The Villa (Fonthill cottage)

6111 Riverdale Avenue | also 6301 Riverdale Avenue | Riverdale | built 1848

Open on the map6 entries

Written with AI from the source each entry cites, then fact-checked.

1. 1852

   A fieldstone cottage rises as an outbuilding of actor Edwin Forrest's Fonthill estate

   The two-story cottage was built for Fonthill, the castle that tragedian Edwin Forrest completed in 1852, and was standing by 1856 at the latest. Instead of the usual board-and-batten, it is built of the same locally quarried fieldstone as the castle. The Landmarks Preservation Commission compared it to Andrew Jackson Downing's 'Workingman's Model Cottage,' noting its diamond-paned Gothic windows, jerkinhead central gable and carved Italianate brackets; its twin chimneys were later removed.

   Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

2. 1857

   The Sisters of Charity buy Fonthill, and its cottage becomes part of Mount Saint Vincent

   Forced out of their McGown's Pass home by the building of Central Park, the Sisters of Charity of New York bought Forrest's Fonthill property for their motherhouse and academy. The cottage, later called the Villa, was one of three original estate buildings, beside the fieldstone barn now known as Boyle Hall. Forrest had sometimes stayed in it while checking on construction of his castle by the river.

   Source: scny.org

3. 1888

   Ten-year-old Lionel Barrymore studies at a boys' school housed in the cottage

   After fire destroyed St. Aloysius Academy in Yonkers, its displaced pupils were given a school and dormitory in the cottage, which served that purpose from 1887 until 1910. One of the fifteen boys there in early 1888 was ten-year-old Lionel Barrymore.

   Source: scny.org

4. 1895

   October

   Seven-year-old Eugene O'Neill is enrolled at the cottage school and stays until 1900

   Eugene O'Neill was seven when his father, an actor, enrolled him at the boys' school in the cottage; he remained a pupil until 1900. The Sisters of Charity archives note that the convent-school shrine in O'Neill's play Long Day's Journey Into Night resembles the Lourdes Grotto, which overlooks Forrest's goldfish pond near the cottage.

   Source: scny.org

5. 1910

   Renamed Lourdes Villa, the cottage becomes a college dormitory and later a tearoom

   The St. Aloysius boys left once the College of Mount Saint Vincent opened its doors in 1910, and the cottage took the name Lourdes Villa, housing college students. In the 1920s and 1930s part of the building served as the campus tearoom, and after a 1942 interior remodeling it became the residence of the college's priests.

   Source: scny.org

6. 1952

   Archbishop Paul Yu-Pin of Formosa makes the Villa his home for seven years

   Paul Yu-Pin, then Archbishop of Formosa and later a cardinal, lived in the cottage from 1952 to 1959. Today the Villa houses Sisters of Charity who hold leadership and administrative posts at the Sisters of Charity Center.

   Source: scny.org

Nearby

• St. Margaret of Cortona Church6000 Riverdale Avenue | 3 entries
• St. Margaret of Cortona School452 West 260th Street | 1 entry
• Russian Mission Residency355 West 255th Street | 5 entries
• SAR Academy655 West 254th Street | 2 entries
• 5297 Independence Avenue2 entries
• 5294 Sycamore Avenue2 entries

All 301 buildings with stories in Riverdale