Page "Blauvelt, New York" Paragraph 13

* Blauvelt-Norris-Burr House-608 Western Highway-The main section and south kitchen of this Dutch home were built ca.

1790-1800, the north addition ca.

1840, on land previously owned by David Bogert.

The first known occupant was Garret I. Blauvelt.

In 1853 the farm was acquired by John S. Norris, an architect and builder.

In 1885 it was purchased by the Burr family who owned it for 56 years.

The current owner of the house did a great deal of restoration in 2008 / 09.

In the course of removing 1960's changes and opening walls to correct structural damages, a different scenario for the house has emerged.

There is evidence of a door and a window suggesting the south kitchen was added later than previously thought.

The south chimney of the main section of the house differs from the north, in that it contains three fireplaces off a center chimney, suggesting it is the remnant of a previous building.

In checking with the Historical Society, there are two maps of early Rockland County homesteads — the earlier one dated 1750.

The Blauvelt-Norris-Burr House appears on that map suggesting it was built before 1750.

Also, the house is larger than most in the area, and the construction of the upper floor suggests it is not as old as the bottom.

Photographs from the later part of the 1800s show the addition of a front porch, which explains the unusually large section of clapboard between the stone foundation and roof.

The owner feels a reasonable chronology is thus: The house that predates the 1750 map was torn down and rebuilt ( possibly ) in 1790, as the Society states.

There is no evidence that the so-called " south kitchen " was a kitchen, because the room was structurally altered in the early 20th century ( early plaster board suggests this ), and there is no evidence of a large cooking fireplace.

At one point the main south chimney did have a large kitchen fireplace, as did the north wing which was added later using " recycled " hand-honed beams that may have come from the pre-1750 house.

This stone addition seems to have replaced another, possibly of wood and half its present size, as the interior wall of the main building is partially whitewashed.

Again, this suggests that the north wing was an addition.

The upper floor was most certainly added to the house in the 19th century.

Possibly the architect Norris did this after he purchased it because he was the most capable.

( He had also recently married a woman with two daughters, and this would have given him plenty of room.

) Raising the roof would explain the absence of plaster behind the wainscoting upstairs, floor seams that suggest a different wall configuration at one point, the unusually high window dormers which can only reasonably have been added at the time of the roof raising and porch addition, the clapboard between the stone and roof, and the high ceilings which contain milled beams on the main floor.