Elsewhere in the Hudson Valley

Back in 2010, there was news that Eric Galloway had purchased a major house in Garrison. The major house in question is the estate called variously Oulagisket, Lisburne Grange, and the Sloan Estate, which is listed in the National Register of Historic Places as a component of the Hudson Highlands Multiple Resource Area.

The mansion was built in c. 1864 as the summer home of prominent railroad magnate Samuel Sloan and his wife, Margaret Elmendorf Sloan, who called the estate by the Indian name Oulagisket. According to Wikipedia, the house was originally built in Gothic style, popular in the United States in the mid-19th century.  

In 1907, the estate was inherited by Samuel Sloan, Jr., and his wife, Katherine. The younger Sloans initiated many changes. They changed the name of the estate to Lisburne Grange, to acknowledge the birthplace of Samuel Sloan, Sr., in Lisburne, County Down, Ireland. They expanded the house and had it completely redesigned in the then more popular Italianate style. In the 1920s, they hired Fletcher Steele, one of the most famous landscape architects of the first half of the 20th century, to redesign the landscaping.

When Katherine Sloan died in the early 1950s, the house passed out of the Sloan family. It was bequeathed to Vassar College. In 1955, John William Moss, a partner in the law firm Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft, bought the house from the college. Moss and his family occupied the house for sixty years.

In March 2010, when Moss's widow, Kathryn, was trying to sell the house, it was featured as the "House of the Day" in the Wall Street Journal. The article included sixteen pictures of the house and its interior which can still be viewed online. 

Zillow reports that the house was sold in September 2010 for $3,744,325--$500,000 less than what the Wall Street Journal reported as the list price six months earlier. Putnam County tax records reveal that the current owner is H & E Group LLC, which has the same New York City address given in the Columbia County tax rolls for Eric Galloway and Galvan Initiatives Foundation.

This year, the house was featured in "Hudson Valley Demolition Alert" on the website Hudson Valley Ruins. The website reports: "New owners of an historic mansion in Garrison have, through renovations, essentially destroyed the c. 1864 Italianate home built for Samuel Sloan. . . . Historic details such as the entire paneled oak library, mantelpieces, bathroom fixtures, doors, windows, and shutters, and by appearances, most all other interior finishes, have been removed from the house. Its west-facing tower also appears to have been removed or significantly altered."

Photo: Build It Green! NYC

Hudson Valley Ruins provides links to the website of the salvage company Build It Green! NYC, where the paneled oak library and other items removed from the house can be viewed.
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