Cragsmoor Historic District

Cragsmoor is a mountaintop hamlet on the Shawangunk ridge in Ulster County, New York, about five miles from Ellenville. The historic district covers roughly 362 acres and includes 107 properties with 168 contributing buildings, 15 structures, 11 objects and 16 sites, along with 63 non-contributing features. Its resources include summer cottages, a chapel, a library, a cemetery and artists' studios. The hamlet grew from a small settlement of year-round wooden houses, such as Orchard Cottage, built around 1824, into a summer colony of artists and other creative people beginning in the late nineteenth century. Painter E. L. Henry first visited in the 1870s and encouraged relatives and New York associates to follow. The railroad spur to Ellenville, opened in 1871, made the trip from New York City possible. The colony thrived until the 1940s, and Shawangunk stone appears in many of its homes. The district is recognized for this artistic community and its architecture.