Crow’s Nest is among Bronxville’s oldest and finest homes. Well known Hudson River artist and financier Francis Edmonds chose this hilltop site for its commanding views extending to Manhattan, and in 1850, leading Bronxville citizen, quarry owner, and builder Alexander Masterton designed and constructed the stone Gothic-style country house. Edmonds added a large addition to the house in 1854. The house and extensive grounds were purchased by Mount Vernon resident Frank Ross Chambers, a successful New York businessman in 1893, and in 1896, Chambers and wife Kate hired friend and architect Edward Tilton to transform the house and grounds into an elaborately detailed suburban mansion that remains much the same today as it was at the turn of the 20th century.
The architects’ 1890s renovations created a much more distinctive Gothic-style mansion by adding ample new porches, dormers, a commanding new square tower topped with a decorative parapet wall, and multiple gables trimmed with ornately carved bargeboards. Great care was taken to match the exterior stone. Village institutions such as the Bronxville Public School, the public library, village hall, and the Boy Scout field occupy land formerly held by the owners of Crow’s Nest until the 1920s.
Builder: Alexander Masterton for Francis Edmonds; 1896 renovation by Architects Edward Tilton and William Boring for Frank Chambers
