Built in 1826, The Nathan Wild House is on the National Register of Historic Places. The house is located in the town of Kinderhook, New York, in the village of Valatie. It is minutes from Hudson, Chatham and the Berkshires.

Nathan Wild (1790-1867), of Manchester, England, came to Columbia County, NY in the early 1800s and founded the first cotton spinning and weaving mills in Valatie in 1811. Fifteen years later, in 1826, he built a handsome Federal-style residence, where he lived with his wife Sarah and nine children, in the village of Valatie. Nathan Wild was a good friend of President Martin Van Buren, who frequently rode over from Lindenwald on horseback to have breakfast at the house. More recently, President Franklin D. Roosevelt visited the house while he was running for governor of New York. About the same time, Amelia Earhart was also a guest at the house.

As the family’s textile factory prospered, he expanded and redecorated the house in the Italianate style to showcase his wealth and make room for his growing family. The interior was extensively remodeled around 1850 and the addition of highly ornate trim and woodwork reflects the prevailing taste of the mid-Victorian era. Over the next two decades, wings were added on three sides of the house.

The front entrance of the house opens to a large entry hall. On the right side of the hallway is a three-sided bay window with an elaborately carved walnut arch. To the left are large six-paneled, double-pocket walnut doors with elaborate brass hardware. These doors open to the parlor, with wide-plank pine flooring original to the house. A marble Eastlake Victorian fireplace adorns the west wall. A large beveled mirror, trimmed in gold leaf, extends from the mantelpiece almost to the ceiling. At the rear of the hall is the sweeping staircase to the second floor. On the lower newel post is a statue of a Conquistador, which was purchased for the house at the Columbian Exhibition of 1893 in Chicago. He holds a lamp that lights the way to the bedrooms each evening. The huge, elegant dining room features a black Egyptian-marble fireplace.

In the 1800s, when Nathan’s granddaughter, Laura, was to be married, the family wanted to have dancing at the wedding reception. In accordance with their status, they added a ballroom to the house. The Italianate design of the ballroom wing, with its elongated windows, elaborate plaster ceiling medallion and ornate, carved valances, was in keeping with contemporary architectural fashion, and created the type of large, stylish interior space for entertaining that was a prerequisite for anyone aspiring to high Victorian society.

The architecture of the Nathan Wild House recalls the heyday of Valatie’s milling era and reflects the prominence and status of Nathan Wild as the most influential industrialist in the village. The ghosts of Nathan, Sarah and their granddaughter Laura might be pleased to know that today, the house is the setting for classical music concerts and fundraisers for historical and artistic organizations.