Local
Architecture and Historic Preservation
The Hart-Cluett House - The Architectural
Significance
Tour this
Architectural Gem!
 Troy
is known for a rich industrial heritage that began in the early
19th century and has lasted to the present day. Bells, cast-iron
stoves, horseshoes for the Union Army during the Civil War, collars
and shirts, steel and chemicals are just some of the products
made in this city along the eastern banks of the Hudson River.
The wealth that was accumulated from
the success of these businesses was poured by their owners into
lavish mansions, magnificent churches and public buildings, Tiffany
windows, parks and educational institutions -- a legacy that is
everywhere evident in today's Troy.
Amid the 19th century rowhouses in the Second Street
Historic District in downtown Troy sits a white marble house,
completed in 1827, just as Troy was beginning its shift from a
commercial to an industrial economy base. The Hart-Cluett House,
as it is known today, was constructed for a businessman-banker's
family, the Harts, and sold six decades later to the Cluett family,
a family who helped give Troy the nickname, "The Collar City."
The marble-faced structure known as the Hart-Cluett
House is one of the finest intact houses of the late Federal period
in America. Constructed as a gift for his only child, Betsey Howard
Hart, and her husband, Richard P. Hart, by wealthy New York merchant
and banker William Howard, the house represents the best in design
and craftsmanship of the period. The house was architecturally
sophisticated, exhibiting many stylistic details associated with
homes of the same period in New York City. The house was technologically
advanced, as well, as evidenced by its heating and plumbing systems.
 The
Hart-Cluett house has survived virtually intact in Troy while
its contemporaries in New York City have all been destroyed. One
must come here to Troy to experience and understand what the finest
houses in New York were like in the early 19th century.
To supervise construction of the house, a twenty-nine
year old builder named John B. Colegrove moved from New York City
to Troy in 1826. When he died in 1860, his obituary noted that
"...in the course of his career...he had erected some of
the finest public and private edifices in the city (Troy) and
vicinity." The completion of the "marble house on Second
Street" was the beginning of this outstanding career.
From the completion of the house in 1827 until today,
the house has had only four owners: the Harts, the George B. Cluetts,
the Albert E. Cluetts and the Rensselaer County Historical Society.
All have shown great respect for the house, and there has always
been the realization that this marble-faced building was no ordinary
structure.
In 1983, a collection of wooden trunks bearing Betsey
Hart's name on the outsides, were discovered at the Troy Savings
Bank. These trunks held virtually all of Mrs. Hart's bills and
financial records for the majority of her years at the House.
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