (1787-1854) $18,000 for the house Brewster had made his home out of the six new houses he'd put up on Fourth Street. Having already purchased a 600-acre farm that neighboured Bingham Hill in New Jersey for his summer retreat, this was to be Tredwell's townhouse for the winter season.
Mar 21, 2023
Posted Date
Mar 21, 2023
Historical Record Date
Mar 21, 2023
Source Name
House Histree
