Greystone

A Landmark On The Coast of Lake Champlain

By David Hislop 

Turn of the century photograph of Greystone.

Situated on the Lake Shore Road in the hamlet of Essex, the magnificent residence known as Greystone has been a landmark on the west coast of Lake Champlain since the mid-Nineteenth Century. The house is sited on a rise over looking the panoramic four mile width of the lake facing the Essex-Charlotte ferry landing. Greystone was constructed of finely cut quarried limestone and built over a three year period between 1853-1856.

Greystone is a five-bay Georgian or Federal style building with a center hall entrance way and center rear service wing. The entire edifice is constructed of cut limestone blocks. Greystone is thus unlike the more typical gable-end-facing-the-street Greek Revival. The front elevation of Greystone runs a width of 51 feet and rises two full stories to a cornice inset with cast iron frieze windows. There is a front entry portico composed of fluted ionic columns under a broad frieze. The original interiors have elaborate plaster moldings and pilasters, with original gilt pier mirrors. They have also retained the marble fireplace mantels, spiral staircase and mahogany pocket doors. There are two rooms off each side of the hall upstairs and down.

The two acre manicured lawn and landscaped grounds contain a circular rear carriage drive in the Romantic tradition. The drive has a branch to the Gothic Revival carriage barn set out of view of the main house. The entire property is sited along the shore of Lake Champlain, the grounds containing a stream and ruins of several early Nineteenth Century tannery structures. Essex, itself, as an historic district, was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1975.

Essex County, New York is in the extreme eastern boundary of the state and forms part of the borderline with Vermont. However, the states are separated by up to 12 miles of the waters of Lake Champlain. There are two distinctive geographical regions, the Adirondack Mountains to the west and the Lake Champlain basin in the east. Essex County contains the tallest of the Adirondack High Peaks in the Keene Valley area and the deepest part of Lake Champlain -- over 400 feet -- near Whallon's Bay.

Between mountains and lake is the Champlain Valley, a fertile bottom land long used for agriculture. However, most residential settlements occurred along the lake shore and were settled dependent on lake commerce. The first settler, an Irishman named William Gilliland, developed his land claims beginning in 1765. The military history of the region is extensive, with encounters and battles of the French and Indian War, American Revolution and War of 1812, all fought on the lake as documented in the extensive military collections of Fort Ticonderoga and the Lake Champlain Maritime Museum. The Town of Essex itself initially prospered from shipbuilding for the military, as it possesses two fine natural harbors. To the south of Essex, along the coast, is a well-known geological formation named "split-rock" which extends into the lake from the tail end of the Rattlesnake Mountain range. The earliest French Seventeenth Century maps identify it as "cloven-rock".

In addition to shipbuilding, early Nineteenth Century settlers brought trades with them from New England. The Noble family of Essex was tanners and the abundant rushing fresh water in streams from the Adirondack Mountains allowed the establishment of tanneries in both Essex village and in the county seat, Elizabethtown. The crucial element of hemlock bark for tanning was also plentiful in the immense forest areas that also provided firewood for fuel.

Finally, the opening of the Champlain Canal in 1823 connected Lake Champlain to the Hudson River and hence to the high consumption markets of Albany and New York City. Merchants and townsfolk in Essex County prospered until the Civil War when the railroads were built which by-passed most of the county villages.

By the late Nineteenth Century several of the merchant families had begun to live winters away from the hamlets and a trend evolved to live seasonally in Essex. With the advent of the automobile and interest in quaint colonial structures in the early Twentieth Century, several small hotels and guest houses germinated that would become the area's final industry; heritage tourism.

The Noble family business was partly engaging in commerce on Lake Champlain from Essex. Patriarch of the family, Ransom Noble, had migrated to Essex from New Milford, Connecticut. in 1799. His business was the tanning of leather, a major need in the Nineteenth Century for horses saddles and boots. The present Library Brook was originally called Tannery Brook. Nearby are the stone foundation ruins of the original tanneries still visible in the woods near the carriage barn. Research is being done on this archaeological site as they may contain the oldest tannery remains in the Adirondacks!

As prosperity increased Essex reached its peak population of 2,351 in 1850. The population thereafter declined slowly to less than 400 in 1990. But the 1850s saw the pinnacle of success, so Belden Noble decided to celebrate his prosperity by marrying Adeline Ferris of Charlotte, Vermont. Not only would he get married but he would build his own church to marry in. He would then construct the finest mansion in town for a residence.

