The Dyckman House, now the Dyckman Farmhouse Museum, is the oldest remaining farmhouse on

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

island, a vestige of

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

's rural past. The Dutch Colonial-style farmhouse was built by William Dyckman, c.1785, and was originally part of over of farmland owned by the family."Dyckman House Museum"
on the

New York City Department of Parks and Recreation The New York City Department of Parks and Recreation, also called the Parks Department or NYC Parks, is the department of the government of New York City responsible for maintaining the city's parks system, preserving and maintaining the ecolog ...

website It is now located in a small park at the corner of

Broadway Broadway may refer to: Theatre * Broadway Theatre (disambiguation) * Broadway theatre, theatrical productions in professional theatres near Broadway, Manhattan, New York City, U.S. ** Broadway (Manhattan), the street **Broadway Theatre (53rd Stree ...

and 204th Street in

Inwood, Manhattan Inwood is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan, at the northern tip of Manhattan Island, in the U.S. state of New York. It is bounded by the Hudson River to the west, Spuyten Duyvil Creek and Marble Hill to the north, the H ...

History and description

Dyckman was the grandson of Jan Dyckman, who came to the area from

Westphalia Westphalia (; german: Westfalen ; nds, Westfalen ) is a region of northwestern Germany and one of the three historic parts of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. It has an area of and 7.9 million inhabitants. The territory of the regio ...

in 1661.Kuhn, Jonathan. "Dyckman House" in William Dyckman, who inherited the family estate, built the current house to replace the family house located on the

Harlem River The Harlem River is an tidal strait in New York, United States, flowing between the Hudson River and the East River and separating the island of Manhattan from the Bronx on the New York mainland. The northern stretch, also called the Spuyt ...

near the present West 210th Street, which he had built in 1748, and which was destroyed in the

American Revolutionary War The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was a major war of the American Revolution. Widely considered as the war that secured the independence of t ...

. The current two-story house is constructed of fieldstone, brick and white

clapboard Clapboard (), also called bevel siding, lap siding, and weatherboard, with regional variation in the definition of these terms, is wooden siding of a building in the form of horizontal boards, often overlapping. ''Clapboard'' in modern Americ ...

, and features a

gambrel roof A gambrel or gambrel roof is a usually symmetrical two-sided roof with two slopes on each side. (The usual architectural term in eighteenth-century England and North America was "Dutch roof".) The upper slope is positioned at a shallow angle, ...

and spring eaves. The porches are typical of the Dutch Colonial style, but were added in 1825. The house's interior has parlors and an indoor winter kitchen in the basement, thus serving as a heating for the first floor. The rooms have floors of varying-width chestnut wood. The house's outdoor

smokehouse A smokehouse (North American) or smokery (British) is a building where meat or fish is cured with smoke. The finished product might be stored in the building, sometimes for a year or more.

-summer kitchen, in a small building to the south, may predate the house itself. The back of the house holds a short hedges that resemble a maze. The house stayed in the family for several generations until they sold it in 1868, after which it served as a rental property for several decades.Historical plaque located near the house. Accessed: May 30, 2014 By the beginning of the 20th century, the house was in disrepair and in danger of being demolished, and in 1915, the Dyckman family bought it back. In 1915–16, two sisters of the Dyckman family, Mary Alice Dyckman Dean ( Mrs Bashford Dean) and Fannie Fredericka Dyckman Welch, began a restoration of the farmhouse under the supervision of architect Alexander M. Welch, Fannie's husband. In 1916, they transferred ownership of the house to the City of New York, which opened it as a museum of Dutch and Colonial life, featuring the original Dyckman family furnishings. The farmhouse – which is not only the oldest remaining in Manhattan, but the only one in the Dutch Colonial style, and the only 18th-century farmhouse in the borough as well – has been a New York City Landmark and a

National Historic Landmark A National Historic Landmark (NHL) is a building, district, object, site, or structure that is officially recognized by the United States government for its outstanding historical significance. Only some 2,500 (~3%) of over 90,000 places listed ...

since 1967. In 2003, the house underwent a major restoration, after which it re-opened to the public in the fall of 2005.''Dyckman Farmhouse''
on the Cultural Landscape Foundation website

In popular culture

* The Dyckman House was featured in Bob Vila's A&E Network production ''Guide to Historic Homes of America''.

Gallery

File:Dyckman House front porch.jpg, Front porch File:Dyckman House rear porch.jpg, Rear porch File:Dyckman House west side from rear.jpg, West end of the house, seen from the rear

References

Notes

External links

Dyckman Farmhouse Museum website
on the

website {{Broadway (Manhattan) 1784 establishments in New York (state) Broadway (Manhattan) Historic American Buildings Survey in New York City Historic house museums in New York City Houses completed in 1784 Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Manhattan Inwood, Manhattan Museums in Manhattan National Historic Landmarks in Manhattan New York City Designated Landmarks in Manhattan U.S. Route 9

History and description

In popular culture

Gallery

See also

References

External links