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Friends of the Gazebo
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HISTORY
Millbrook's Gazebo at Elm Drive was built in the 1890's. It decorated
the lawns of the properties of the Merritt family that were being
parceled off by the Millbrook Land & Improvement Co. as the vicinity
became the focus of residential development. The Gazebo was designed by
the prolific New York City architect James E. Ware, famous for his
remedial model tenement work, as well as regal masterpieces such as West
57th St.'s Osborne Apartments, considered one of the earliest and
grandest luxury apartment buildings in New York.
Also acclaimed for the Mohonk Mountain House in nearby New Paltz,
Ware had earlier designed Millbrook's Halcyon Hotel [later Bennett
College] as well as the multitude of elaborate country estates and
mansions that encase the village. As essentially Millbrook's "court
architect", Ware was responsible for the majority of what defines the
village's architectural identity; dozens of shops, civic buildings,
church halls, and residences, including two for the Merritt family at
either end of Merritt Ave. with their burgeoning real estate holdings
between them, and their Gazebo as an inviting decorative focal point.
Echoing the detailing of his estate architecture, with its latticed
timbers, conical roof, and metal finial, Ware's Gazebo epitomizes
authentic Victorian style. Beloved by generations through the decades,
it is a neighborhood fixture that is as iconic of Millbrook as the rest
of the architect's wonders from the Gilded Age. An historic structure
connected to the village's earliest origins, it is worthy and deserving
of preservation for future generations.
"To many Millbrook natives, the Gazebo is almost as iconic in its own way as any of Millbrook's other landmarks."
Patrick D. Wing
Author of Town & Country: The Architecture of James E. Ware & Sons
The gazebo is an integral part of Millbrook's history and should be saved or rebuilt at all costs. The Millbrook most of us grew up in was a close, safe "family" community where everyone knew everyone and we all looked out for one another. Though change seems to be inevitable, it's been difficult for those of us who were born and raised here to adapt. We miss our intimate, untouched, little Millbrook village that we once knew and loved, from a time when the simplicity of life was so very precious to all of us. Please don't take this treasured icon of our childhood away....it's not JUST a gazebo, it's a part of all of our childhood's. There is always "a way"....let's find it and stop erasing everything from our dearly loved village of year's ago.
Lucy Setaro
Third Generation Millbrook Resident