Belden decided on a building spree that would make the town, county and all the Lake Champlain region take notice. He hired architect T.S. Whitby to draw plans for the perfect wedding gifts: a new rustic Italiante style church and a magnificent new mansion. Both would be constructed of special cut limestone blocks from the nearby Willsboro quarry. The mansion would be constructed by the same team of stonemasons, painters, and carpenters as the church. The stone itself was to be cut in the quarry during the summer and then in winter hauled by teams of horses over the frozen ground to the construction site. Belden chose the five-bay (or five windows across the front) Greek Revival style, complimenting the already existing house of his brother next door. As building progressed over the three years, it was apparent that the mansion's main feature was its stunning warm gray colored stonework. Possibly this beauty and the romantic English spelling of grey inspired the naming of the house as Greystone, the name by which it has always been known.

The mansion would have a sweeping view of its own private bay on Lake Champlain. A carriage drive would begin near the wharf, slope downward through a clump of cedars, then emerge again with the house looming above grade in the distance. The drive ascends the hill to form a circular drive to the rear entrance with a stone carriage block. This carefully planned landscape was in the Romantic tradition of contemporary taste makers such as Andrew Jackson Downing Ï the designer so inspirational in planning Hudson River villas.

During the period of 1880-1887, Greystone made the changeover from a year round house to a summer country residence. Belden Noble had prospered through the finance dealings and investment of nearly a half a century. He now thought Washington, D.C. the best place to live to pursue his national scope interests in timber land management and shipping ventures. Belden enjoyed this new house for less than a decade. As always, in the long Washington summers before air-conditioning, he returned to Greystone from May to October. One summer day in 1887 Belden went fishing along the shallow shores of Lake Champlain and was found drowned the next day. He is buried in the family plot in Essex.

Belden Noble's widow Adeline and his children William and Maud, continued living in Washington and summering at Essex for the years after Belden's death. William died not long thereafter and Maud, nearing 30, found romance at last in the person of Justice James S. Harlan, a southern born but Princeton educated and Chicago trained lawyer. James was the son of one of the most prominent US Supreme Court Justices of all time, John Marshall Harlan.

During the judicial season back in Washington, Justice Harlan was appointed by President McKinley to be Consul General to Puerto Rico. This exotic position involved organizing that island nation in the aftermath of the Spanish-American War and he reported directly to the President. James soon found what was to be his fame as President Roosevelt appointed him to the Interstate Commerce Commission during its height of importance as a regulator of the nation's booming railroads. A 14 volume series of his decisions and cases rests on a shelf at the Library of Congress and also at Greystone.

After 30 summers at Greystone, James Harlan died there in 1927. The Washington Post reported on September 21, 1927 "James S. Harlan Dies at His Summer Home -- Former Member of ICC was Son of Justice". It continues that he died "...at his summer home in Essex, N.Y., where he had lingered hopelessly ill for several weeks".

James' "beloved companion through life's journey", Maud Noble Harlan, died in 1932 while seeking the cure in Paris, France and both are buried in their own Greek Revival mausoleum in Essex.

As a building, Greystone is possibly the finest example in New York State of the five-bay late Greek Revival style residence. This style is rare geographically in this country, but there are more examples known in the deep South. Houses such as Melrose in Natchez, Miss., are late Greek Revival in design, but not five-bay, rather the more typical block-mass form. The lack of any Italinate details, such as bracketed eaves, makes the facade of Greystone with its completely restored parapet, an important example of the form. Earlier researchers have attributed this late survival as an example of the conservative nature of those in Essex, or perhaps due to its remote location. However this is disproved since the stone church was constructed simultaneous to Greystone and the church is in a sophisticated rusticated Italinate style. Also constructed in Essex in the early 1850s is the Noble Clemmons House, less than three blocks from Greystone and designed in the fully developed Italinate form. Belden Noble, through his business contacts, was directly aware of what was happening in the Hudson Valley and New York City. It is probable, by analyzing the existing interior furnishings to conclude that Belden Noble looked to New York for design, rather than New England or Canada. Indeed, with the furniture made by the Meeks firm of New York City and the Gothic Revival bookcase design attributed to A.J. Davis, it is probable that Belden Noble chose the Grecian design for the exterior of Greystone from among several styles advocated by Davis and A.J. Downing in the 1850s.

