113 Front St Schenectady

 William Schermerhorn House
 
The William Schermerhorn House was constructed on land that was part of Willem Teller’s Pasture Lot of 1664.  The pasture passed from Willem to his son Johannes (1) in c.1700, and to Johannes’s son Johannes (2) and daughter Margareta (the wife of Jacob Schermerhorn) upon his death in 1725.  Johannes (2) never married, and the property passed in July 1744 to William Schermerhorn, the son of Jacob and Margareta Schermerhorn.  It descended from William to his son William, and in 1811 from William to his son Lawrence, who sold the property in 1819.  Six generations of the same family in 145 years.  Although reference is made in the 1819 deed to “being the House and Lot of Land William Schermerhorn deceased purchased of Johannes Teller,” it is thought that the present house was constructed by William Schermerhorn in c. 1785, although it may contain portions of an earlier house of Johannes (2) Teller, or may have been built by Schermerhorn after he inherited the property in 1744.  One local historian has suggested that tax lists indicate that a house on the site may have been occupied by Johannes Teller and Jacob and Margareta Schermerhorn as early as c. 1733.
 
The present two story house was designed in an English Georgian style, with a center hall floor plan around a central entrance.  The facades are constructed of brick laid in an English cross bond pattern with plastered or wood board splayed lintels above windows and the front entry door, and painted wood six-light-over-six-light double hung windows.  A molded brick watertable caps the stone foundation walls and makes a smooth transition to the brick facades above.  The attic is covered by a gambrel roof with shed dormers.  The two story wing at the north side of the house was added in the mid-19th century, and the house was extensively renovated in the early 1960s.