John B. Halcott


John Baldwin Halcott was an American architect who worked in New York State and in North Carolina, known for his ornate mansions, hotels, and government buildings.
Local newspapers in North Carolina often credited him with the design of the New York State Capitol. Halcott had a much smaller uncredited role, but his association helped find him success in the South, and Wake County in North Carolina commissioned him to remodel the courthouse, and he would continue to design government buildings.
John B. Halcott was part of the firm Nichols & Halcottt in Albany, New York, and later Mull & Fromer in Catskills, New York. His grand hotels in Poughkeepsie and Shandaken have not survived, but his private home like the Batcheller Mansion in Saratoga Springs have with restoration efforts.

Early life

John Baldwin Halcott was born in Lexington, New York in Greene County. His mother was Lucinda Cornish. His father was George Washington Halcott held the position of sheriff and gave his name to the town of Halcott and Halcottsville.
Halcott started his architectural career in Albany, New York. He had an unknown and uncredited role in the New York State Capitol that began construction in 1867.
On 22 October 1868, he married Caroline Winne.

Nichols & Halcott

In May 1873, John B. Halcott partnered with architect Charles C. Nichols to form the architecture firm Nichols & Halcott, where he designed:
  • Batcheller Mansion
  • Glen Falls Methodist Church
  • The Nelson House
  • Argyle Presbyterian Church

Batcheller Mansion

In 1873, New York State assemblyman, George Sherman Batcheller, hired Nichols & Halcott to build a "Kaser-el-nouzha", Arabic for "palace of pleasure. The architects took inspiration from minarets in the tower.
The Batcheller mansion was had elements of eclecticism with influences of the Renaissance Revival, Egyptian, and Italianate influences. Halcott would patent part of the design.
His daughter sold the Batcheller mansion in 1916, and it became the residence for a doctor, a boarding house, and then a retirement home, before being abandoned with a restoration campaign for the mansion in 70s and 80s.
Disney’s Saratoga Springs Resort & Spa development manager Kevin Cummings cited the Batcheller Mansion as one of its inspirations.

Glen Fall's Methodist Church

The old Methodist Episcopal church of Glens Falls from 1829 burned and construction to rebuild it was commenced in 1865, and completed in 1873 for $25,000 dollars. Nichols & Halcott were the architects for the church reconstruction.

The Nelson House

Taylor purchased the site on Market Street, Poughkeepsie from her brother in 1861. In 1875, Catherine Taylor commissioned Nichols & Halcott to design a new grand hotel, four stories in height, which she named the Nelson house in honor of her brother, Homer A. Nelson. Halcott designed the facade made of brick, and it had elegant cornices and urn shaped columns with stables and a porch supported by six columns. Taylor hired J. W Shields as the painter, Jason. H. Seaman for carpentry, and W. Gregg for his masonry and plastering. The interior was quite ornate with a grand staircase and tessellated floors, alongside a barber shop and a fine dining restaurant. The Nelson House opened in May, 1876.
During its tenure, it served as temporary White House when President Franklin D. Roosevelt his home in visited Hyde Park where he gave two campaign speeches from the balcony that stood above the marquee. The older portion of the building was cut in half in the mid twentieth century. The hotel operated until its closure in 1969.
The Dutchess County government purchased the hotel for $539,000 in 1969. It served as office space, and the exterior remained the same, but in 1996, the building was abandoned, and in 2012, it was demolished for 1.7 million dollars.

Argyle Presbyterian Church

The Argyle Presbyterian church was located in Washington County and designed in a Gothic revival style with it's steeple 130 feet high, seating 600 people. Halcott included sabbath school rooms in the design.
The Albany Express said it was the "handsomest and most tasty of its kind in Northern New York." The church opened with a sermon from Rev. W.A Mackenzie.

Albany Public School No 20.

A twelve room school house on the corner of North Pearl and North Second Street erected in 1880

