Hadley House
5122 Post Road | Riverdale | built 1899
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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.
- 1786
Farmer William Hadley buys the old stone farmhouse's land from the confiscated Philipse manor
The stone core of this house was probably built in the 1700s by a tenant farmer on Philipsburg Manor. After the Loyalist Philipse family fled during the Revolution, the state sold off the manor, and in 1786 local farmer William Hadley bought its southernmost parcel of about 92 acres. By tradition he and his wife Elizabeth moved into the house; after her death in 1826 the farm was sold.
“In 1786, the southernmost parcel of the estate (about 92 acres)... was sold to William Hadley, a local farmer…”
- 1829
Antiquarian Joseph Delafield acquires the Hadley farm and keeps the old house for tenants
Major Joseph Delafield, a War of 1812 veteran and amateur antiquarian, acquired the Hadley land at a foreclosure sale in 1829 and named his estate Fieldston. He leased the farmhouse to a tenant farmer, and a frame wing was added sometime between 1825 and 1850. By 1915 one tenant family had lived here for 35 years, and the house was popularly called the oldest in the area.
- 1915
Dwight James Baum remakes the farmhouse into a Colonial-style suburban home
In May 1915 the Delafield Estate sold the farmhouse to contractor Willett R. Skillman, who hired architect Dwight James Baum to modernize it. Baum raised the west wall of the stone section to two and a half stories, added a kitchen wing and porches, and gave the garden side a formal Georgian face while keeping the Post Road side irregular like an old farmhouse. He also copied the old wrought-iron shutter hinges for the new shutters.
- 2000
The Hadley House is designated a landmark with its owners' support
The Landmarks Preservation Commission designated the Hadley House on June 20, 2000, noting that part of it ranks among the Bronx's oldest houses. At the February 2000 hearing the owners and a Historic Districts Council representative spoke in favor and no one opposed it; Bronx Borough President Fernando Ferrer and Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz sent letters of support.
“Three witnesses: the owners of the property and a representative of the Historic Districts Council, spoke in favor of the designation.”
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