National Register Listing

Arnold, Benjamin Walworth, House and Carriage House

465 State St. and 307 Washington Ave., Albany, NY

The Benjamin Walworth Arnold house and carriage house are significant examples of Colonial Revival architecture. The buildings were designed by architect Stanford White and are the only examples of his work in the city of Albany.

The Arnold house was built in a previously developed Albany neighborhood overlooking Frederick Law Olmsted's Washington Park. Completed in 1904, the main house and adjacent garden replaced a chapel building (Sprague Chapel) at the northwest corner of State Street and Sprague Place. Construction of the carriage house, one-half block away, necessitated de demolition of a two-story dwelling. Designed in the Colonial Revival style, the Arnold house was of "a decidedly different architecture" than other contemporary homes erected for Albany's wealthier residents. 2 Design of the main building and carriage house was executed by architect Stanford White, partner in the noted New York firm McKim, Mead and White, who are recognized today for their application of the Neo-Classical style of turn-of-the-century American architecture.

Benjamin Walworth Arnold was a millionaire Albany lumber dealer, banker, and philanthropist. Arnold's father, Benjamin W. Arnold, embarked upon the lumber business in 1853 in partnership with Alexander Folsom of Bay City, Michigan. At its height in the 1880's, the firm employed nearly one thousand men at its mills on the Great Lakes, along the Erie Canal, and in the Albany yards where the firm controlled some twelve hundred feet of docks and storage facilities.4 Upon his father's death in 1891, Benjamin Walworth Arnold succeeded to the family business and soon expanded the company's speculative lumbering activities into the timber lands of Minnesota, Michigan, and Canada. In connection with these and other business ventures throughout the Northwest and Canada, Arnold also assumed the presidency of the Duluth and Northern Minnesota Railroad.

Albany declined as a major lumber market around the turn of the century as available resources moved farther west. Arnold remained in the lumber wholesaling business but turned his energies toward other pursuits, in particular, banking and education. In the field of banking, Benjamin Arnold was simultaneously active as director of the Mechanics and Farmers Bank and the Union Trust Company of Albany and trustee of the Albany Savings Bank. In education he was one of the Board of Governors of Union College and a trustee of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Albany Medical College, and Hamilton College, his alma mater. A local philanthropist of note, Arnold was a member of the Board of Charities and the hospital development commission. During World War I, he was chairman of the Albany Defense Committee.

Benjamin Arnold married into one of the most prominent families in New York State. His first wife, Sarah Elizabeth Van Rensselaer, was the great-granddaughter of Stephen Van Rensselaer, eighth and last patroon of the manor of Rensselaerwyck. Following the death of Sarah Elizabeth, Arnold married once again into the Van Rensselaer family, taking his first wife's sister as his spouse. He died in 1932 and his widow maintained the family home and carriage house until her death in 1945. The residence was subsequently sold to the New York State College for Teachers and used as a fraternity house and dormitory for nearly a decade. At the time of Mrs. Arnold's death the carriage house was sold to John J. Zeller and William T. Roemer (Roemer and Zeller) and was used as an automobile repair shop for about twenty years. In 1956 the Albany Catholic Diocese purchased the Arnold home, then fifty-three years old. The diocese converted the second floor into office space and late in the 1960's began restoration of the main rooms on the first floor. The building is currently occupied by chancery offices of the Albany Catholic diocese and serves as the residence of the diocesan bishop. The carriage house was purchased by Austin and Company, an insurance company established in Albany in 1853, and renovated in 1977 for use as office space. The building now serves as the main headquarters of that business concern.

The Arnold home and its nearby carriage house were the only buildings in Albany to be designed by Stanford White. The careful restoration and continued use of these buildings is an indication of their unique value both locally and regionally.

Local significance of the building:
Listed in National Register of Historic Places in 1982.