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DeFreest Homestead

New York, US

DeFreest Homestead

The DeFreest Homestead is a historic house and barn located in the Rensselaer Technology Park in North Greenbush, New York, United States. The homestead and surrounding land are owned and managed by Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. It was the original home of Philip DeFreest, one of the first Dutch

settlers to arrive in the mid-18th century. The land includes historic buildings typical of a working Dutch farm: a farmhouse restored in 1984 to house the park's administrative offices, and a Dutch barn. The DeFreest House was built around 1765, partially constructed of European brick used as ballast in Dutch fur trading ships that sailed up the Hudson. Between 1630 and 1850, Dutch barns dominated the landscape in the Hudson Valley. They were distinguished by their H-shaped structural frame. The DeFreest barn was constructed around 1820 of thick, 50-foot beams of hemlock more than a hundred years old when hewn, and wood re-used from earlier structures on the site. The house and surrounding homestead were listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1977. The DeFreest Homestead has been the interest of honorary trustee C. Sheldon Roberts (RPI class of 1948), and wife, Patricia...

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