Stephens-Prier House
3672 Richmond Road | Richmondtown | built 1901
Open on the map5 entries
The city photographed every building for its tax records around 1940 and again in the 1980s. NYC Municipal Archives.
Written with AI from the source each entry cites, then fact-checked.
- 1857
Daniel Lake Stephens buys Richmondtown's largest house lot and builds a large frame house
Daniel Lake Stephens, a blind New Yorker who had moved to Staten Island in 1854 to live with his cousin Stephen D. Stephens, bought an empty lot from Harmon Cropsey in March 1857. It ran 130 feet on Richmond Road and 190 feet on St. Patrick's Place, the biggest residential site in the village. The house appears on Walling's map of 1859, and the 1860 census finds Stephens living there with a widowed cousin as housekeeper, her daughter, a boarder and an Irish servant.
“In March 1857, Daniel Lake Stephens bought an unimproved lot extending from Richmond Road to Center Street along the east side of St. Patrick's Place…”
- 1871
Former village postmaster James W. Stephens marries Mary Louisa Tysen inside the house
James W. Stephens, a widower who had clerked in his father's general store and served as Richmondtown's postmaster in 1869-70, wed Mary Louisa Tysen in a ceremony held at the house in March 1871. His parents had moved into the house in April 1870, after his father sold his own house and store to Mary Black. The newlyweds later left for Rahway, New Jersey.
“In March 1871, James W. Stephens, a widower who had worked as a clerk in his father's store and had served as village postmaster in 1869-70, was married…”
- 1881
Stephen D. Stephens Jr., living here, is elected Richmond County judge and surrogate
A Columbia-trained lawyer who opened his practice in Richmondtown in 1869 and sat in the State Assembly from 1873 to 1875, Stephen D. Stephens Jr. won election in 1881 as County Judge and Surrogate. He kept both posts for thirty years until he died in 1911, longer than any other county judge in the state. The house was his home for sixteen years, the stretch when he rose in politics; he brought his bride, Agnes Lasar Stephens, here in 1884.
“In 1881 he was elected County Judge and Surrogate for Richmond County. He held both positions for thirty years until his death in 1911.”
- 1886
Butcher James E. Prier buys the Stephens house at an estate auction
The estate of banker John I. Stephens sold the house at auction in June 1886 to James E. Prier, a carpenter turned butcher born in Huguenot, Staten Island, who kept a Richmondtown shop selling meat and vegetables and owned a pond and commercial ice house nearby. His son J. Irving Prier grew up here; the family sold in 1926, regained the house through foreclosure in 1931 and held it until 1946.
“In June 1886, the Stephens-Prier House was sold at auction by the Estate of John I. Stephens to James E. Prier.”
- 1991
New York City buys the restored house as Historic Richmond Town's headquarters
After engineer Francis C. Evans died in 1977, the house went to William E. Rigby and his son Bill, a housewright at Historic Richmond Town, who stripped off a 1920s neo-Colonial portico and later shingles and largely finished a restoration by May 1986. The city acquired the house and lot in 1991, and it became the executive director's office and administrative center of Historic Richmond Town. It was designated a landmark in 1999.
“In 1991 the house and lot were acquired by New York City for Historic Richmond Town. It is currently used as the Executive Director's office…”
Nearby
- St. Patrick's Church256 Center Street | 3 entries
- Guyon-Lake-Tysen House3737 Richmond Road | 5 entries
- Third County Courthouse302 Center Street | 4 entries
- Britton Cottage1001 Richmond Hill Road | 6 entries
- Boehm House43 Arthur Kill Road | 2 entries
- Voorlezer's House59 Arthur Kill Road | 7 entries