Castle History
1661
The property on which Reid Hall stands today can be traced back to 1661 when Chief Shanarocke of the Siwanoy Indians (a branch of the Mohegans) turned the land over to John Budd of Southold, Long Island, who then built a gristmill on Blind Brook. No claim however, was ever filed with the Provincial Governor for the land.
Toward the end of the 17th century, another Indian, Pathungo, reclaimed the land and passed it on to John Harrison of Flushing, Queens, for 40 pounds. The only restriction Pathungo set was that he be able to continue to use the whitewood (or tulip) trees for canoes. Harrison filed a claim and an official patent was granted for the land, which became known as Harrison’s "Purchase" - the name given it by a band of Quakers who settled here in the early 1700’s.
1864
In 1864, Ben Holladay bought 1,000 acres in the area and the marble halls of his mansion rose on the wooded countryside. Called the "Stagecoach King," Holladay was a colorful pioneer business tycoon who built an extensive financial empire, first around investments in the Pony Express and later by securing the U.S. Mail contracts for the Overland Express coaches. Using teams of horses, he carried passengers and mail from Kansas and Nebraska through the dangerous western territories to Utah and California. He called his estate Ophir Farm, named after the Ophir Silver Mine in Virginia City, Nevada, which he partially owned.
The mansion Holladay built was admired throughout the state as a fine home of its type. In an effort to recreate the atmosphere of the West, buffalo were brought from Wyoming and the elk from Colorado, as well as antelope and deer. The streams were stocked with speckled trout while landscape gardeners planted trees, ferns and wild flowers brought from the west. Early maps mark the estate as "Buffalo Park."
When Ben returned to the west for a lengthy stay, his wife Ann, began to seek Old World nobility as prospects for her daughter’s marriages and expenses quickly mounted up. She also decided to build a small chapel on the property for her family. Located beneath the Chapel, which was designed in Norman Gothic style, was the family vault. About a half-mile away from the mansion, towards Westchester Avenue, a natural boulder was set up midway along the carriage drive. On it was carved a cross with a heart at the center. (Today the Chapel remains in place near Purchase Street. The boulder is located opposite the south-east corner of the Benziger Building.)
On the day Ann died in 1873, the first great economic panic of the 19th century hit the country like a wave. As she was buried in her wooded refuge, Ben Holladay watched his empire fall in one day’s stock collapse. A huge financial burden, his mansion was put up for public sale.
1888
In 1888, the old Ophir Farm, vacant now for almost 15 years, became the country estate of Whitelaw Reid, owner of The New York Tribune. He and his wife Elisabeth, were determined that their home would have the finest decorations and the most modern Victorian appliances. It would become the first home in the Westchester area to be equipped with both telephone and electric wiring. Frederick Law Olmsted, noted landscape architect who achieved success in designing New York’s Central Park, was chosen to plan the landscaping.
The work was going smoothly when disaster struck again. On July 14, 1888, only a month before the Reids were scheduled to move in, a blaze caused by a short circuit swept through the house. Within a few hours, the mansion was in ruins. Gutted granite walls were the only reminders of its pioneer glory. (Ironically, that same month, the main building of the Manhattanville campus, then located on Convent Avenue in New York City, was almost completely destroyed by fire.)
The Reids decided to rebuild on a greater and grander scale than before, using stone quarried on the estate for the construction. The firm of McKim, Mead & White was commissioned to assist in the plans. Appointed Ambassador to France, Reid spent most of the construction period abroad, overseeing the building of his home through correspondence. He and his wife managed to translate many of their experiences into its design and décor. When they returned in 1892 for the grand opening, the mansion - now renamed Ophir Hall - was already acclaimed as a work of art.
Well-graded paths led past the self-supporting farmlands, and the formal gardens designed by Olmsted were planted with trees and shrubs imported from France and England. Designed to be the home’s crowning glory, the reception hall glistened from floor to frieze in two varieties of marble, yellow Numidian African marble and pink marble from Georgia, blended in perfect combination.
Above the staircase, an original stained glass work filtered light over the entire room. The two rooms to the right of the entry were imported from an old chateau in Poissy, France, which was being demolished. They were the reception rooms for the Chateau de Billennes, the country estate of a member of the House of Napoleon III.
1892
This was an election year in the United States, and Reid was home only a few months when President Benjamin Harrison asked him to be his running mate in an upcoming race. The President traveled to Ophir, giving a speech to the people of Westchester from the mansion’s south porch followed by a reception in the marble hallway. The election was lost by a slim four percent and Ophir’s owner lost the Vice Presidency.
Shortly after Reid decided to expand his home, he was named Ambassador to England. In 1905, he sailed with his family to London where they became very popular in diplomatic circles. Once again, work on the estate was directed from abroad.
Just as the original portion of the mansion captured for the Reids their French assignment, the Jacobean Corridor, lined with paintings by Gainsborough and Turner, introduced an English style to the home that reflected their affiliation with the Court of St. James. The great Library in the West Wing was decorated in the Tudor style with pargeted ceiling. They imported the paneling and bookcases from England, and in the great West window were lancet-shaped panels and a roundel originally from the clerestory windows of Salisbury Church.
1912
By 1912, the wing was finished and ready to receive diplomatic visitors. But it was never used nor even seen by Reid due to increasingly tense relations in pre-war Europe straining the health of the 75-year-old diplomat. On December 15, 1912, he died from a respiratory infection bringing to a close one phase of the mansion's history.
Mrs. Reid however, remained active in the affairs of her community and her nation, and Ophir Hall reflected this energetic pace. She helped establish a sanitarium and nurses’ training school at Saranac Lake in the Adirondacks, a hospital in San Francisco and another at San Mateo in honor of her parents (Mr. and Mrs. Darius Ogden Mills.)
