Van Cortlandt Park – Van Cortlandt Mansion

enter at Broadway and West 246th Street
1748
NHL, NR-P, NYC IL, NYC INL

This fieldstone and brick Georgian style manor is The Bronx’s oldest house, built for Jacobus Van Cortlandt’s son, Frederick. Unfortunately, he died before it was completed and was the first to be buried in the family burial plot on Vault Hill, north of the house. Frederick left the estate to his son, James Van Cortlandt. Most notably, George Washington used the house for military maneuvers and as a temporary headquarters before his triumphant march into Manhattan during the Revolutionary War. The mansion has operated as a house museum—the first in the city—since 1897, when the National Society of Colonial Dames in the State of New York was granted custody to manage the site and exhibit its collection of 18th- and 19th-century furniture and decorative arts. The grounds also include a 1902 bronze statue of Major General Josiah Porter by William Clark Noble. The Van Cortlandt Mansion is a National Historic Landmark, NYC Individual Landmark and a NYC Interior Landmark.

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