Glenview (John B. Trevor House)

"John Bond Trevor was a successful New York stockbroker and dealer in gold and silver bullion, who in 1876 decided to build a summer home in Yonkers." (Williams, 224) Trevor selected a tract of land with 23 acres in the Northern portion of Yonkers, which happened to be just north of his friend and business partner, John Boorman Colgate. He named his estate Glenview, the land not only provided a great amount of space for his home but, it also offered him amazing views of the Hudson River and the Palisades. The home is designed in High Victorian Gothic Style, which similar to French Second Empire, which became popular after the Civil War. Charles W. Clinton, a New York City architect designed the home. High Victorian Gothic intertwined elements that were French and German.

Construction on the house was completed in 1877, "the house was built with gray local stone, trimmed with lighter Ohio limestone, and it was topped with a complex cluster of steeply pitched slated roofs. One of the most prominent features of it design was a five-story front tower. A broad veranda once extended across most of the facade; it has since been replaced with a smaller porch of the same style." (Williams, 224) Its interior was just as elaborate as its facade. The home was filled with lavish furnishings and works of arts, some of these pieces at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition in 1876. "The front parlor, was used for formal entertaining and receiving visitors, featured an elaborately carved fireplace and matching upright piano, a 10 piece suite of upholstered Eastlake furniture, Axminster carpeting (possibly from the Alexander Smith Carpet Factory in Yonkers), floral wallpaper, a stencil-painted ceiling and a marble statue of Faust and Marguerite by Florentine sculptor Pasquale Romanelli. Among the more exotic decorative objects was a stuffed male peacock, placed in front of the fireplace." (Williams, 227)

The Trevor family consisted of John Bond Trevor, his wife Emily Norwood Trevor and their two daughters Mary and Emily as well a son, Henry from his first marriage with his late wife Louisa Stewart.(Hudson River Museum) Only from April and December the family occupied the home and while they were there John would commute to his Wall Street office. While he was there, John would enjoy the pleasures of his surroundings by focusing on his hobby horticulture and driving his trotting horses. (Hudson River Museum)

The estate would remain in the possession of the family until Mrs. Trevor's death in 1922. Most of the home's contents was auctioned off but the city of Yonkers bought the house and transformed it into the Yonkers Museum of Science and Arts. It was renamed the Hudson River Museum in 1948. In the late 1960s, a modern museum was built in front the home, replacing its front yard with a courtyard. Overtime most of the home's interior and exterior has been restored to reflect the era of the Trevor's residency

The Hudson River Museum is the largest museum in Westchester. In addition to the Trevor Mansion, they have a Planetarium, changing art exhibits and an outdoor performance venue.

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

Glenview Historic Home, Hudson River Museum. Accessed May 4th 2020. https://www.hrm.org/glenview/.