HISTORY

Millbrook's Gazebo at Elm Drive was built in the 1890's. It decorated the lawns of the properties of the Merritt family that were being parceled off  by the Millbrook Land & Improvement Co. as the vicinity became the focus of residential development. The Gazebo was designed by the prolific New York City architect James E. Ware, famous for his remedial model tenement work, as well as regal masterpieces such as West 57th St.'s Osborne Apartments, considered one of the earliest and grandest luxury apartment buildings in New York.

Also acclaimed for the Mohonk Mountain House in nearby New Paltz, Ware had earlier designed Millbrook's Halcyon Hotel [later Bennett College] as well as the multitude of elaborate country estates and mansions that encase the village. As essentially Millbrook's "court architect", Ware was responsible for the majority of what defines the village's architectural identity; dozens of shops, civic buildings, church halls, and residences, including two for the Merritt family at either end of Merritt Ave. with their burgeoning real estate holdings between them, and their Gazebo as an inviting decorative focal point.

Echoing the detailing of his estate architecture, with its latticed timbers, conical roof, and metal finial, Ware's Gazebo epitomizes authentic Victorian style. Beloved by generations through the decades, it is a neighborhood fixture that is as iconic of Millbrook as the rest of the architect's wonders from the Gilded Age. An historic structure connected to the village's earliest origins, it is worthy and deserving of preservation for future generations.

"To many Millbrook natives, the Gazebo is almost as iconic in its own way as any of Millbrook's other landmarks."

Patrick D. Wing

Author of Town & Country: The Architecture of James E. Ware & Sons