- Not to be confused with Van Cortlandt Manor in Croton-on-Hudson, Westchester County.
The
Van Cortlandt House Museum, also known as
Frederick Van Cortlandt House or
Van Cortlandt House, is the oldest building in
The Bronx,
New York City. The house was built in the
Georgian style by Frederick Van Cortlandt (1699–1749) in 1748 for his family. Van Cortlandt died before its completion and the property was inherited by his son, James Van Cortlandt (1727–1787). It is a -story, L-shaped house with a double hipped roof. It was built in 1748 of dressed
fieldstone and is representative of the high Georgian style. The Van Cortlandts, a mercantile family prominent in New York affairs, established a grain plantation and
grist mill on the property. The house was used during the
Revolutionary War by
Rochambeau,
Lafayette, and
Washington. In 1889, after 140 years of occupancy by the Van Cortlandt family, the property was sold to the
City of New York and made a public parkland. It was added to the
National Register of Historic Places in 1967 and became a
National Historic Landmark in 1976. The house has been operated as a
historic house museum since 1897, the first in the city and fourth in the country.