Decker Farmhouse

435 Richmond Hill Road | New Springville | built 1931

Open on the map3 entries

The lot about 1940
About 1940. Via 1940s.nyc
The lot about 1985
About 1985. Via 80s.nyc

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.

  1. 1840

    Remodeling stretches the farmhouse roof forward into a columned porch

    Around 1840 the roof of the Decker farmhouse, first built about 1810, was carried down in a curving sweep past the eave to cover a porch resting on four square columns with plain molded caps. The same remodeling added double-hung sash windows and a narrow porch before the kitchen wing. The Landmarks Preservation Commission later called the one-and-a-half-story clapboard and shingle house a fine survivor of a once common Staten Island farmhouse type.

    “About 1840, the roof of the original 1810 house was extended in a graceful sweep from the eave to form a porch supported by four square columns…”

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  2. 1955

    Sylvanus Decker wills his farm to the Staten Island Historical Society

    Sylvanus Decker, from one of the early families to settle on Staten Island, left this small farm to the Staten Island Historical Society by his will in 1955. The will required the Society to run the eleven-acre property as a farm museum showing nineteenth-century farm life on the island. Besides the farmhouse, the property holds six outbuildings, about three quarters of a mile from Historic Richmondtown.

    “This small farm was willed to the Staten Island Historical Society by Sylvanus Decker in 1955.”

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  3. 1967

    December 13

    Landmarks Commission designates the Sylvanus Decker Farm

    The Landmarks Preservation Commission designated the Sylvanus Decker Farm at 435 Richmond Hill Road a city landmark on December 13, 1967, after a hearing in September 1966 where one witness spoke in favor and no one opposed it. The owner, the Staten Island Historical Society, backed the designation. Given how fast land was being converted, the Commission expected it would probably become the only nineteenth-century farm left in New York City.

    “With the current rate of land conversion it will probably be the only Nineteenth Century farm remaining in New York City.”

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

Nearby

All 3 buildings with stories in New Springville