This House was Converted into the Town Library in 1935


Platt-Cady Mansion, Nichols New York
Date added: April 04, 2024
South front elevation (1975)

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Situated on the main thoroughfare in the village of Nichols, the George P. and Susan Platt-Cady Library is a community landmark. It is a fine example of a country residence in the Greek Revival style. Until 1935, when the town of Nichols acquired the building, it was the home of one of the village's leading families.

In 1793, Jonathan Platt and his son moved to Nichols from Westchester County, New York. They purchased land on the Susquehanna River and built a house which was known for many years as the Platt Homestead. The elder Platt died within two or three years of his arrival, but his son, who was known as Major Platt, continued to live on the homestead.

The 1820s witnessed a period of growth for Nichols, then called Rushville. As one history remarks:

Others soon followed and as early as 1820 it is said that Rushville had nearly two hundred inhabitants and threatened rivalry with the county seat itself. The surrounding country was fast being settled and the settlement was a busy place.

This village expansion probably lured Major Platt from his farm in 1820. The enterprising Platt built a house near the site of the Platt-Cady Mansion "where he kept a hotel up to the time of his death in 1825.

Sometime after 1827 Nemeniah Platt, a son of Major Platt, built the large brick structure which later came to be known as the Cady Mansion.

In 1855, Dr. George P. Cady came to Nichols from Great Barrington Massachusetts, and married Nemeniah's daughter Susan. About this time the home was acquired by Dr. Cady and continued to serve as the family's residence. In a tiny rural village such as Nichols, the Cady family was regarded as being wealthy and refined. When Susan Cady's son died in 1935, he bequeathed the greater part of his estate to the town of Nichols to house the village library.

The first library in Nichols had been founded in 1928 by the Floral Club. After the estate was settled in 1941, the library moved into the Cady Mansion. Since that time it has been serving the people of Nichols both as a library and as a center for government.

The Platt-Cady Mansion is a fine example of the Greek Revival style in upstate New York. In this section of New York, examples of the Greek Revival style were quite sophisticated and as Talbot Hamlin has noted:

More and more the wealthier landowners in the lavishly fertile parts of the state built for themselves, during the thirties and forties, great mansions which 1n grandeur and elegance, in rich finish and large scale, vied even with some of those of the more famous South.

Hamlin cites "Vesper Cliff," the Johnson-Platt House in neighboring Owego is an example of one of these great mansions. Perhaps the Platt-Cady Mansion built around the same time was the work of the same designer.

Interest in Egyptian architecture reached a pinnacle around 1830 in America. This interest is reflected in the Cady Mansion by its columns whose capitals resemble bundles of stalks tied together with horizontal bands beneath. In this respect, the columns resemble those of the Medical College of Virginia in Richmond.

Representative of the Greek Revival style in Western New York, the Platt-Cady Mansion remains a focal point in the life of Nichols.

Building Description

The Platt-Cady Mansion is located on a one-and-one-half-acre parcel of land on River Street in the village of Nichols. From behind an ornamental iron fence, the house faces the street, and is the most imposing and elegant building in the village. To the rear of the mansion is a large two-story carriage and horse barn.

Generous in proportions, the two-story brick mansion is an example of a large federal-style house, modified at a later date by the addition of a visually dominant columned portico. Rectangular in plan, the house is two rooms deep on either side of a broad central hall. The first and second stories are clearly defined behind the columns of the portico by a shallow projecting balcony of delicately scaled grillwork. A cornice with a very deep frieze and boxed returns completes the monumentality of the late neo-classical theme. A wooden kitchen wing extends to the rear of the house.

The five-bay central mass is dominated by a monumental, six-columned, two-story portico whose flaring capitals indicate mid-19th century awareness of "the antique, or archaic" architectural forms popular in England and on the continent. Behind the portico at both the first and second-story levels are wide doorways leading to the central hall of the upper and lower stories, each with sidelights and transom.

The east and west pediments contain fanlights, and from each gable rise two massive chimneys. The windows are generous in proportion and are flanked by louvered blinds.

The first-story floor plan comprises two large rooms on each side of a large central hallway. Four free-standing columns ornament the first-floor hall at mid-point, and a cherry staircase rises to the second floor. Presently, the first floor is used as a library, and the second floor, which retains the original plan of four rooms, has been converted into an apartment.

Rich interior finish compliments the clean and simple lines of the exterior. Stained glass fills the window above the landing of the staircase. Black marble fireplaces decorated with gold designs can be seen in the rear rooms of the first floor, and quartered oak wainscoting surrounds these rooms.

At the rear of the Platt-Cady Mansion is a large carriage house/barn. The structure has a board and batten exterior, the whole covered by a gambrel roof punctuated by large gambrel-roofed dormers. The cupolas reflect the gambrel theme of the principal roof, and the whole composition is a symmetrical, bell-shaped, downward sweep of roof which plays against the upward thrust of heavily battened wall surface.

Platt-Cady Mansion, Nichols New York South front elevation (1975)
South front elevation (1975)

Platt-Cady Mansion, Nichols New York South and west elevations (1975)
South and west elevations (1975)

Platt-Cady Mansion, Nichols New York Carriage House south elevation (1975)
Carriage House south elevation (1975)