Walter Merchant House

This stately brick Italianate/ Renaissance Revival style building is known as the Walter Merchant House and was completed shortly after the Civil War. Walter Merchant was a local produce and grain dealer who owned a two-story townhouse at 186 Washington Avenue and later bought the adjacent lot, demolished both buildings, and had this new home built in 1869. The Walter Merchant House became a National Register-listed building in 2002. Very few contemporary residences survive in this neighborhood. The mansion's brick, two-story carriage house still stands on the northeast side of Spring Street (#35), to the rear of the Merchant House lot's parking area. The Merchant House has become the offices of the New York State Chapter of the National Association of Social Workers, an organization that bought the property and restored it in the 1990s.

Walter Merchant (1807-1896) was born in Greenwich, New York. His father, Eliakim, was a soldier in the War of 1812; his grandfather, John emigrated from England and fought with the Continental Army during the Revolution. Walter moved to Albany in the early 1830s and married Caroline Daughty (1807-1900) in 1834 in Nassau, N.Y. Their twin daughters, born in 1835, did not survive infancy. The couple had one more child, a daughter named Harriet (1840-1907). Walter and an older brother Lansing formed a partnership and operated a retail and wholesale grocery business in Albany at the corner of Division and Quay Streets; the building was destroyed by fire in 1848. When they rebuilt, the brothers switched to being grain merchants for the next three or four decades. The brothers partnered with William Appleton (1811-1883) and two other men to build barges for transporting grain and other goods in 1847.

Harriet Merchant married Edward Madison Carpenter (1835-1907), the head of E.M. Carpenter & Co. and one of the leading merchants in Albany, in 1860. Walter was active in local business affairs. He and his brother were original members of the Albany Board of Trade, organized in 1847. Walter served as one of the managers of the Albany Board of Trade, along with John H. Trowbridge and four other men, in 1868. Walter and Merchant sold their share in the barge-building business to Appleton in 1871. Walter retired by 1885 while Lansing became a vice president and director of the Albany Exchange Savings Bank. Walter died in Albany in 1896 at age 89 and was buried at Albany Rural Cemetery in Menands.

The house at 188 Washington Ave. was offered for sale in February 1898; the ad called the "three story plus basement house" on a "deep lot" in one of the very best locations in the city"; also for sale or rent was the double house at 184 Washington Ave. with a stable on Spring St. Both houses were still available in April 1898 to rent, at reduced rents. Caroline Merchant, an avid gardener who was active until the end of her life, died at her home in Albany in 1900. The funeral was held from the widow's residence (188 Washington St.) on August 31st. By March 1902, 188 Washington Ave. was the home of Dr. and Mrs. James P. Boyd; Dr. Boyd was a physician at Albany's new hospital in 1899. Edward M. Carpenter (the son-in-law of the late Walter Merchant) lived across the street at 183 Washington St., where he passed away in 1907.

The brownstone front of the five-bay-wide building with corner quoins on a high foundation is accessed by wide, brownstone central steps. The slightly recessed main entryway with double doors is arched, below a carved stone cornice supported by brackets. The cornice below the roofline is carved stone with ornate modillions (brackets). A single-story wood frame addition is at the house's southwest (rear) corner. When the building was documented for the National Register nomination in 2000, the first-floor ceilings featured plaster cornices; the two parlors contained elaborate marble mantelpieces. The basement level probably contained the original kitchen and servant's quarters; it was extensively remodeled to serve as a physician's office (probably Dr. Boyd's, a gynecologist) in the early twentieth century. There is a small backyard (now mainly a parking lot) between the house and the rear of the carriage house/ garage; The carriage house appears only half its size in a 1909 Sanborn map, so likely was expanded across the entire rear of the lot in the early twentieth century. Across Spring St. from the front of the carriage house/ garage is the Center Square/ Hudson Park Historic District.

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Anonymous. "Deaths. Merchant." Argus (Albany) August 31st, 1900. Obituaries sec, 3-3.

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Anonymous. "Dramatic Recitations." Argus (Albany) March 5th, 1902. 5-5.

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CoStar Group, Inc. Merchant Walter House, Apartment Home Living: Albany, NY Apartments. January 1st, 2022. Accessed August 2nd, 2022. https://www.apartmenthomeliving.com/apartment-finder/Merchant-Walter-House-Albany-NY-12210-1968898.

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