Loudon Road Historic District

Loudon Road in Loudonville, town of Colonie, is lined with homes and a few commercial buildings that trace the area's development along the old plank road from Albany to Saratoga. Before 1850 only a few farms stood here, including Elias Ireland's store and hotel at the northern end; his circa 1820 Federal house survives at 427 Loudon Road. From the mid-nineteenth century, wealthy Albany families built summer retreats, among them the cottage of Senator Ira Harris, the Shingle Style Stedman and Easton houses, and a half-timbered Tudor Revival cottage once used by the founder of Albany Medical College. Early twentieth-century transportation turned the road into an upper middle class suburb, adding Georgian Revival houses. The 1811 Loudonville School, rebuilt around 1850, is among the oldest schools in the state. Set back behind dense vegetation, the properties keep their large landscaped grounds, and the district preserves a layered record of rural, summer-resort and suburban phases.