Approved Shoring Plan and More!
Great news! The Town has received approval of the shoring plan from NY State! The Request For Proposal will go out on Monday, 11/23/2020, to qualified construction firms to do the work. This RFP must be open for 3 weeks. Once the Town receives the bids, they will be reviewed by the Planning Department, a choice of firm will be made and then the Town Board will pass a resolution authorizing the work to begin. Weather permitting, the work could begin either at the end of December or the beginning of January!
At the same time as the shoring work RFP is issued, there will also be another RFP to hire the architect to design the full restoration of the house. The architectural firm chosen will work with museum consultants to create not only the physical, structural work to be completed but also to consider how each room will be used to exhibit and teach the wonderful history of this house!
Progress continues as the Friends work with the Town to raise money for the restoration of Odell House Rochambeau Headquarters. Our membership and donor numbers are growing as is interest in our project from throughout Westchester and the United States. As a prime location on the Washington Rochambeau Revolutionary Route, we are participating in the national, state and county plans to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the Revolutionary War. As events are held, they are posted on our Facebook page and here on the website. We can’t wait to hold our first event in 2021!
Meanwhile, the Friends are preparing the house for the beginning of the physical work. With the agreement of the SAR, we moved 16 cartons of documents and numerous framed photographs from the storage containers on the property to safe keeping in the archives of the Westchester County Historical Society. This is a modern, climate controlled archive, protected from fire and other damage. We are very grateful to Susanne Pandich, director of WCHS and Pat Raftery, librarian, for allowing the collection to be there. Marc Cheshire of the Scarsdale Historical Society participated in the move and SHS paid for the new archival boxes to house the collection. Board members Susan and David Seal, Dan Weinfeld and Chris Rubeo have begun to sort the letters, legal documents and photos and to scan the most important ones. And Chris, who lives in California, while visiting in Hawthorne, scanned 1100 slides found in the container. These images are vintage photos of farm life in Westchester, the Odell family from the mid 19th century up to the end of the 20th and more. Thank you, Chris!
Last week, a crew from the Greenburgh Parks Department removed a series of models of Odell farm outbuildings to safe keeping. These are wooden models, made to scale of the cattle barn, hay barn, stable and more made by Roland Odell in the 1970’s and 80’s. We will be able to display them during events at the house and at Hartsbrook Park and use them to explain what it looked like before all the houses around it were built.
During the next few weeks, one of the old storage containers will be removed from the property. In its place will go a new container, funded by the Friends with the help of a generous grant from a small, local, family foundation. The contents of the house will be inventoried and photographed as they are moved from the house into the new container. They will be safely housed there while restoration work moves forward. This full, carefully created inventory of the furniture, the artifacts and the documents will be a key element for the planning of the Museum. The rich history of the house will be told in our new Museum with exhibits created from this wonderful treasure trove!
There is more progress to come soon! If you haven't joined us yet, please come on board!
Grant Received by the Friends!
The Greater Hudson Heritage Network announced this month that the Friends of OHRH has been awarded a Collection Needs Assessment Grant. The grant is made possible with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature. These funds will allow us to hire an expert to analyze and evaluate the contents of the house. The contents can then be sorted and packed for safe storage while the museum is under construction. The work will begin as soon as the shoring of the first floor is completed.
New Signs Now Installed at OHRH!
This week a great crew from the Town of Greenburgh DPW installed two new signs in front of the house. The signs were a joint effort between the National Park Service, the Hudson River Valley Greenway and the Washington Rochambeau Revolutionary Route. They created 15 signs throughout NY State that will be a trail for all to follow in the footsteps of the French and Continental Forces.These signs had been sent to the house in 2014 but not put into their proper place. They beautifully illustrate the story of the historic Rochambeau Washington Meetings in 1781. Stop by and have a look!
Here are the signs as installed, followed by close-up photos so you can read the text from home.
Colonial Day At Odell House Postponed to 2021
After careful thought and deliberation, the Town of Greenburgh and the Friends of Odell House Rochambeau Headquarters have come to the reluctant decision to postpone Colonial Day until 2021. We want to take the most cautious approach to planning public events, because our priority remains doing everything we can to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 and to protect our community.
We are continuing our work to restore Odell House and to raise the funds for this important work. If you’d like to join our efforts, please click below.
You can support us by shopping on Amazon through this link.
FREE Book about the Franco-American Philipsburg Encampment available now
We are proud to announce the release of a fascinating new book about the Franco-American Philipsburg Encampment from July 6, 1781 to August 18, 1781 in Greenburgh, NY. The book can be read online or downloaded free by clicking here.
Distinguished author and scholar, Dr. Robert Selig, has devoted years to researching this seminal event that changed the course of the Revolutionary War. Much of the book is based on primary sources, never published before. It includes new maps using current day roads and identifies many sites in Westchester and Greenburgh. The positions of the 9,000 Continental and French troops throughout the hills and valleys of Greenburgh are described in detail. Other information, such as where they marched, how they were supplied, and their everyday life in camp are included. Importantly, the decisions made by the two allied generals, Washington and Rochambeau, are told from their actual diaries and the words of officers who served under them in 1781.
The book was jointly funded by a grant from NYS Hudson River Valley National Heritage Area, the Town of Greenburgh and the Friends of Odell House Rochambeau Headquarters.
Westchester County Historical Society has an Auction Site
WCHS is partnering with The Benefit Shop Foundation to create a year round opportunity for the community to donate items and purchase items to raise funds for WCHS. If you are moving and/or have items to donate please consider using this service to find a new home for your treasures. Go to https://westchesterhistory.com/support-us/#benefit-foundation-shop for more information.
Westchester, Washington, and Rochambeau: The Path To Victory
Susan Seal, President and Founder, Friends of Odell House Rochambeau Headquarters, discussed the historical significance of the old farmhouse on Ridge Road in Hartsdale in her talk at the Greenburgh Public Library on January 15, 2020. She told the story of the important role it played in American history and Greenburgh history and the need to preserve it.
$600,000 Grant from NY State Awarded for the Restoration of Odell House
We are very pleased to announce that the Town of Greenburgh was the recipient of a $600,000 grant from NY State for the restoration of Odell House. The state will contribute $600,000 towards the restoration work and the Town, along with the Friends of Odell House Rochambeau Headquarters, will raise a matching $600,000. We would like to thank Commissioner of Planning and Community Development Garrett Duquesne and the rest of the Town staff for all their work on this.
The NY State Attorney General and the NY State Supreme Court have approved the transfer of title to the Town pending a few filings from the Sons of the American Revolution. We anticipate this to happen in the next few weeks. Then the work will begin to restore the house and make it a source of pride and learning for our community.