With the onslaught of developers in Rockland County there is one happy story to tell about preservation of our past. Nyack’s historic Green house has been saved from destruction thanks to the hard work of a group of local volunteer preservationists and the kind heart of a mortgage company and a bank, which jointly donated the two-century-old sandstone structure to the newly formed Green House Preservation Coalition.
News of the gift was announced at a specially called press conference last week at the site, on Lower Main Street near the Hudson River, attended by village, town, county and state officials along with dozens of local residents, historians and conservationists, many of whom had been quietly working to save the historic structure for nearly a decade.According to local historian and president of the Historical Society of the Nyacks, Winn Perry, early settler John Green built the Green house about 1817. It is not only the oldest surviving Dutch sandstone house in Nyack, but is thought to be the second oldest house of any type within the village.
The coalition will seek grants from various local, state, federal, private and foundation sources for studies of the existing house, and then a rehabilitation program to convert it into a usable structure possibly as a visitor’s welcome center to Nyack.