The Scarborough School, located in the Village of Briarcliff Manor in Westchester County, NY, was a prestigious academic institution that first began in the homes of the Harden and Vanderlip families before quickly expanding into a number of architecturally significant buildings along Route 9. The first of the buildings was commissioned in 1917 by Frank and Narcissa Vanderlip, wealthy advocates of progressive education and public causes, for the education of their own children and their nieces and nephews, along with children from the surrounding area. In operation until 1978, the Scarborough School was sold to the Clear View School, which, since 1981, has been offering academic and therapeutic programs here for students living with mental illness and emotional disabilities. The former Scarborough School is located in the Scarborough Historic District, which was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984.

Frank and Narcissa Vanderlip, who were married in 1903, raised six children on their Beechwood estate, which was located along the Hudson River in the hamlet of Scarborough. In 1912, they joined with Frank’s sister, Ruth, and her husband, Edward Harden, to establish a school for the education of their children. They chose to create what is considered the first Montessori school in the United States. The Vanderlips had been exposed to the Montessori Method during travels in Europe and had met Maria Montessori. By the 1930s, though, they would opt for a more “formal” educational approach for the school. 

The school was first located in two rooms of the Harden mansion, known as “Broad Oaks” in North Tarrytown, before briefly moving into Beechwood. As the program expanded over the next few years, it also began attracting students from the local area. This prompted the construction of new buildings in 1917 to accommodate more classrooms, as well as a library, a gymnasium, a cafeteria, and a theater. William Welles Bosworth, a noted architect whose designs included neighboring J. D. Rockefeller's Kykuit, the Untermyer Gardens in Yonkers, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Cambridge campus, and the original AT&T building in New York City, was chosen for the project. Winthrop Ames designed the theater, which was considered state-of-the-art at the time of its construction.

Located on land that had been part of the Vanderlip estate, the main building of the Scarborough School is all-white, covered in stucco, and framed by Doric columns at the entrance and Ionic columns and pilasters beneath the second story pediment. At the rear, the building becomes three stories in height with the theater wing projecting up another half story.

Additional structures associated with the former Scarborough School include Fayant Hall and the former Dean’s House. Located south of the main building on Route 9, Fayant Hall is a two-story Georgian Revival brick structure with four chimneys that was constructed in 1930 to house the school's director. The Dean’s House, constructed in the late nineteenth century, is a gambrel-roofed, one-and-one-half-story barn-turned-residence that had been home to the deans of the Scarborough School.

A classroom annex, consisting of two one-story buildings connected by an enclosed passageway, was constructed to the southwest of the main building of the Scarborough School in 1965. This structure, however, does not contribute to the school's historic significance. In May of 2006, the Thomas and Agnes Carvel Center for the Arts, was opened on the Clear View campus.

1. Cheever, Mary. The Changing Landscape: A History of Briarcliff Manor-Scarborough. Phoenix Publishing, West Kennebunk, Maine, for the Briarcliff Manor-Scarborough Historical Society. 1990.
2. Clear View School website. https://clearviewschool.org/our-property/
3. “Scarborough Historic District #84003433.” National Register of Historic Places. United States Department of the Interior/National Park Service. 1984. https://catalog.archives.gov/id/84003433
4. Williams, Gray. Picturing Our Past: National Register Sites in Westchester County. Westchester County Historical Society. 2003.