Grasmere

Grasmere is an estate of roughly sixty acres just south of Rhinebeck village, built around a three-story brick manor house. The core of the house dates to about 1824, when Peter R. Livingston rebuilt it on the site of a Georgian mansion begun by General Richard Montgomery and Janet Livingston Montgomery and destroyed by fire in 1823. A third story was added in 1861-2, and a west wing followed in the early twentieth century. Two stuccoed tenant houses of about 1916 mark the northern end of the property. To the south, a large stone barn and stable complex from about 1901 sits with sheds and corn cribs. Remains of formal gardens, including a brick balustrade, a stone pond and stone gateposts, show how the landscape shifted from formal to picturesque and back to formal. The estate matters for its link to leading Hudson Valley families and as a surviving example of how a country seat became a working farm.