About this property
The Doane Stuart School is a private college preparatory school in Rensselaer, New York. The school is coeducational and interfaith, and it educates students in PreKindergarten through Grade 12. The Doane Stuart School ("Doane Stuart") was founded in 1975 as the result of a merger between the Roman Catholic Kenwood Academy (founded by the Society of the Sacred Heart in 1852) and the Episcopal St. Agnes School (founded in 1870). The name "Doane Stuart" was chosen to honor the first Episcopal Bishop of Albany, the Right Reverend William Croswell Doane, and Roman Catholic educator Janet Erskine Stuart. Doane Stuart's first home was the campus of the old Kenwood Academy in Albany, New York. Doane Stuart was established as an ecumenical Christian school, but later became an interfaith school. In 2007, the School offered to purchase the former Kenwood Academy from the Society of the Sacred Heart for $7.2 million. The Society rejected the offer. In March 2008, the Board of Trustees of Doane Stuart announced it had decided to end its affiliation with the Network of Sacred Heart Schools due to religious differences. At about the same time, the Society of the Sacred Heart notified the school it would not renew its lease of the former Kenwood Academy. On May 20, 2008, Rensselaer, New York voters approved the proposed sale of the former Van Rensselaer High School to Doane Stuart; Doane Stuart purchased the building for $4 million in September 2008. After a year-long renovation and restoration effort, Doane Stuart opened on September 16, 2009 at its new Rensselaer location. The Doane Stuart School building in Rensselaer, New York was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2012. As of April 2016, the School's 22,000-square-foot "green roof" was reportedly the largest vegetative roof in the Capital District. The school is co-educational and college preparatory. It educates students from early childhood through Grade 12. On March 23, 2023, the former Doane Stuart School building in Albany was destroyed by a massive fire. Speaking about the fire, Albany Mayor Kathy Sheehan said, "'We lost a treasure here and it’s challenging, it’s frustrating'". Doane Stuart celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2025. In June 2026, the school announced it would close, citing low enrollment. The School hosts an Irish American Exchange program, begun in 2003, which brings together Protestant and Catholic students from Lagan College (a secondary school in Belfast, Northern Ireland) to spend a year at Doane Stuart and live with local families. According to the Albany Times Union, as of 2014, 22 exchange students from Lagan College had spent a school year studying at Doane Stuart, while approximately 100 Doane Stuart students had made one-week visits to Lagan College.
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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 Van Rensselaer High School listed on the National Register?
Van Rensselaer High School was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on August 13, 2012.
What type of historic resource is Van Rensselaer High School?
Van Rensselaer High School is classified as a building in the National Register of Historic Places.
What is the period of significance for Van Rensselaer High School?
The period of significance for Van Rensselaer High School is recorded as the modern era, specifically around 1975.
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