The NSCD NY's Headquarters Museum House currently hosts our professional administrative staff offices, our classroom, genealogical library, our event spaces and our historical art and objects. If you would like to schedule a visit, please call the administrative team at 212.744.3572. If you would like to schedule a tour for your school or group, please click here.

Headquarters House Timeline

1925 - 1928: The House is Planned

"The circular letter for 1927 reports that the board of managers was 'to proceed with plans for the purchase of a site and the erection of a home for our Society in New York City.'...The earliest specific proposal was made at the 1925 annual meeting by the president, Mrs. William A. Brown, whose determination and powers of leadership seem - fortunately for the Society - to have equaled those of the first president, Mrs. Townsend...So it was not a surprise at the 1928 annual meeting that a special meeting on 5 December 1927 the purchase of land and erection of a house had been unanimously approved. Indeed, the architect Richard H. Dana, jr. had presented the plan for a replica of Colonel McEver's house which had been build, c. 1750, at 34 Wall Street."

1928-1930: The House is Constructed

"The site the committee chose was the combination of 215-217 East Seventy-first Street [in 1928]. The cornerstone was laid on 27 March 1930...Mrs. Brown gave a stirring address..." [as quoted above.]"...the new house was ready for occupancy in September...Members were invited to come in on 20 November, and the official opening of headquarters of the Society was held on Friday afternoon, 21 November 1930...Members later reported having been asked two questions by admiring visitors on opening day: 'Would you mind telling me exactly when this house was built?' and 'How did Colonial Dames ever do it?'"

All quotes are pulled from P. Gordon B. Stillman's One Hundred Years In New York: The Story of the First Century of The National Society of Colonial Dames in the State of New York