Success in North Carolina

Halcott was one of many northern architects who found work in the South since it was popular to hire northern architects in the late 19th century, especially for elaborate and ornate imposing designs, but his connection to his clients in the North Carolina has not been established.In Albany, the New York State Capital started construction in 1867 and it was designed in large teams of architects, Halcott might capitalized upon his minor role for his North Carolina audience. Halcott was quite young, but he used his association with the government project to find success in North Carolina and it attracted the attention from Wake County commissioners in Raleigh, who selected him for remodeling their older antebellum courthouse.
Durham, North Carolina had suffered a plague of downtown fire, as well as expressed interest in more ornate, elaborate, and modern building from the growing population of wealthy industrialists.
Local Durham newspaper said about Halcott, he was “'one of the most competent architects in the United States, with long experience including four years’ employment on the beautiful capital of Albany."
During his career in North Carolina, he designed:
  • Construction began in 1881, and completed in 1883, Halcott did a thorough remodeling of the older Greek Revival courthouse alongside builders Thomas H. Briggs and William J. Hicks. Halcott used an ornate red brick building that he often used in other works. The courthouse was an addition to the earlier Second Empire design United States Post Office and Courthouse by architect Alfred B. Mullett on Fayetteville St. in Raleigh. In 1915, the courthouse was demolished and Atlanta architect, Philip Thornton Marye designed a Beaux Arts style courthouse. In 1970, the court house was demolished once more, and now exists the current courthouse on the site.
  • Three commercial buildings for The Durham Tobacco Plant in Durham.
  • Jones and Kramer Buildings on Main St. in Durham in 1887
  • Somerset Villa, a Queen Anne style mansion for tobacco industrialist Julian S. Carr, one of the richest men in the state, to replace his previous Italianate house in Durham. The mansion on southeast corner of Main and Dillard streetwas termed "Halcott's most spectacular project in North Carolina" Halcott used local contractors, and the structure featured lavish murals and stained glass, but specialty items came from northern suppliers. The mansion reportedly cost $100,000 dollars. Somerset Villa was demolished in 1924.
A Richmond newspaper described the Somerset Villa “the conspicuous landmark upon which the eye first falls and upon which it loves to linger.” As North Carolina observers commented "might have been one of many in other cities, but in Durham it was unique".

Later career

Mull & Fromer

Later in life, Halcott moved to Catskill, New York. During the 1880s, the census listed six children, George, Frank, John, Grace, Sarah, and Harris. He worked for Mull & Fromer, but his work included:

Green County Alms House

Halcott designed and built in 1883, the Greene County Office Building in Cairo, New York, formerly the Greene County Alms House under Mull & Fromer.

The Lament Hotel

In 1883, Frank B. Lament Sr. from Lexington, New York commissioned architect John B. Halcott to design a new hotel in Shandaken. John B. Halcott originally from Lexington worked on the design of the hotel, which was three stories tall, located 1,100 feet elevation in the mountains situated next to the Esopus. The hotel had modern amenities, including electrical lights, steamed heating, and a elevators, one of the few summer resorts in the Catskill Mountains with an elevator, costing a total of 25,000 dollars in 1883.The Lament hotel officially opened in 1884. In 1891, the hotel was sold to Frank Lament Jr. father-in-law and Shandaken native, Hiram Whitney, and the hotel underwent renovations, including constructing a swimming pool and tennis courts. It was renamed to the Palace Hotel, and it reopened, which resort guides and brochures labeled it a first-class experience.
R. Lionel De Lisser, known his photographic survey work in the Catskills, published Picturesque Ulster, said the Palace Hotel was “the most important summer hotel situated in the Village of Shandaken."
In 1906, the Whitney family sold the Palace Hotel and it reopened as the Glenbrook Hotel, which was a popular summer resort for Spanish, Puerto Rican, and Cuban population. Some famous guests, included bacteriologist Hideyo Noguchi, who was recuperating from typhoid.
In 1966, the Glenbrook Hotel burned down, which many Catskills summer resorts faced during their decline. Presently, the former site of the hotel is Glenbrook Park, a state-owned publicly accessible park with a baseball field, dog park, and an image of the original hotel sits on the welcome sign.

Independent

In 1892, Mull & Fromer ceased operations, and he was an independent architect, but he designed:
  • Steefel Mansions

Steefel House

In 1894, Nolan, Nolan and Stern and John B. Halcott designed two mansions for Bernard L. and Josehp L. Steefel of Union Clothing Company in Albany on the corner of Madison and Lake Avenue. The two story mansion's were built in a colonial style and had identical exteriors, and the interior contained gold pressed brick with hardwood floors mahogany and governor marble trimming. Each house had a spacious grounds and a stable in rear, and the two were connected by piazza.
Later it was purchased by Mrs. Elmer Blair for The Woman's Club of Albany in 1919, and a part of Washington Park Historic district and put on New York State Register of Historic Places and National Registers of Hisoric Places.

Legacy

On 30 April 1895, Halcott died a year after, age 49. His remains were buried in Albany Rural Cemetery. His son George W. Halcott became a architect in Worcester, Massachusetts.
Many buildings have not survived, but a few notable remain, including the Greene County Office Building, but one of the best preserved is the Batcheller Mansion, but most of his known work has been demolished.