The Matthewis Persen Home Museum and Cultural Heritage Heart, a stone constructing on the solely intersection in america with a pre-Revolutionary constructing on every nook, will quickly bear a facade restore and different renovations.
Ulster County obtained a $558,232 grant from the New York State Workplace of Parks, Recreation, and Historic Preservation to restore the constructing, residence to a museum of colonial American historical past, Ulster County Government Jen Metzger introduced on December 30. The Seventeenth-century residence, situated within the Stockade Nationwide Historic District, sits on the intersection of Crown and John Streets in Kingston, New York.
The funds will go towards changing the home’s declining wood roof and different exterior interventions, Metzger mentioned. She added that renovations will enable the museum to increase its operation season, which at present runs from Could via October because of its lack of heating.
“The Persen Home wants a brand new roof,” Taylor Bruck, appearing Ulster County clerk, instructed Hyperallergic. “It’s one of many oldest homes within the county … so the roof is sophisticated and is in determined want of restore.”

Bruck mentioned the county will preserve as “a lot of the unique materials as potential” to protect the historic character of the constructing. The timeline for the repairs has not but been decided, Bruck added.
The house, inbuilt installments from round 1661 to 1922, was the birthplace, longtime residence, and office of Matthewis Persen, who operated a tavern there till he died at age 80 in round 1819.
Following Persen’s demise, Dr. John Goodwin operated a grocery retailer and apothecary out of the constructing.
By 1914, the home had come underneath the possession of Ulster County, and the constructing grew to become a farm providers extension. Later, it grew to become the Cornell College Cooperative Extension till November 1999, when the construction started to exhibit “severe structural roof failure,” in response to a 2000 architectural report. That yr, the county started to transform the house right into a public-facing house.

In 2004, archaeologist Joseph E. Diamond uncovered artifacts throughout an excavation of the construction’s inside and three models outdoors the house. In the end, the positioning contained a trove of round 20,000 artifacts, together with prehistoric Native American pottery and projectile factors relationship way back to 1,500 BCE, a few of that are included in rotating exhibitions on the museum.
“The home performed host to, and continues to mirror, the varied cultural teams who’ve referred to as this land residence, together with Esopus native folks, Dutch and English colonists, and free and enslaved Africans,” Metzger mentioned.
Over the previous 5 years, Metzger mentioned in a press launch, museum visitorship has almost doubled to six,000 guests per yr.
“Help for historic preservation reminiscent of that is important to making sure this vital historic web site and modern museum can proceed to introduce guests to the advanced historical past of Kingston and the encircling area for generations to come back,” famous Ulster County Historian Eddie Moran.