A Decorated Interior Endures
This house in Hunter, New York, offers a genuine example of high-style wall and ceiling decoration ca.1920.
Before this Catskills town was a ski resort, it was a weekend destination for well-to-do New Yorkers who built grand “cottages” in styles from rustic to Neoclassical Revival. By the late 1930s, many of those weekenders were no longer wealthy. That was when Brooklyn textile-mill owner Jack Rogers came into possession of the house with the flamboyant Beaux Arts interior. His granddaughter would later christen it Clovesend.
Memories of Clovesend
For years, Jack’s wife and daughter would trek up to Hunter for the summer. They’d spend the week doing laundry, making up beds, and preparing food for the many guests on both sides of the family who would descend on the weekend. “For my mother, it was like summer vacation,” says Kerrul Kassel, Jack’s granddaughter.
Kassel (her first name is pronounced “Carol”) came into sole possession of the house as a young woman. Except for upstairs rooms done over in the 1950s or ’60s, “very little has changed. The stenciled ceilings, all of the mouldings and trim, and the wall coverings were there as long as I’ve known the house.”
Unparalleled Artistry
While Kassel does not know when Clovesend was built, the Beaux Arts style became popular in the 1890s and ended with the Wall Street crash of 1929. Kassel sees the interior as transitional, so she pins the build date to the Teens or early Twenties.
As a child, she remembers being delighted and intrigued with the stained-glass windows and chandeliers that appeared to be carefully matched to the medallions and raised enrichments mounted above them: “I’m one who loves ornamentation. Sometimes I think I should have been born 100 years ago. Even the fashions of the time would have suited my figure.”
The extraordinary craftsmanship may be the work of Italian immigrants who brought knowledge of ornamental plaster and faux finishes to the Catskills. The fine decorative painting on the ceilings is stenciled, not painted freehand. Plaster molds remain in the attic, along with scraps of the embossed Lincrusta that covers the walls of the stairwell.
Household furnishings mostly date to Kassel’s grandparents’ tenure. Both her mother and grandmother were antiques collectors and dealers. Kassel learned to play the 1880s pump organ in the front parlor, which came from a piano store in Vermont.
The name Clovesend comes from the house’s position at the end of Stoney Clove, a passage through the mountains. A stone wall and gate in front of the house lead to a walkway flanked by sugar maples. The spacing between trees gradually diminishes the closer they are to the gate, giving the illusion of greater distance when viewed from the porch.
The grounds include a stone terrace in the back leading to a guest house called Cherry Hill, with a squash court, chicken coop, and two other guest houses beyond that.In the years Kassel’s grandmother summered here, she had a gardener to whom she gave carte blanche.
Glorious Green Space
His green thumb created formal gardens on axial plans with carefully manicured conifers along with apple, cherry, and pear trees. Blackberries and wild thyme thrived on the hillside. Flower beds surrounding the patio overflowed with pansies.
Kassel lived in the house full time for a couple of years, then left to complete a PhD. She now runs a leadership-training foundation in Florida that involves interacting with horses. (A common exercise: leading a horse without reins or a lead through an obstacle course. It’s tougher than it sounds.)
In recent years, living 1200 miles away and dealing with family health issues put a strain on her ability to maintain or even to visit Clovesend. “My grandmother had a saying, ‘the mountain got too high’. The mountain got too high for me, too.” She sold Clovesend earlier this year to a buyer she hopes will leave the house intact. “From clothes in the drawers to sheets on the beds, even the silverware, it’s all still there.”
— Photos by Steve Gross & Susan Daley.
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The full-width verandah is supported by columns with capitals of the composite order—a hallmark of classical styles like Beaux Arts.
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The owner’s mother and grandmother collected and sold such antiques as this intricately carved occasional table. -
A game table and chairs sit in front of a bay window accented with stained glass. The combination bowl and shower light fixture likely is original. -
A floor vase rests by a demilune console. The wall covering is varnished Lincrusta, an embossed material similar to linoleum.
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A side view of Clovesend: the house was closed up every winter with shutters that have been continually maintained. -
The 1880s pump organ in the front parlor came from a piano store in Vermont. -
The view through the foyer lit by a colorful bowl fixture. -
Still furnished with family pieces from the 1930s and ’40s, the main living room is lavishly decorated with embossed, faux-finish wall treatments. -
A bowed wall in the living room features a custom relief treatment. While it appears to be carved from wood, the plaster-backed embossed layer is quite thin. -
The dining table, with formal upholstered chairs, sits under another impressive shower (multi-pendant) fixture. -
Clad in marble with colorful mosaic-tile floors, the upstairs bath has a deep pedestal tub and a needle shower that still works. The five-pendant shower fixture is suspended from an elaborate, cast-metal ring of fruit. -
The five-pendant shower fixture is suspended from an elaborate, cast-metal ring of fruit. -
The double wall sconce with a hobnail glass shade is in an upstairs bedroom. -
Anniversary Throwback: In OHJ’s July 2020 issue, Mary Ellen wrote about another preserved house in the Catskills, ca. 1885, which retains original paint decoration. The work possibly was by late-19th-century artists from New York’s theatre community.
