Bush-Holley Historic Site

Bush-Holley Historic Site
39 Strickland Road
Cos Cob, CT 06807
(203) 869 – 6899

For over two and a half centuries, the Bush-Holley house has stood at the intersection of a mill pond and the Mianus River as it flows past the once busy, coastal village of Cos Cob, now a neighborhood in the town of Greenwich, Connecticut. At Greenwich the river widens to become Cos Cob Harbor, a sheltered area on the Long Island Sound. In colonial times Greenwich supplied locally grown produce such as potatoes and apples to packet boats headed for New York City.

The first stage in the development of today’s Bush-Holley House was in 1728 – 1730, when a one-room, two-story structure was built on a hilltop overlooking the Mianus River. A few years later the main “salt box” house was built, and in 1738 a wealthy Dutch Greenwich farmer and town selectman by the name of Justus Bush purchased the house, although he did not occupy it. His son David Bush (1733 – 1797) became owner after his father’s death, and between 1755 and 1777, having gained rights from the Town of Greenwich to build and operate a tide mill, he made significant changes to the house in the refined Georgian style, which fit his important status in the town.

Throughout the Revolutionary War, David Bush, like many wealthy merchants along Connecticut’s coast, apparently sought to occupy a precarious middle ground between British sympathizer and American rebel. After a particularly notorious British raid in 1779, David Bush was arrested and imprisoned in the Fairfield, Connecticut jail on suspicion of loyalty to the British, primarily because his property had not been damaged in the raid. He was later acquitted of all charges, but upon his return to Greenwich two months later, he refused to take the oath of fidelity to the State.

The colonial Bush household had depended on slave labor, the consolidation of wealth through strategic marriage choices, the safety of investing in real estate, and the convention of passing on the family business to a male heir to maintain their economic status. The post-Revolution Bush household was faced with very different economic circumstances. Connecticut’s gradual emancipation of its slaves required the hiring of servants, a much more expensive endeavor. The division of David Bush’s estate among ten heirs fragmented the family’s wealth. Real estate, increasingly unavailable, was not the chosen means of investing among members of the post-Revolution generation, and Justus Luke Bush, heir to his father’s business, had no male heir of his own to whom he could pass the family business. This, combined with the fact that he died without a will, in severe debt, and during an economic depression in 1844, forced his wife and daughter to sell the property in 1848.

The Bush-Holley House first became a boarding house after it passed out of Bush family hands in 1848. The addition of new windows and the second-story porch made it an attractive setting for views of the harbor. Josephine and Edward Holley operated it as a boarding house for artists and writers beginning in 1882 and passed it to their daughter Constant Holley following her marriage to the artist Elmer MacRae in 1900. Thus started the most famous chapter in the history of the Bush-Holley House, an era that began in the early 1890s and lasted until the 1920s. During this period the house was used as the main gathering place for a group of artists and writers who were members of the Cos Cob Art Colony, a cradle of American Impressionism.

Greenwich was only a short train ride from New York City, yet retained a rural character that appealed to artists. The first documented arrival of artists was in 1892, when John Henry Twachtman and J. Alden Weir taught summer classes in Cos Cob for the Art Students League in New York. Over the next several decades the house was a lively center for intellectual debate and inspiration. In addition to painters, the Cos Cob Art Colony attracted writers and editors, mostly from New York. The key players stayed at the house, while others took rooms in nearby homes and gathered for meals at the Holley House.

The Greenwich Historical Society purchased the Bush-Holley House in 1957, restored it and by 1958 the house opened to the public as a museum. In certain ways the house resembles an art museum, as portraits by artists who boarded or lived there, such as Childe Hassam, hang from its walls. A unique presentation focuses on two distinct time periods: The New Nation (1790-1825) and The Cos Cob Art Colony (1890-1920). Eight well-documented and excellently furnished rooms tell a story of change over time, while the historic buildings, landscape and gardens evoke the turn of the twentieth century, when Cos Cob became the first art colony in Connecticut.

The top photo shows the front of the mansion, which faces eastward, overlooking a mill pond that merges with Cos Cob Harbor to the immediate south. The earliest stage in the development of the Bush-Holley House was a small section at the southern end of today’s mansion (shown in the second photo), built in 1728 – 1730. The main house was constructed in 1730 – 1733, but remained a separate structure until 1755 – 1771, when a new entry hall joined the two residences. Two entrances are on the lower front porch; the one to your left marks the position of the joining addition.

Visitors to the Holley House usually arrived in Cos Cob by train and were transported by horse and cart or buggy to the house. The front hall appears much as it did in 1912, when Childe Hassam painted Clarissa MacRae (the MacRaes owned the house 1906 – 1957) sitting in front of the bookcase.

Elmer MacRae’s studio reflected his interest in Japanese art and his ability to find artistic inspiration from his immediate surroundings. Origami cranes hang from a wire strung between the easel and the window, and a Japanese woodblock print sits on a small easel.