Built over the course of three centuries, the house at 5122 Post Road assumed its present form in 1915 when it was remodeled and enlarged to the designs of Dwight James Baum. The central stone portion of the house dating from the eighteenth century, survives in part as one of the oldest houses in the Bronx. The frame wing to the north was built in the early nineteenth century; the frame wing to the south was added by Baum. Baum also added the porch on the north side of the building and the two entrance porches. The house stands on land that was once part of Philipse family’s holdings and the stone portion was probably built by a tenant farmer on the estate. In 1786, William Hadley, a local farmer, bought the property. In 1829, Major Joseph Delafield, an amateur antiquarian with a strong interest in the preservation of old farmhouses, acquired the Hadley farm and rented a portion of the farm and this house to a tenant farmer. In 1909, the Delafield estate began to develop its holdings as Fieldston, a garden suburb. The Hadley House, part of the original subdivision of Delafield’ s property, was then located at the edge ofFieldston. In 1915, the property was purchased by Willett Skillman who hired Baum to remodel the house. Baum was one of the country’s most prolific and successful architects working in historical styles during the early decades of the twentieth century. Best known for his work in Riverdale and Fieldston, Baum moved his home and office to Fieldston in 1915. The Hadley House is one of Baum’s earliest buildings in the area. Baum drew on different aspects of Colonial architecture for the remodeling, ‘treating the garden elevation facing the Old Albany Post Road as a formal Georgian facade, and the asymmetrical Post Road elevation in the manner of old Colonial farmhouses. The Hadley House is also an important example of the preservation and interpretation of a Colonial building by an early-twentieth-century American architect. The house remains a private residence