One of Mrs. Reid’s most ardent causes was the Red Cross. As a young bride, she had helped organize the New York Chapter and later, through her Red Cross work, was credited with instituting the U.S. Army Nursing Corps during the Spanish-American War. During World War I, she found a new purpose for the American Art Students’ Club, which she had established in Paris during her husband’s assignment as Ambassador. Reopened in 1930 as Reid Hall, it became the center for American university women in Paris.
Under her guidance and that of her son Ogden, the family’s newspaper also flourished, merging with the Herald to become The New York Herald Tribune. Through all these years, Ophir Hall was the scene of much activity, including visits by prominent individuals - young and old - from business, government, the arts and the world of sports. Across Purchase Street, her son and his wife (the former Helen Rogers) lived in Ophir Cottage, where they had taken up residence after their marriage in 1911. There, they also entertained renowned guests from many walks of life - among them Presidents Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover, adventurer heroes, such as aviator Amelia Earhart and Admiral Richard Byrd, as well as Henry James and Gene Tunney.
In 1931, the State Department turned to the Ambassador’s widow for help finding shelter for the King of Siam, who planned a visit to the U.S. in order to undergo eye surgery. During his trip, King Prajadhipok would also become the first Oriental monarch to visit the White House. Mrs. Reid arranged for the royal entourage to stay at Ophir Hall and then left for one of her frequent trips to France. On board the S.S. Leviathan, she contracted a cold which, two weeks later, turned into pneumonia. At the age of 73, she died while visiting her daughter’s villa near Nice.
With Mrs. Reid’s death, the doors of Ophir Hall were closed.
In 1947, when Ogden Reid died, the financial burden of maintaining such an extensive property became apparent, and plans were launched to place much of it on the market.
One proposal, which was defeated by the local town board, called for the construction of a shopping center and housing development. For a brief time, the grounds were also explored as a location for the United Nations, but that possibility was removed when the East River site in New York City was selected.
1949
Manhattanville College, located since 1841 in New York City, purchased 250 acres of the estate in 1949. The decision to relocate the College followed long and numerous discussions among members of Manhattanville’s Board of Trustees, President Eleanor O’Byrne, R.S.C.J., and other members of the Sacred Heart School with officials of the City of New York. Deliberations concerning specific plans for the new campus were carried on by faculty department chairpeople, who were asked to assist in designing the new Academic and Music Building and the Library. Mother O’Byrne herself contributed enormously in terms of both ideas and leadership.
On May 3, 1951, groundbreaking ceremonies were held on the quiet rolling hills of the estate. In an incredibly short time, less than a year-and-a-half, the monument effort of building a new campus and physically moving furniture, equipment, hundreds of documents and thousands of books was completed. In September 1952, as five college buildings were opened, Manhattanville College entered a new phase of its history.
Throughout these early years in Purchase, Mother O’Byrne continued to expand the college’s horizons, both physically and academically. A professor of history, who served as dean of the college for 11 years before becoming it's president in 1945, Mother O’Byrne was one of the first women to play a leading role in such educational organizations as the Middle States Association. She was also one of the earliest supporters of the integration struggle waged by the N.A.A.C.P. Her travels throughout the country and the world to champion the causes of social justice and human rights, ecumenism and educational excellence made her little short of legendary.
On campus, a chapel, three other dormitories and a gymnasium were added and Ophir Hall was refurbished to serve as the administrative center. In 1969, it was renamed Reid Hall. New degrees were added to the curriculum - the Bachelor of Fine Arts, the Master of Arts and the Master of Arts in Teaching - and the first undergraduate summer session was held.
In 1965, when Mother O’Byrne retired, The New York Times described her as she stood on the terrace outside the President’s office. "In front of her to the south as she stood on the old gray turreted castle, was the campus she was instrumental in creating, all limestone and brick and still a-building."
1974
On March 22, 1974, the U.S. Department of the Interior designated Reid Hall in the National Register of Historic Places in recognition of its historical and architectural significance.
1996-2001
Under the watchful eye of President Richard A. Berman, Reid Hall is the focus of around-the-year culture and administrative activities - filling needs undreamed of by Ben Holladay or Whitelaw Reid, yet not foreign to their spirit.
Manhattanville College, an independent and coeducational liberal arts based college bases its rich tradition on four values and students, faculty and staff participate actively in bringing those values to life. They are academic excellence; developing the whole person - body, mind and spirit; building a caring and compassionate community; and commitment to social awareness and action.
The Manhattanville community welcomed the generous contribution of $500,000 to establish a new Campus Restoration Fund, from the family of Dr. Barbara Debs, president emerita of Manhattanville. The fund's first project was to restore the President's Cottage. The refurbishment included many structural improvements, a new interior design, a new kitchen and attractive exterior landscaping.
Manhattanville College, located on 100 acres, just 28 miles from Manhattan, offers more than 30 undergraduate majors leading to Bachelor of Arts, Bachelor of Fine Arts, Bachelor of Music and Bachelor of Science degrees. Manhattanville also offers two bachelor's degrees in an accelerated format - the Bachelor of science in Behavioral Studies and Bachelor of Science in Organizational Management. Manhattanville also offers six graduate degree programs: Master of Arts in Teaching, Master of Arts in Writing, Master of Arts in Liberal Studies, Master of Science in Organizational Management and Human Resource Development and Master of Science in Leadership & Strategic Management. Students can also obtain provisional New York State teaching certification at both the undergraduate and graduate levels.
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