Walking with Calvert Vaux: The Hoyt Drive Warren Truss
Scenic Hudson received a 2020 NYSCA-funded Preserve New York grant to fund a Cultural Resource Survey of 12 historic steel truss bridges that were built to provide access to the Hudson River over the Hudson River line railroad tracks. With their Survey recently completed, we reached out to Scenic Hudson’s Director of Land Use Advocacy Jeffrey Anzevino to see if he would be interested in sharing a bit about this exciting project.
One of the historic steel truss bridges included in Scenic Hudson’s Cultural Resource Survey. This one can be found at Mills-Norrie State Park, leading to Hoyt House. It is currently fenced off due to safety concerns.
The Hudson River’s eastern shore is blessed with a unique collection of historic steel truss bridges. But many of these bridges, particularly ones hidden away in public parks, face existential threats due to the lack of maintenance and passage of time. Failure to preserve them would result in an irreparable loss of early 20th century engineering technology and, since the bridges were built to provide access to the Hudson River shoreline, would be a real setback to regaining valuable river access.
Of the 12 bridges between Hyde Park and Clermont, 9 are located within and contribute to the Hudson River National Historic Landmark District. Constructed between 1911 and 1928, the bridges created connections to the Hudson River at estates with important historic and cultural significance. From a civil engineering perspective, to have such a collection of 100-year-old steel truss bridges is extremely rare, and represents a vanishing element of the golden era of railroading.
Scenic Hudson, with generous funding from a Preserve New York grant, has just produced the Historic Steel Truss Bridges Cultural Resource Survey (2021), which examined 12 bridges between Hyde Park and Clermont. (The Preserve New York grant program is a partnership between the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA) and the Preservation League of New York State, made possible with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.) As a result of the Survey, the remaining three bridges—at Crum Elbow, Coal Dock Lane, and the former Dominican Camp—have been deemed by the New York State Historic Preservation Office as eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places. Thankfully, now all 12 bridges are protected under the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966.
In the footsteps of Calvert Vaux
While each bridge tells its own unique story, one in particular stands out. At Mills-Norrie State Park, a 1912 Warren truss bridge lies tucked away from public view. Now fenced off due to safety concerns, until a few years ago it provided local residents with a bucolic walk into the park leading to Hoyt House, a National Historic Landmark. Based on historic maps, it appears that the 136-foot span replaced a Hudson River Railroad grade crossing on an old farm lane leading to Old Post Road.
Hoyt House
In August 1852, shortly after service began on the Hudson River Railroad, Lydig Hoyt purchased a 62-acre site he later called “The Point,” reflecting its Hudson River aspect. Soon after, Hoyt hired Calvert Vaux to design the landscape and family home, Hoyt House. At the time, Vaux had yet to partner with Frederick Law Olmsted to design what would perhaps be his most notable creation—Manhattan’s Central Park.
As an extension of the farm road, Vaux laid out a winding route skirting a marsh and rounding the base of a forested knoll before ascending to the site on which Hoyt House still stands. Repairing and reopening the bridge would allow access to Hoyt House exactly the way Vaux intended—along a charming carriage road winding through the forest.
The walking trail that connects to The Point in Mills-Norrie State Park. You can see a glimpse of Hoyt House poking out through the trees in the distance.
According to the Mills-Norrie State Park Master Plan, “The Point’s landscape is nationally significant for its exceptional design and intrinsic scenic beauty. The property’s significance is heightened by its association with Calvert Vaux, a distinguished architect and landscape designer, and a proponent of the Romantic styles in art and architecture. Vaux was an advocate of the harmonious union of buildings and scenery and The Point skillfully captures these romantic ideas. The Point may be the last, or one of the last, remaining examples of an intact Gothic Revival structure and landscape designed by Calvert Vaux.”
The estate and home, according to the Calvert Vaux Preservation Alliance (CVPA), represent “a pivotal example of American Picturesque design,” one that is “iconic for its success in marrying architecture with its landscape.” Hoyt House was sited to afford Hudson River views to the north and west and integrated into the landscape to save a beautiful grove of trees.
The bridge is currently inaccessible, but local residents support restoring the bridge and reopening it to pedestrians.
Staatsburg residents strongly support re-opening the bridge for pedestrians. When the CVPA held a public forum about the future of Hoyt House in June 2018, over 60 people attended, and many expressed strong support for restoring the bridge. According to CVPA Chairman Jon Lawson, many local residents said they had been walking the carriage road for years and considered the bridge’s closure a great loss. In addition to enhancing the experience of visitors, reopening the span would reconnect them with a more direct, beautiful and historically significant route to enjoy the park.
While each bridge is unique in its own right, restoring the Hoyt Drive bridge would provide an extraordinary opportunity by recreating Calvert Vaux’s vision for accessing Hoyt House. And more broadly, by repairing and properly maintaining this and other bridges for future generations, we can open up new river access and preserve these century-old icons of railroading’s golden age.
More information about Scenic Hudson’s historic truss bridge initiative can be found at https://www.scenichudson.org/viewfinder/historic-bridges-for-all-people/ and www.hudsonriveraccess.org.
All photos in this post courtesy of Scenic Hudson.