Historic Structure Report, Architectural Data Section: Val-Kill Cottage (The Factory)

Pearson, Barbara

This report documents the existing conditions at and makes recommendations for the preservation of Eleanor Roosevelt's home, part of Val-Kill, the Eleanor Roosevelt National Historic Site, Hyde Park, New York. The structure has been variously known as the service house, the furniture factory, the shop, and the cottage. The building was built in 1926 as a furniture factory, out of which Val-Kill Industries operated. The factory remained in operation until 1936, after which the building was converted into a home for Eleanor Roosevelt and her secretary. The report gives recommendations for restoring the site to its 1962 condition. Recommendations are based upon the existing conditions of the building, upon analytical examination of building fabric, and upon the correlation of existing conditions with historical documentation included in this report. Recommendations have been divided into exterior, interior, and mechanical-systems categories. Interior recommendations are further divided into three sections: those for rooms that will be open for public viewing; those for rooms that will be adaptively used by the National Park Service or by ERVK; and those for rooms for which no specific use has been designated in the General Management Plan. The recommendations for rooms that will be open for public viewing are designed to preserve and/or restore the rooms to the 1962 period. Recommendations for rooms that will be adaptively used, or for which no use is designated, tend to be limited to the preservation, stabilization, and repair of extant historic fabric.

Historic Structure Report, Architectural Data Section: Val-Kill Cottage (The Factory)

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