A SHORT HISTORY OF CARNWATH FARMS

Mr. Wlliam Henry Willis built the Carnwath Manor Home in 1850, and called it Carnwath Farms. The property consisted of 99.7 acres overlooking the majestic Hudson River. The name ‘Carnwath’ is derived from a Carnwath Manor home set in Scotland.

At the time there was a movement in landscape gardening combining the formal kitchen, agricultural and natural gardens into a single planned estate. Alexander Jackson Davis, an architect and Andrew Jackson Downing, who was interested in English landscape gardening, influenced romantic aesthetics in residential architecture & landscaping, which was integrated in large Hudson River estates.

In 1865 or 1868, after the Civil War, General Barclay purchased the estate from Mr. Willis.

In 1870, Mr. Reginald Rives, who married the daughter of General Barclay, purchased Carnwath Farms. Soon after, he added the east wing to the manor house, including servants’ quarters and the large rear kitchen area. The formal Georgian appearance was changed to a less formal look preferred by the late-19th century architects.

In 1873, Mr. Rives had the Carriage House built and modeled after French architecture. He developed Carnwath for a farming business and established the finest stables of harness and saddle horses in the country. He was involved in the sport of Road Coaching, and was president of the Coaching Club formed by horsemen in 1875. When the automobile was invented, it was announced in 1910 that Horse Coaching was nearing an end as they were forced off city streets.

In the early 1900s, the property, then known as ‘Rives Hill’, was purchased by a lawyer from New York named Untermeyer, who was famous for defending William ‘Boss’ Tweed, an unscrupulous politician who ran the New York City Democratic machine.

In 1925, the Order of the Brothers of Hermits purchased the decaying Rives Hill estate. The Villanova-based Roman Catholic monks built a small convent in 1925. The Chapel building was built in 1950 and the dormitory building was built in 1958. The hermitage closed in the 1980s and then was sold to Greystone House, a private group that houses severely handicapped individuals.

Greystone then sold the entire property to the Town of Wappinger in 1999.