John Thompson House (Highland, New York)

John Thompson House
House in 1998, Eastern-facing side
General information
Architectural style	Victorian Italianate
Location	Highland, New York
Coordinates	41°43′5″N 73°57′24″W / 41.71806°N 73.95667°W / 41.71806; -73.95667
Completed	1851

The John Thompson House is one of the best examples of Victorian Italianate style in Ulster County. It is located one-quarter mile from the Hudson River on Maple Avenue in Highland, New York

The house was built between 1854 and 1858 by John Thompson (1800–1891) for his wife Electa Ferris (1807–1902) as the family's country home in the Hudson Valley. John Thompson founded the First National Bank of the City of New York in 1863. With his sons, Samuel and Frederick, he founded the Chase National Bank in 1877, a predecessor of the Chase Manhattan Bank. The Thompson Family's main house was on 295 Madison Avenue in New York City. The family affectionately called their summer home, "The Anchorage".

The house across the street from the John Thompson House, also in the Italianate villa style, was a wedding gift by John Thompson to his niece.

The Anchorage is built in the Victorian Italianate villa (also known as Tuscan Villa Revival) style of designer Andrew Jackson Downing, an American landscape designer, horticulturist and writer of American architecture, who lived just down the Hudson River in Newburgh, New York. Andrew Jackson Downing's grand country designs with their highly decorated interiors were popular among wealthy American socialites of the Victorian Age. The house has been maintained as originally built with updates for modern amenities such as electricity.

Significant exterior design features include a Belvedere tower with elongated windows on three sides with views of Poughkeepsie, NY across the Hudson River. The Hudson River is now visible from the tower only in the winter when the trees have lost their leaves. Its broad verandas overlook multiple gardens that so often graced the grounds of country villa homes. The wrap-around porch is thought to have been added in 1904.

The house has sixteen rooms, five on the first floor, eight on the second, and three on the third. The five first-floor rooms are nearly twelve feet high. Seven of the ten fireplaces are made of sculpted imported Italian marble. Ten fireplaces provide heat during the spring and fall months while the house's northern orientation and double-brick walls provide protection from the summer heat. The rooms are decorated with ornate scroll and designed plaster. The center chandeliers in four rooms are surrounded by large plaster medallions. The large paneled doors are painted with wood grain, a common feature of ornate homes of the period, and are surrounded by 10-inch-wide (250 mm) moldings. The entry-way has a large marble floor and rounded staircases with scroll work on the side. The stairwell includes an arched niche built to hold decorative art.