George Clarke started Hyde Hall in 1817. He purchased the site, on a hillside terrace at the foot of Mount Wellington (as boys in England, Clarke attended the Eton School with the great Wellington, and named the hill in his honor to celebrate the defeat of Napoleon); its commands an unrivaled 10-mile view down Otsego Lake — also known by the name "Glimmerglass," given by America's earliest great novelist, James Fenimore Cooper. Clarke's American wife, Anne, was the author's sister-in-law. Clarke selected upstate New York's ablest architect, Philip Hooker of Albany, to draw up his designs. Hooker's credits include the facade of Hamilton College chapel, Albany Academy, Albany City Hall, and the original New York State Capitol building. Hooker himself was an Albany politician of long standing, and a member of the "Albany Regency."

Hyde Hall was Hooker's grandest domestic creation, and it remains an exceptional survivor of his work. A neo-Classical Doric pile refined to the barest essentials, its limestone walls reach 190 feet by 90 feet. Hyde Hall is a complex of four structures — some 50 rooms in all — enclosing an open, stone-paved courtyard 24 feet by 54 feet. This quadrangular plan, with its Private Wing of Soane-like spatial qualities, and a Public Wing whose two neo-Palladian rooms, 36 feet by 24 feet, soar to 18 foot ceilings, set Hyde apart from other American houses. Hyde was a showplace, built to impress. To this day, a visit is an exhilarating and rewarding experience.

George Clarke died in 1835 (a year before his friend Hooker), and construction ceased at Hyde Hall. Clarke left his mansion and a share of his lands and fortune to his young son George Clarke, Jr., a dashing figure in his day —an artist, musician and fashionable gambler. He was also a landlord and hops speculator, and when the hops market collapsed late in the 19th century, George Clarke Jr. lost title to the mansion in a million-dollar personal bankruptcy that was reportedly the largest in the nation to that point.

Only through a consequence of the marriage of Clarke Jr.'s son was the mansion kept in the family. The son, George Hyde Clarke, had married into the Averell Carter family of Cooperstown and Cleveland. When the sheriff auctioned the estate to make good Clarke Jr.'s debts, George Hyde Clarke, financed by his wife and mother-in-law, bought back the mansion, nearly all of its contents, and 3,000 acres surrounding the house.

Hyde Hall continued as a family home for three further generations of Clarkes, until 1963. New York State acquired the building that year when it took over 600 of the mansion's surrounding acres for development into Glimmerglass State Park.

Time and almost impossible maintenance costs, made worse by an outbreak of dry rot while the house was closed during World War II, had taken their toll. When the State took over ownership, it had no plans, and no funds, for restoring the mansion, and the threat of demolition became very real.

The Friends of Hyde Hall organization, led by Clarke descendants and preservationists, was incorporated in 1964 to save the house and to assist the New York State in maintaining it for the public's use and enjoyment. It was immediately accepted to the National Register of Historic Places, and subsequently declared a National Historic Landmark, as well as a New York State Historic Site. In 1988, the Friends acquired a renewable, 30-year lease of the 15-acre Hyde Hall Historic Site, as well as full responsibility for its restoration and management. The organization was renamed Hyde Hall, Inc. in 1999, but its purposes remain the unchanged.