“The garments created for Hyde Hall, using remnants woven by Rabbit Goody , represent a continuation of my work with historic homes. Over the years, while designing garments from textiles sourced from Thistle Hill Weavers , I collected some of the remnants previously woven for Hyde Hall. I see this as a preliminary study for a larger installation throughout the home and as an opportunity for deeper collaboration with the museum and Rabbit-a kind of textile investigation, expl

A rectangular story-and-a-half wooden building open on one side, the Cart Hovel stood opposite the Barn and parallel to the stone Apple House. It dated to around 1860 and replaced an earlier building that served the same purpose on the same site. While providing shelter for farm wagons and carts, it was also the men servants’ privy. The Cart Hovel was taken down by State workers in the 1970s; fortunately, detailed scale drawings were made before it was destroyed. Plans are no

Tucked into the hillside to the west of the house and only several yards from the Kitchens, the Ice House was a basic wooden structure filled with sawdust and winter ice cut from nearby Otsego Lake. Food stored there would remain cold well into the summer months. While no longer standing, a depression at the foot of the hill remains to mark the spot.

George Clarke was born into the English landowning class at the Clarke family manor house in Swainswick, Somerset. Through the influence of William Blathwayt , Clarke was appointed Secretary of the Province of New York in 1703. He was an able administrator and an adept politician during a turbulent period in New York, serving under three monarchs and six colonial governors. Clarke was eventually promoted to Lieutenant Governor. During his time in New York, he acquired a fort

George Clarke, Jr., was born in New York City and worked as an assistant to his father. Following the death of the unpopular and short-termed governor, Brigadier General William Crosby, he went to England in 1737 to promote his father’s case for the governorship. Although he was unsuccessful for his father, he was made Secretary of the Province for life in recompense. He remained in England and hired a deputy to oversee his affairs in New York. George, Jr., became head of the

George Clarke was born in Dijon, France, while his parents were living abroad. Clarke inherited part of his family’s American property at the age of nine and as he was a minor, it was not sequestered during the Revolution. When he came of age, he went to New York for the first time, landing on April 20, 1789. The war had left general confusion about his status as a landowner and much of the rent in arrears. He determined that his property held great promise for future develop

Ann, the first doyenne of Hyde Hall, was the daughter of Colonel Richard Cary, aide-de-camp to General George Washington, and Ann Haley Low, daughter of Cornelius Low and member of the Roosevelt family.  Ann was described as “beautiful, vivacious, high strung [and] unpredictable.” She married Richard Fenimore Cooper, eldest brother of the author, James Fenimore Cooper , in 1801 at age 18, and they had five children, three of whom lived to maturity. Following Cooper’s death, A

George Clarke was born at Hyde Hall and inherited his father’s estate at age 13. When Clarke turned 21 in 1843, he took over management of his inheritance and divided his time between Hyde Hall and a townhouse he rented in Manhattan. He built on his father’s undertakings in several ways. He oversaw the rental properties in 13 different counties and continued acquiring new farmland. Between 1843 and 1858 he expanded the original 850 acres around Hyde Hall to 3,000 acres that s

George ‘Hyde’ Clarke was born in New York City. He spent a few summer months and the occasional holiday at Hyde Hall as a young child. He moved to England with his mother and sisters in 1866 to attend school. He returned to New York to seek a law degree at Columbia in 1878. He was an exceptional athlete, winning various trophies at his schools. Among his athletic interests, he introduced court tennis to America and was designated the best cricket player at St. George’s Cricke

George Hyde Clarke, Jr., was raised at Hyde Hall and graduated from Harvard College in 1911. He started a career working for the Union Pacific Railroad in Nebraska, then Colorado and New York City. Because of his parents’ failing health, he returned to Hyde Hall to help manage the estate in 1914. In 1915 he married Emily Borie Ryerson  (1893-1960). Emily was the third child of Emily Maria Borie  and Arthur Larned Ryerson, owner of the Ryerson Steel Company of Chicago. The Ry

Constructed in 1883 to replace an earlier building, this structure stored 50 full cords of firewood used to fuel the mansion’s nine fireplaces and more than twenty cast iron wood stoves. Originally close to the Men Servants’ Hall part of the house, the Wood House was rebuilt using the original frame in 2021. The exterior preserves the sliding shutters that, when open, originally allowed air to pass through to season the cut wood stored inside. Now a multipurpose building that

On February 22, 1827, the Albany cabinetmaker John Meads billed George Clarke for “an Easy Chair” at a cost of $30. The chair is a neoclassical design with a contiguous U-shaped back and sides derived from Greek and Roman forms in marble. Clarke chose to use his new easy chair at his desk and commissioned Samuel F.B. Morse to depict him seated in it with some books and papers in his 1829 portrait. His grandson, George Hyde Clarke “The Gentleman,” continued the tradition and a

The low-back sofa is listed on a bill dated May 24, 1830, by the Albany cabinetmakers John Meads and William Alvord at a cost of $38.00. George Clarke "The Builder" placed the first of many furniture orders with Meads in 1811 and continued his patronage after Meads went into partnership with William Alvord in 1828. Clarke was involved with the form and design of all his furniture orders and the reeded vasiform legs of the sofa relate to designs in George Smith’s “Cabinet-Make

Hyde Hall unfolds across the northern shore of Otsego Lake like a quiet revelation, its landscape less manicured than composed, shaped by water, light, and long views rather than ornament. The approach is gentle: a winding road through Glimmerglass State Park, where meadow grasses ripple and the lake flashes silver between trees. There is a sense of leaving the modern world behind, mile by mile, until the land itself seems to slow your pace. The grounds open out into broad la

Originally the Wash House for laundry, this building was renovated in the 1890s after the work moved to the servants’ quarters. With a new roof, cider stove, and tiled larder rooms for storing meats, fish, and butter, it became known as the Apple House. In 2024, this building was restored and painted with a yellow limewash, its original color. Tucked a short walk from Hyde Hall’s grand neoclassical façade, the Apple House feels like a quiet aside—an intimate footnote to the e

Named after Douglas R. Kent, an early member of the Friends of Hyde Hall and a major Hyde Hall benefactor, this collection of conjoined buildings contains offices, a public restroom, a meeting room, collections storage, and a reference library. The two-story structure on the left is the Carriage House, built in 1817 and one of the earliest buildings on the Hyde Hall site. Originally in the center and flanked symmetrically by the two single-story hyphen wings (also of the same

The bridge stands as a rare and instructive artifact of early American engineering and landscape design, reflecting both practical necessity and the social aspirations of the early 19th century.

Exploring the foods and confections enjoyed by the Clarke family in the 1830s adds an unexpectedly delicious layer to your visit.

Learn about our ongoing and future renovations.