Katonah Hamlet Historic District

The Katonah Hamlet Historic District was added to the National Register of Historic Sites in 1983. The district consists primarily of residential buildings, however, several churches and commercial buildings are also present within the district, such as Katonah’s First Presbyterian Church, the United Methodist Church of Katonah, St. Mary’s Catholic Church, and St. Luke’s Episcopal Church. Some of the 38 buildings within the historic district were originally in Old Katonah before the village was uprooted and moved during the 1890s due to the construction of the New Croton Dam.

 Katonah was uprooted from its original location in the 1890s. On April 7^th, 1893 the New York City Commissioner of Public Works, Commissioner Michael T. Daly, brought about the destruction of the village due to the construction of the New Croton Dam.  The residents united under the Village Improvement Society to work out a plan for a new village and a process to move several building to a new location. Under the Katonah Land Company residents purchased 37 acres of land approximately 1-mile south of the village and hired landscape architects B.S. and G.S. Olmsted to design a plan for the new village.

The Olmsted firm, noted landscape architects, drafted a pilot plan for the new Katonah Village in 1895. Their plan divided the village into a grid pattern with the use of wide roads. Some of these roads were divided by wide green spaces in the centers. The heart of the village was centered around the railroad station, where the new business district was located. Some of the buildings within the village predate the “new” village, such as the former Methodist Manse located on 8 Bedford Road. Now a private residence, this structure is a surviving example of the Queen Anne architectural style of the old village. Buildings like the 8 Bedford Road were either demolished or moved between 1893 and 1899. These buildings were moved on top of rolling timbers drawn by horses along lubricated pine tracks. In total, there were about ten buildings moved from the old village, including the rectory of St. Mary’s Church and the office of the First Presbyterian Church. These ten buildings date between 1840 and 1885.

The remaining twenty-eight structures in the historic district were constructed between 1896 and 1910 with two exceptions: the public library built in 1930 and St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in 1923. There are two prominent architectural styles reflected in the district: the Queen Anne Style and the later Shingle Style. However, there are exceptions, such as St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, which was built in the Tudor style.

Over the years, the village continued to develop with the establishment of St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in 1923 and the Katonah Library in 1930, but the construction of Route 684 to the east of the village in 1972 had the biggest impact in its expansion. Happily, Katonah’s broad streets remained relatively unchanged.

Duncombe, Frances. Katonah: The History of a New York Village and Its People. Katonah, NY: The Society, 1961.

Williams, Gray. Picturing Our Past: National Register Sites in Westchester County. Elmsford, NY: Westchester County Historical Society, 2003.

“New York SP Katonah Village Historic District.” National Archives and Records

Administration. National Archives and Records Administration, August 12, 1983.

https://catalog.archives.gov/id/75323077.