Judge John Monell's Brick Cottage Located in NY

Eustatia House, Beacon New York

Date added: September 16, 2024

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Judge John Monell's brick cottage, Eustatia, is a rare intact example of the High Victorian Gothic Style as adapted to cottage architecture. The design is in keeping with the ideals popularized by Andrew Jackson Downing, Calvert Vaux and other notable mid-nineteenth-century architects in the mid-Hudson region. The architect of the building was Frederick C. Withers who, after briefly studying with Downing, went on to become one of the accepted leaders of the High Victorian Style in this country. The major significance of Eustatia lies in the fact that it is one of the earliest and most highly developed High Victorian Gothic cottages in America. Its high degree of integrity and its associations with Frederick Withers and the so-called "Downing School," make the 1867 Monell residence an important architectural document.

The site on which Eustatia now stands was purchased in the early years of the nineteenth century, by John DeWindt, just after his arrival in this country from the island of Eustatia in the West Indies. John DeWindt's daughter, Caroline, later married the aspiring American horticulturist, architect and landscape designer, Andrew Jackson Downing of Newburgh, New York. Some thirteen years after Downing's untimely death in 1852, Caroline DeWindt Downing married Judge John Monell of Newburgh. The Eustatia property was deeded by John DeWindt to his daughter Caroline and her new husband in 1865, shortly after their marriage.

John Monell was born in Newburgh, New York in 1813. He attended Union College, graduated in 1833, and returned to Newburgh to practice law. He and his first wife were friends of the Downings and he worked with Downing to establish the Newburgh Library. After Downing's death and Monell's subsequent marriage to Caroline, the Monells moved to Fishkill Landing (now Beacon). In 1867, after obtaining the Eustatia site from his father-in-law, Judge Monell commissioned his personal friend, Frederick C. Withers, to design a house suitable for the site. The Judge commuted daily from Eustatia to Newburgh to continue his law practice as well as his banking activities until his death in 1885.

Frederick Clarke Withers was born in Somerset, England in 1828. Shortly after his birth, his family moved to Dorset where he completed his formal education at the King Edward School. In 1844, he embarked upon his professional career by being indentured by his father to an obscure Dorchester "builder and architect" Edward Mondey. Upon the completion of his indenture, Withers entered the London office of T.H. Wyatt, where he remained as assistant until 1851. In that year he accepted a position with A.J. Downing in Newburgh, New York. While employed in Downing's office, Withers became acquainted with numerous other architects, most notably Calvert Vaux. After Downing's death, Withers and Vaux worked closely until the latter moved to New York City four years later to join Frederick Law Olmsted in the preparation of plans for Central Park. During the 1850's, Vaux and Withers were commonly regarded as Downing's "heirs" and successors. The designs by both Vaux and Withers show a marked dependence upon the earlier designs of Downing, especially in their earlier careers. However, Withers' designs generally are more restrained and more sober than those by either Vaux or Downing.

The design that Withers developed for Eustatia appears in the 1873 edition of Downing's Cottage Residences (an edition to which Withers and probably Vaux added considerably to after Downing's death). Design XXV, labeled "The Brick Cottage for Judge Monell" shows Eustatia. According to Kowsky, "Eustatia, the house Withers designed for his friend John Monell in Beacon, was more daring than the Brewster House" (a Newburgh residence of two years earlier). "Despite the fact that Eustatia still retained much of the form and reserve of Withers' Balmville residences (near Newburgh), it had the polychromatic enrichment of much High Victorian architecture". The original description of the design in Cottage Residences reads, in part, "The house is built of selected North River brick, well laid with white sand, relieved with Milwaukee brick, of a soft buff color, placed over the arch of the front door, over the windows of the lower story, and as a molding around the summit of the ample clustered chimneys". Cottage Residences also includes, for Eustatia, a design for a formal garden on the west or river side of the house. Though most of the original plantings have disappeared, the plan as well as some of the stone walls and balustraded railings remain relatively intact and unaltered.

Eustatia is an excellent example of Withers' residential interpretation of the High Victorian Gothic style of architecture. The building remains intact and has no serious or detracting alterations. Of additional note are the period decorative interior features such as the elaborate use of rubbed black walnut and chestnut and the decorative marble tiles of the central entrance hall.

Though several designs by Downing, Vaux and Withers remain in the Hudson Valley, Eustatia represents one of the best documented, most highly refined cottages in America which utilize the High Victorian Gothic style. The structure is one of the earliest and foremost examples of a style which became a major design theme in American architecture of the third quarter of the nineteenth century.

Building Description

Eustatia is a one and a half story ell-shaped structure of brick construction (common bond) on a varying height stone foundation. The facade presents a three-bay design with a central, projecting, two-story, gable roof portico. The facade is made slightly asymmetrical by a projecting tripartite bay window to the left of the entrance and paired two over two sash windows to the right. All windows on the ground floor in the rectangular main section are two over two with plain-dressed stone sills and lintels. Windows on the ground floor in the projecting rear ell are generally four over four with plain-dressed stone sills and lintels.

The building has a broadly overhanging double hip roof covered with hexagonal slates. All windows in the upper half story in the rectangular portion of the structure, with the exception of the portico, project through the roof overhang and are capped by gable roofs with Gothic cut-work at the peaks. All windows in the upper half story are characterized by segmental arch lintels of alternating dark and light brick and plain-dressed stone sills. The rear ell exhibits similar dormers with the exception of one on the east side which is capped by a jerkin-headed roof. Three sets of paired corbeled chimneys, two in the main block and one in the rear ell, project from the peak of the roof near the center of the structure. A period veranda appears across the west end of the main rectangle and a period porch extends across the west elevation of the rear ell. Doors and door surrounds are plain throughout the structure on the exterior with the exception of the main entrance which has double chestnut doors with molded and raised paneling, elaborate cast hardware, a four-paneled fanlight and a segmental arch lintel of alternating dark and light brick with a central cipher stone. The cipher stone bears the initials "J C M", for John and Caroline Monell and the date, 1867.

The central (south) entrance opens onto a broad, white, marble-tiled hall with polychromed inserts. Off of the central hall open doors to the parlor and library on the west and dining room on the east. The main stair rises to the upper floor just past the entrance to the dining room and leads to a landing off of which are a bathroom, linen closet, and servants bedrooms. The main stair continues to a small square hall on the upper floor from which are entrances to five bedrooms. The ell contains a butler's pantry and kitchen on the first floor and servants' bedrooms on the upper floor. All woodwork throughout the house, including doors, door moldings and mantels are of walnut and chestnut, stained a rich dark brown.

Though there is evidence of deterioration in some of the external wooden elements, the building is structurally sound and has received no noticeable alterations either on the exterior or interior other than plumbing and electrical service updating.

Directly to the west of the ell's western elevation is a small, period well house which is in deteriorated condition. Removed from the main house by approximately seventy yards to the north is a small wooden shed which probably dates to the mid-twentieth century. A carriage barn that once lay north of the main house is now gone.

The formal gardens to the west of the house, though in a state of disrepair, still retain their original plan and some of the original stonework and wooden balustrade.

The building is sited on a partially landscaped parcel of land which overlooks the Hudson River which is several hundred yards to the west.