The cottagE and stable on the campus of the College of Mount St. Vincent, at the northern edge of Riverdale, bordering the Yonkers city line, are mid-nineteenth century picturesque structures which were originally intended as outbuildings for Fonthill, the castle-lik~ estat~ built in 1848-52 for tragedian Edwin Forrest. At the time of Fonthill’s construction, Riverdale was beginning to emerge as a cluster of villas and estates along the Harlem-Hudson railroad line; those buildings which survive tram tna~. era, including Fonthill and its cottage and stable, comprise the small group of Hudson River Valley estates within the limits of New ‘York City. Although the identity of the architect of Fonthill and its cottage and stable cannot be determined, there is a definite connection with · Alexander Jackson Davis, who corresponded with Forrest about Fonthill and made a sketch of the castle, and who initiated the picturesque cottage tradition of which the Fonthill Buildings are a part , The cottage and stable at Mount St. Vincent are among the finest buildings of the picturesque cottage type surviving in New York .
