Smith, Abigail Adams, Museum
About this property
The Mount Vernon Hotel Museum & Garden, formerly the Abigail Adams Smith Museum, is a historic antebellum building at 421 East 61st Street, near the East River, on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. It is open to the public as a museum. Since 1924, it has been operated by the Colonial Dames of America. As of May 2025, the museum is open for tours on selected weekdays. One of the few remaining pre-1800 buildings in Manhattan, the house was originally planned in 1795 as an estate for Colonel William S. Smith and his wife, Abigail. The Smiths never completed the building; it was ultimately built as a carriage house and stable in 1799 for the nearby estate of William T. Robinson. Joseph Coleman Hart bought the house and converted it into a day hotel in 1826. The Mount Vernon Hotel operated in a city experiencing huge commercial growth after the opening of the Erie Canal. Its location offered guests a respite from the dirt, noise, and bustle of city life. In the 1830s, the commercial shipping and business districts of New York City lay below City Hall, while private residences extended as far north as modern-day Chelsea, and it was common for upper- and middle-class residents and visitors to take day trips to the then-rural setting that is now midtown Manhattan. One of over 50 day hotels in or near New York City, the Mount Vernon attracted middle-class guests with leisure activities such as boating trips, tours of unusual exhibitions and social events. In a city without public parks or public libraries, these day hotels offered "gentlemen and their families" an escape from the explosive growth of New York City's population and ensuing urbanization (the population of New York City, 123,706 in 1820, had grown to 202,589 by 1830). They could spend a quiet day near the river and be home downtown by sunset. Frances Trollope and James Stuart, a Scottish diarist, are two foreign travelers who visited New York City during the time when the Mount Vernon Hotel operated under Hart. Stuart recorded his 1829 stay at the Mount Vernon Hotel in his Three Years in North America (1833). The Mount Vernon Hotel operated until 1833, when it was purchased by Jeremiah Towle, who converted it to a private residence. His daughters continued to live in the house through 1905, when the Standard Gas Light Company bought the house and erected gas tanks nearby. The house was then bought by Jane Teller Robinson in 1919. The Colonial Dames of America purchased the site in 1924 to use as its headquarters. In 1939, the house opened to the public as the Abigail Adams Smith Museum. The planting plan for the Abigail Adams Smith Museum gardens was by New York landscape designer Alice Recknagel Ireys and Georgian landscape designer Kate Basilashvili.
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Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).
Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
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Questions about this property
When was Smith, Abigail Adams, Museum listed on the National Register?
Smith, Abigail Adams, Museum was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on January 12, 1973.
What type of historic resource is Smith, Abigail Adams, Museum?
Smith, Abigail Adams, Museum is classified as a building in the National Register of Historic Places.
What is the period of significance for Smith, Abigail Adams, Museum?
The period of significance for Smith, Abigail Adams, Museum is recorded as the industrial era.
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Yes. Aubrey Research reports search National Register listings, battlefield records, land patents, and other primary historical sources within any radius of a US address. A report for an address near Smith, Abigail Adams, Museum will include this listing and all other historical records in the area.
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