Art & Community Center
106 Schuyler Street, Boonville, NY 13309
Phone: (315) 942-5133, Email: dpnart@frontier.com
History of the Art & Community Center
Hours of Operation:
Wednesday through Saturday
11:00 AM to 4:00 PM
| The house was built in 1875 by Clark Dodge, who was a merchant and one of the founders of the First National Bank. His son, Eugene Dodge, who was a banker, sold the house in 1894 to Charles W. Pratt, who was engaged in the lumber and wood products business. His son, Walter, who had followed his father's line of endeavor, left the house to his cousin, Hazel Northam, a Brooklyn undertaker, who died in 1972. Miss Northam willed the house to the Erwin Library. The library board decided that the house should be preserved and used for a community and arts center for Boonville and the vicinity. |  Charles W Pratt |
 Jerry Waskiewicz © 2000 |
J. B. Lanthrop of Utica was the architect. He was a well-known designer, who did, among other buildings, the old First National Bank in Boonville, now the Dodge Memorial Building, and the famous Butterfield house in Utica. The red brick house on a limestone foundation is of Neo-French architecture of the late Victorian period. Notable are the slate mansard roof with cupola, grillwork and spire, as well as the dormers and cornices. The interior of the house is virtually as it was a century ago. The rooms remain the same, with dark carved woodwork, molded plaster ceilings, and some original wallpaper and carpets. There are four marble mantels, two complete with mirrors, an elegant pier glass enhanced with lambrequins, fine hardware and electrified gas fixtures. The third floor holds the old lead-lined cistern to provide rainwater in addition to water from wells or from the big spring up the street. In 1974 the Pratt House was admitted to the National Register of Historic Houses, and celebrated its Centennial as the nation began its Bicentennial. |