Riverdale's ultimate house on a hill

By Jason Fields

As mysterious as an early autumn fog, the house called Fair Hill in far northern Riverdale is surrounded by trees and rumor.

According to some accounts, the house at Chapel Farm, the highest point in the Bronx, is a palace originally built to be a welcoming home for Jesus Christ on his Second Coming.

Other reports say that the house, built on land used as a retreat for a wealthy family, was never intended to be lived in, but instead functioned as a conference hall and library to the Griscom family’s collection of 50,000 books.

All accounts seem to agree that no one from the family ever did live in Fair Hill itself. Instead they lived, with other followers of their sect, in wooden shacks on the property, remnants of which were still visible decades after the Griscoms had moved on.

Genevieve Griscom, who was a close follower sometimes credited as the founder of the American Theosophy movement — a philosophy and/or a religion, meaning literally “god wisdom” as translated from ancient Greek — commissioned the house in 1925, according to a report put together by the Riverdale Nature Preservancy. The house was completed in 1928.

Many branches have sprung from the original movement, founded in the late 19th Century, including the Rudolf Steiner schools in New York and elsewhere.

According to the Preservancy, the group assembled in Riverdale saw divinity in nature, though Jesus also played a key role.

Chapel Farm, still covered in forest, made for an ideal spot for living within nature and close to the city, where some of the group’s members worked in universities. In Ms. Griscom’s later years, she is said to have used the house itself exclusively as a place to read and play the organ.

Genevieve Griscom’s son, Ludlow, became a leading ornithologist, the first to welcome amateurs into the field, leading to a much larger accumulation of data. Hilary Kitasei of the Preservancy describes Mr. Griscom as perhaps the founder of the movement to protect urban habitats.

The house itself has an odd history following the death of Ms. Griscom. Manhattan College, a Catholic institution bought the property in 1969. It had plans to use the land for additional dormitory space, according to the New York Historical Society. When enrollment took a downturn, the school decided to use the land for environmental research.

At some point, the house was left completely untended and nearly became a ruin.

Sandra Galuten, who now lives in the house, was greeted by a scene of nearutter destruction when she first took over a 99-year lease on the house in 1987, she said.

“It had been broken into, and there had been several fires. A lot of the roof was completely destroyed. We sandblasted the entire house,” Ms. Galuten said.

Not a single pane of glass was left in the windows, she said.

Ms. Galuten, who shared the home with her husband, who died in 2007, and her son, began a renovation project that took years, though many of the original elements were preserved.

The house is unusual for more than just its history. Marble tiles in the house are solid blocks, rather than a thin veneer over concrete, as is common today. And much of the structure of the house is solid cement, which offers several advantages, according to building experts, making for a strong structure that pests have a hard time burying into, and excellent insulation in all four seasons.

The renovation “was a massive undertaking,” Ms. Galuten said.

Many of the crown moldings were lying on the floor of the rooms they belonged in. Ms. Galuten sent them away to be replicated, to return the ceilings and walls to their original glory. The same was done with 17 to 18 thick doors, she said.

A painter spent four years doing delicate work at Fair Hill.

Not everything is like it was in 1928. Originally, Fair Hill had a single bathroom: one shower, one sink and one commode, Ms. Galuten said. Now it has many.

As old as its story is, there are also modern twists. The house was caught up in a controversy over preserving the greenspace of Riverdale, as local groups fought development by John Fitzgerald, who eventually was able to build Villanova Estates partially on land that was once part of Chapel Farm.

The house is up for sale, with Ellen Feld of Sotheby’s International Realty as the broker. In all, the house is 17,000 square feet with an asking price of $15 million.

Mr. Fitzgerald owns the land underneath the house, but with an option to renew the original 99-year contract for another 99 years, it’s unlikely that anyone who takes over the property would be around long enough to lose the lease.