Montgomery Place

Montgomery Place, now Bard College: The Montgomery Place Campus, near Barrytown, New York, United States, is an early 19th-century estate that has been designated a National Historic Landmark. It is also a contributing property to the Hudson River Historic District, itself a National Historic Landmark. It is a Federal-style house, with expansion designed by architect Alexander Jackson Davis. It reflects the tastes of a younger, post-Revolutionary generation of wealthy landowners in the Livingston family who were beginning to be influenced by French trends in home design, moving beyond the strictly English models exemplified by Clermont Manor a short distance up the Hudson River. It is the only Hudson Valley estate house from this era that survives intact, and Davis's only surviving neoclassical country house. Andrew Jackson Downing praised the landscapes of the estate, work he had informally consulted on that was not completed in its final form until almost the mid-20th century. The southern of the estate, which he called the Wilderness and is today known as the South Woods, is the oldest oak forest in the Hudson Valley. It has grown to , and includes many outbuildings. A network of trails and paths connects them and offers both quiet wooded tracts and views of the river and Catskill Mountains. The estate was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1975. Ten years later, the Livingston descendants sold it to Historic Hudson Valley, a regional historic preservation group. The district was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1990, and Montgomery Place received that designation itself in 1992. In January 2016, Bard College purchased the estate from Historic Hudson Valley. Montgomery Place is located on Annandale Road near Barrytown, just off NY 9G. Montgomery Place grounds are open from dawn to dusk year-round. Mansion tours are available seasonally.