According to Essex County Surrogate Office census records for the Federal 1855 census, Belden Noble was residing next door with his father at his brother Harmon's 1835 red brick house. By the 1860 census, Belden Noble was residing at his own residence, Greystone. A town of Essex map, published in 1858, shows a building in the correct location for Greystone identified as "B. Noble" signifying his residency. As the stone church is documented as having begun construction in 1853, this may well be the start of the construction at Greystone as well. A recently discovered Noble family bible has inscribed on the leaf that it had been in the pew at the stone church "since the time its construction was finished in 1856." Similarly, this may give a completion date for Greystone, as a companion project. As a social motivation, it appears that the marriage of Belden Noble and Adeline Ferris took place in 1856, suggesting a target date for the completion of the Presbyterian church for the wedding and Greystone as a home for the newlyweds.

Documentary photographs taken about the turn-of-the-century show a wide parapet crowned with scroll and anthenium iron cresting that apparently was removed by 1930. The wooden parapet and most of the iron cresting is still stored in the carriage barn.

The low parapet and iron scrolls were restored to the entrance portico in 1995.

One of the great treasures of Greystone is the integrity maintained by all of the original interior plaster work. The south parlor has multiple levels of bolection molding at the cornice complementing the complex window surrounds. The center hall has a medallion on the ceiling and open work scroll plaster at the cornice. The north parlor has the most elaborate detail. There is a large floral center ceiling medallion and complex floral cornice moldings.

The double pair of pocket doors is surrounded by pilasters with elaborate Corinthian capitals of carved plaster. The mahogany doors themselves retain their original silvered knobs and escutcheons. Both parlors have black with gold veined marble fireplace surrounds and the original cast iron coal grates, grills, and grate covers. This iron work was signed by the Jackson Foundry of New York and patented in 1852. The fireplaces were designed to burn cannel coal, a hard bituminous coal which was more energy efficient since it burns hotter and longer than soft coal.

All of the windows on the first floor have working paneled interior shutters. Between each front pair of windows is the original gilt Rococo Revival pier mirror, a matching pair, one in each parlor. The mid-Nineteenth Century saw the great transition from the long admired revival of classicism to the "heir to the ages" perspective of later Victorians. Nowhere more apparent is this than at Greystone, with its formal, late classical design exterior and neoclassical detailed and embellished interior.

The greatest mid-Nineteenth Century architect in America had a probable influence on the design of Greystone as a house and on the gardens. All of the room designs at Greystone are definitely responding to the dictums of Alexander Jackson Davis in their segregation of artistic styles. The library is in the Gothic Revival style, deemed by Davis the only proper style for such a serious pursuit as scholarly studies. Again the historic integrity of Greystone is manifest in the retention of the original great tripartite Gothic Revival bookcase. Made of glass and carved mahogany, the bookcase is identical in design to one documented to be the work of A.J. Davis himself, which was constructed by the Westchester, N.Y. cabinet making firm of Burnes & Traque. Elsewhere the impending design specialization is apparent in the floral rose and tulip design of the north parlor ceiling and the recent acquisition of the Rococo Revival rosewood sofa original to that room. Other furnishings included a set of four chairs that can be identified from period interior photographs as being of laminated wood in a Rococo Revival pattern known to have been made by the Meeks firm of New York.

The spiral center hall staircase has the original mahogany banister and the risers and treads are all original and intact. At the landing there is a doorway to the service wing flanked by two three foot high niches. These niches have white marble bases which curve to follow the lines of the stairway. Four bedrooms exit off the upstairs center hall. This hall ends at a small reading room that has a panoramic view of the lake. The reading room is entered through an entrance way with red Bohemian glass sidelights, echoing the arrangement of the front door downstairs. The front two bedrooms have coal burning fireplaces with white marble surrounds. There are narrow bathrooms, formerly water closets, leading to the back dressing or bedrooms. The complex ogival moldings surrounding all windows and door frames are thought to be unique in their arrangement.

The service wing has had some interior alterations in the 1960s, most noticeably the addition of a wall which cut the original butler's pantry in half and the removal of some of the pantry cupboards. One still remains intact. The servants staircase in the wing goes from the kitchen in the basement to the second floor of the wing, where it enters either onto the main staircase or into the servants living quarters. The wing basement kitchen retains its old open hearth, bake oven and chimney. The cast iron door of the bake oven was made by Oliver G. DeGroff and cast as: "Oliver G Degroff Albany" and also "E Barrows 1837 Patent".

The north elevation of Greystone features the original porch and a curious water tower. The tower was added in the Shingle style, perhaps in the 1880s. When constructed it was found that water was too heavy for it so it was converted to an art studio. The ionic columns and shadows on the stonework make a pleasing historic statement.