{"nrhp_refnum":"66000512","name":"Woodchuck Lodge (Burroughs, John, Home)","other_names":["Woodchuck Lodge"],"category":"building","location":{"address":"2 mi. from Roxbury on Roxbury Rd.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Roxbury","county":"Delaware County","state":"NY","lat":42.29497621750005,"lon":-74.58505231756828,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1966-10-15","is_nhl":true,"nhl_designated_date":"1962-12-29","areas_of_significance":["Conservation","Literature"],"significance_levels":["national"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"Woodchuck Lodge is a small farmhouse on a southern slope of Old Clump Mountain, about two miles northwest of Roxbury, Delaware County, New York. Curtis Burroughs built it in 1860-1861, and his brother, the naturalist John Burroughs, later made it his summer home.","why_significant":"The lodge and the surrounding land are tied to John Burroughs, a popular naturalist and essayist whose writing helped build public interest in nature and the conservation movement. He spent summers there from 1910 until his death in 1921, and the land became a frequent subject of his later essays. The nearby fields, hillside and his grave site are treated as being as important as the house.","narrative":"Woodchuck Lodge is a modest clapboard farmhouse on a Catskills hillside near Roxbury, New York. Curtis Burroughs built it in 1860-1861 with vernacular Greek Revival and Italianate details. His brother John Burroughs, the naturalist and essayist, first stayed there in 1908, rented it in 1910 and 1911, and bought the farm in 1913 with help from Henry Ford. He added a rustic veranda made of sticks and boughs, a bath, a kitchen and running water from a hillside spring. Burroughs spent long summers here until his death in 1921, writing essays that drew on the fields, orchard and woods around the house. Those surroundings include the Ford lot with its hay barn study site, and the memorial field where he is buried beneath his boyhood rock. His writing on ordinary nature reached a wide audience and encouraged the conservation movement. A non-profit group has owned the lodge since 1975 and opens it to visitors on summer weekends.","period_of_significance":"1908-1921","architect_builder":"Curtis Burroughs","architectural_style":"Vernacular late Greek Revival and Italianate detailing, in a variant L-shaped plan","criteria":[],"status_note":"Owned since 1975 by a private non-profit group that opens it to the public on summer weekends; condition listed as good with minor alterations.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:50:38.653489-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/lz/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_NY/66000512_NHL.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/66000512/06221134b6-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/66000512/06221134b6-1600.webp","licence":"Public domain","author":"Tim mallery at English Wikipedia","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:John_Burrough_Boyhood_rock.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">Tim mallery at English Wikipedia</a>, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:John_Burrough_Boyhood_rock.jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/75315685","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodchuck_Lodge","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q2253138"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/new-york/delaware-county/woodchuck-lodge-burroughs-john-home-66000512/"}