di

Jk      re
 

A Restoration Problem
at Hamilton Grange

JAMES GROTE VAN DERPOOL
 

I/" ]r N^ HE purposes which prompt this article are somewhat
diverse. They include drawing attention to the proposed
restoration of the principal home of one of our great
patriots, Alexander Hamilton, whose contributions toward the
founding of our country and subsequent aid in shaping the fiscal
foundations for its growth are of the first order of importance.
It is also intended to furnish an example—by no means as irrelevant
as may first appear—of the assistance, architecturally speaking,
which a collection such as Avery's at Columbia may make toward
historic restorations.

It is curious to observe, as the present pattern of our lives be¬
comes more complex and less certain, the heightened importance
given to preserving the monuments of our significant past. We
seem to find a kind of therapeutic value in renewing contact with
the applied idealism of Washington, Jefferson, Hamilton and
others who solved, with marked success, the problems of im¬
measurable consequence that confronted their generation. We
learn that the benefits of wise decisions live long after us.

Documents, books, and portraits help us to establish contact
with these men, but added intimacy and understanding are
achieved if we are permitted to visit the homes where they lived,
walk in their footsteps, and stand at the desks where they fought
through to momentous conclusions.

In spite of the proud role played by New Y'ork in shaping the
course of our country, we have been negligent in preserving the
architectural record of this worthy past, and in interpreting it