If you’re already familiar with the yellow 19th Century mansion overlooking the Hudson River, prepare to see it in a different light. The Boscobel House is still an active construction site, with the crisp smell of new paint and the sound of revving power tools. Museum spokesperson Abigail Addams weaves me past the renovation crew to the main entry hall and staircase, which is roped off with yellow construction tape.
“Normally this would be a fabulously appointed space. As you can see, the wallpaper’s been taken down, it’s really down to bare bones," points Addams. "The goal with the tours that we’re offering now is to really show folks the behind-the-scenes of preservation, and to see a historic house like they never would before.”
Addams says this preservation work wasn’t planned, but necessary. In April 2024, the ceiling of the mansion’s extravagant library suddenly collapsed. Luckily, no one was in the building at the time, but Addams says the damage to the library and adjoining rooms was extensive.
“Essentially, the ceiling was made of a cementitious plaster mix with concrete, and over time, gravity just gave way," she explains.
Once Boscobel got a team of architects on site, Addams says they found a much bigger problem: 19 of the building’s 24 ceilings were at risk of a similar collapse, and needed to be removed immediately. What started as a one-room repair job turned into a roughly $2 million renovation project.
More than a year later, Addams says the structure is secure, but visitors who sign up for the “Preservation in Progress” tour can get an up-close look at what goes into preserving a house from the 19th Century — and the ways it’s being brought into the 21st.
“You take down a house and you realize just how out of code your behind-the-scenes systems are," she notes. "So, we had to do updated electrical, updated fire system security, all of that to kind of bring the behind-the-scenes things up to the 21st Century.”
The fact is, Boscobel is no stranger to this kind of reconstruction. In fact, the original mansion wasn’t even on this property: it was built in Westchester County, by the family of States Dyckman. Despite what his first name might suggest, Dyckman was a loyalist who served the British during the American Revolution. He spent much of the war in England buying what he saw as the “best of the best” in terms of furniture, art, and more. He shipped all of these items to his wife in Westchester County, so they could build their own magnificent estate after the war, but he never saw it. Dyckman died in 1806, two years before Boscobel was completed.
By the 1950s, the Dyckman family no longer owned the house, and it had fallen into a state of disrepair. Addams says it faced demolition multiple times as Westchester County developed, but members of the community always fought to save it. In 1956, a $50,000 donation by Lila Wallace, the co-founder of “Reader’s Digest,” bought the property in Garrison and launched a project to move Boscobel, piece by piece, to its current location.
Assistant Curator Riley Richards says Wallace worked with Berry Tracy, a curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, to restore the home in the mid-1970s to its 19th-Century glory.
“Something that we’re really realizing is so important as we go forward with this project is that mid-century history, the history in the 1950s of the house being saved, of the importance of community support," says Richards. "The Dyckmans were a notable family, but they weren’t important figures in history. It’s really Lila Wallace who shows the power of, ‘She loved this place, she understood its importance and its beauty, and she worked hard to save it.’”
Richards says the current restoration work gives the museum a chance to reexamine its offerings. For example, a guest room on the second floor will be reworked into a gallery space to hold rotating exhibits. While it will still be historically accurate, Richards wants the final product to feel more like a “living museum" than a restricted house tour.
“Berry Tracy created beautiful sort-of shadowboxes or dioramas of the 19th Century," she adds. "We want to actually let people experience what inhabiting these spaces would feel like, rather than looking from behind a stanchion and just seeing what he put together.”
Addams says getting there will likely take years. She notes the original construction was not planned, so it’s not like the nonprofit spent years fundraising beforehand. She says they’re basically working on rooms as the funding comes in, from private donors, government grants, and “Preservation in Progress” tours.
“It’s not like a normal home where you can go to Home Depot and pick out your paint colors. You have to do the ‘best of the best’ because we’re stewards of this site and we want to represent the best of the period," Addams explains. "And at the time, the country was what, 20 or 30 years old? We weren’t really building homes like this yet. It really is one of the finest examples of country homes in America.”
Boscobel’s “Preservation in Progress” tours are running Fridays through Mondays at 10 a.m., 12 p.m., 2 p.m., and 4 p.m. A note to listeners: the site will be closed Sunday, August 31 for a private event.
