Kinderhook Village District

	Kinderhook Village District
	U.S. National Register of Historic Places
	U.S. Historic district
	Gothic Revival
NRHP reference No.	74001227
Added to NRHP	July 24, 1974

The Kinderhook Village District is located in the central areas of the village of Kinderhook, New York, United States. It is a 612-acre (248 ha) area covering both developed and undeveloped land centered on US 9.

It contains many buildings from the 18th and 19th centuries, some of which were associated with Martin Van Buren, a native of the town who later became President. In 1974 it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Geography

The district takes up most of the southeastern half of the village.

right-of-way, which it follows down to Railroad Avenue and then turns west along the back property lines of homes on Albany Avenue.^[1]

It follows those lot lines to the cemeteries and crosses Albany to follow Sunset Avenue, which divides residences from farmers' fields to the south. It turns to follow the right-of-way when it intersects it again, then turning east again at the rear property line of residences on Rothermel Lane. When that route reaches the rear line of houses on Broad Street (Route 9), it follows them south to Gaffney Lane, where it crosses the street to the rear lines of a subdivision on Presidential Drive. From the end of that it goes back to the creek.[1]

This boundary includes as well all of the properties along Church, Hudson, Sylvester and William streets, Jarvis and Maiden lanes and Kinderknoll Drive. With the exception of the village square at Albany, Broad, Chatham and Hudson streets, these areas are residential. The large eastern area of the district, taking in the flatlands along the creek, is undeveloped open space except for the Hudson Street corridor. As of the district's listing on the Register, there were 250 buildings within it, most of which predate the 20th century.^[1]

History

Kinderhook's history began in the mid-17th century when

gambrel roofs at the John Pruyn House (26 William Street) and 15 Hudson Street, with a muizetanden pattern in the brick of its gable endm also survive.^[1]

By 1763 there were 15 buildings and a

Palladian window, features typical of a country gentleman's home of that era. The decorative touches would be widely emulated on other more modest homes in the village, like 29 Hudson Street.^[1]

The

Federal style, and again the village had a strong example: the James Vanderpoel House at 16 Broad Street.^[1]

More land was cultivated, and the village grew explosively during the 1820s. By 1836, on the eve of Kinderhook's

Van Buren Administration, it had 86 buildings and was considered the county's business center. New buildings of this era flirted with the Greek Revival and Carpenter Gothic styles then in vogue. The former is best exemplified by the frame house at 29 Broad Street, with pilasters framing its main entrance. St. Paul's Episcopal Church at 8 Sylvester Street, and the board-and-batten–sided cottage at 28 Albany Avenue are likewise the most prominent Gothic buildings in the village. As with the earlier Georgian stylings, the ornamentation seems to have been widely emulated around the village.^[1]

After 1850, the growth slowed down. Following his Free Soil Party campaign of 1848, Van Buren retired permanently to Lindenwald, his estate south of the village. The railroads had come and bypassed Kinderhook for other communities in the area, depriving it of the catalyst they provided. Agriculture continued to be the centerpiece of the village's economy, but it merely remained stable instead of continuing to expand. Most construction during this period took place in the village's center. The row of commercial buildings on Hudson Street there replaced predecessors destroyed in an 1880 fire.^[1]

The absence of any railroad-related redevelopment allowed Kinderhook to retain its historic character. This has continued through the 20th and 21st centuries; there have been very few changes to the village during that time.

References

^
NARA
. Retrieved January 13, 2023. PDF includes 11 photos from 1973, maps, and other documents.

External links

Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS) No. NY-5-A-11, "Adam Van Alen House, Kinderhook Creek Vicinity, Kinderhook, Columbia, NY", 4 photos, 10 measured drawings, 3 data pages, supplemental material
HABS No. NY-3132, "Spencer-Hinds House, Kinderhook, Columbia County, NY", 3 photos

[NRHP_nom-1] 
NARA
. Retrieved January 13, 2023. PDF includes 11 photos from 1973, maps, and other documents.

[1]

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Geography

History

See also

References

External links