page_title: Cooperstown, New York
section_title: Architecture
hierarchical_section_title: Cooperstown, New York / Architecture
caption_attribution_description: English: The Inn at Cooperstown, New York, built in 1874 as an annex to the Fenimore Hotel. Part of the Cooperstown Historic District.
context_page_description: Cooperstown is a village in and county seat of Otsego County, New York, United States. Most of the village lies within the town of Otsego, but some of the eastern part is in the town of Middlefield. It is located at the southern end of the historic Otsego Lake and is in the Central New York Region of New York.
  Cooperstown is best known as the home of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum. The Farmers' Museum, opened in 1944 on farm land that had once belonged to James Fenimore Cooper, the Fenimore Art Museum, Glimmerglass Opera, and the New York State Historical Association are also based here. Most of the historic pre-1900 core of the village is included in the Cooperstown Historic District, which was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980; its boundaries were increased in 1997 and more contributing properties were identified.
  The population of the village was 1,852 as of the 2010 census.
context_section_description: There are, and were, significant residential, commercial, and religious structures in Cooperstown. Original residences related to the founding Cooper family, such as Edgewater and Heathcote, are still standing. Otsego Hall, James Fenimore Cooper's residence which once stood in what is now Cooper Park, has been lost, along with his chalet. Byberry, the cottage built for his daughter, remains on River Street, albeit in altered form.
  "Fynmere", a grand stone manor from the early 20th century, erected by Cooper heirs on the eastern edge of town, was designed by noted architect Charles A. Platt. Later donated to the Presbyterian Church as a retirement home, the property was razed in 1979. Both its grounds and those of neighboring property Heathcote (extant today), built for Katherine Guy Cooper (1895–1988), daughter-in-law of James Fenimore Cooper III, were laid out by noted landscape architect Ellen Biddle Shipman.
  Residences, business, and properties related to the Clark family abound within the village. From the original family seat of "Fernleigh" to the 1928 Georgian manor of "West Hill", the properties are exceptionally well cared for. Fernleigh is a Second Empire stone mansion designed by New Jersey architect James Van Dyke and built in 1869. The original garden at Fernleigh, located to the south of the mansion, included a servants' house and Turkish bath; both details have since been lost. In 1923, Stephen C. Clark, Sr. commissioned Marcus T. Reynolds and Bryant Fleming, a landscape design professor at Cornell University, to design new gardens for Fernleigh.
  The manor home of Robert Sterling Clark, Red Creek Farm, remains on the outskirts of the Village. His brother F. Ambrose Clark's "Iroquois Farm" manor house was razed in the early 1980s. Also razed in 1979 was the Mohican Farms manor house, owned by the Clark Estates, in Springfield Center, New York. It was formerly the summer home of the Spaulding sporting good family from Buffalo.
  Edward Severin Clark built a farm complex at Fenimore Farm in 1918, which has been adapted as the Farmers Museum. His stone manor, built in 1931, was bequeathed to the New York State Historical Association and today serves as the Fenimore Art Museum.
  Other structures, such as the Baseball Hall of Fame, Otesaga Hotel, Clark Estate Office, Kingfisher Tower, which lies on the east side of Otsego Lake, Bassett Hospital, and The Clara Welch Thanksgiving Home, exemplify Cooperstown's architectural wealth.
  The Bowers family "Lakelands" manor, neighboring "Mohican Lodge", and their former estate of "Willowbrook" (1818; presently the Cooper Inn) serve as further examples of grand homes erected by affluent residents. The Bowers family received the land patent extending from current-day Bowerstown to very near Cherry Valley, New York, upon which Congressman John Myer Bowers built Lakelands in 1804. Woodside Hall, on the eastern edge of the village proper, was built c. 1829 by Eben B. Morehouse and was subsequently owned by several prominent individuals, including, in 1895, financier Walter C. Stokes of New York City. Prior to the Stokes' ownership, the home was visited by Martin Van Buren, the eighth President of the United States.
  The village offices and Cooperstown Art Association are housed in a neo-classical building designed by Ernest Flagg. He is famed for Manhattan's 47-story Singer Building and the Boldt Castle on the St. Lawrence River. The Cooperstown building was originally commissioned by Elizabeth Scriven Clark in 1898 as a YMCA. Her son Robert Sterling Clark gave it to the village in 1932 during the Great Depression.
  Several prominent buildings in town were designed or updated by noted architect Frank P. Whiting, who originally worked under Ernest Flagg. A resident of New York City and Cooperstown, Whiting was also a noted artist. He designed the Farmers Museum farm buildings and the shingle-style manor at "Leatherstocking Falls Farm", the residence of Dorothy Stokes Bostwick Smith Campbell, the landscaping for which was done by the all-female firm of Wodell & Cottrell in the 1930s. 
caption: The Inn At Cooperstown
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