The main Farmhouse was built in ca. 1845 by the first deeded landowners, Fyler D. and Dorothea Sweet, in the popular Greek Revival style, a symbol of the new American democracy.

The south-facing ‘door yard’ is best understood as a social yard or working porch for the traditional farm, providing an outdoor spatial and experiential focus to life on the family farm.

The four barns (under separate ownership) are built in the English tradition of separate buildings for distinct agricultural functions, e.g. Main Barn, Carriage House, Stable and Corn Crib.

The main farmhouse and barns are sited directly across the road from the other, connected by a wagon path that led to the original 240-acre farmland to the west.

This outbuilding was likely relocated from elsewhere on the site to adjoin the kitchen, and in combination became a summer kitchen, milk room, laundry, and small-scale production center.

The functional shed was originally open to the Door Yard to expand kitchen and domestic functions. Like the other buildings, it is hand-hewn timber structure with non-mechanical joinery.

The ice house (converted to a residential cottage in the 1980s) is a small, north-facing structure a short distance to nearby Robinson Pond as the original ice source.

Family farms of the era often included a large open area on the north side of the farmhouse used for recreation and popular lawn games of the times.

This small ca. 1855 dwelling was owned, lived in and built by master carpenter, Milton Trafford, who was the likely builder for at least some buildings on the farm.

The two barns are located on Center Hill Road, part of a network of historic roads used to convey farmers’ agricultural produce westward to ports along the Hudson River.

The main barn is a two-story hand-hewn timber framed structure that accommodated the Sweet family’s sizable herds of milking cows and Merino sheep.

These outbuildings housed small farm animals and grain crops that supported the Sweet family’s production of livestock.