Halcyon Days Are Over
It's nice to imagine that the more affluent communities in the county to our south do a good job of protecting their historic resources, but that's not always true. A reader alerted me to a story from the British press about the abandoned Halcyon Hall in Millbrook. Designed by James E. Ware, who designed the Stone Building at Mohonk Mountain House, Halcyon Hall was built as a luxury hotel in 1893. In 1907, it became the main building of Bennett College, a two-year college for women, which had been founded seventeen years earlier in Irvington, NY. The college closed in 1978, and Halcyon Hall has stood abandoned ever since. The story in the Daily Mail has pictures taken recently of the interior of the once grand building as it awaits its imminent demolition.
Carole, thanks for this post -- about a month ago we were driving down through Millbrook and we drove past this incredible wreck. There was a sign outside that said "Halcyon Hall" and frankly I thought it was a local joke -- that the sign was put up in response to the decrepitude. Now I know better. It's really a shame that it's been permitted to deteriorate. Up close it's still quite an impressive building.
ReplyDeleteYes that is a real shame. Some of the cutest girls ever went to Bennett.
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