Menand Park Historic District

Menand Park is a compact residential district on Tillinghast Avenue in Menands, part of the town of Colonie near Albany. It contains 22 contributing buildings, mostly Bungalows and Prairie Style houses from about 1913 to 1925. Typical features include low gable roofs with wide overhangs, exposed rafters, stained shingle siding, recessed porches on heavy brick or cobblestone piers, and cobblestone chimneys. Most houses keep their original garages. The development was created in the early twentieth century for a newly emerging Albany suburb by Charles S. Aldrich, a Troy lawyer, and Esther Stevens. Vanderhyden Corporation of Troy apparently built the houses, though the designer is uncertain. The designs reflect Frank Lloyd Wright's ideas and the California craftsman movement, and may derive from bungalow plans published by Gustav Stickley. The district was drawn narrowly around the eastern part of Tillinghast Avenue, where integrity is best, because alterations elsewhere reduced historic character.