The roof is a rather low pitched one, in the Dutch style with dormer windows. A piazza of modern construction, extends along the entire front above the high basement. It stands on the brow of a declivity sloping to, and overlooking, the wide estuary of the Croton River, and commands a magnificent view, to the southwest of the wide Tappan Sea of the Hudson, and its striking, beautiful, bold, and almost mountainous scenery. It was originally pierced with T shaped openings for defence, in case of hostile attacks, and

one or two of them have been kept unwalled up, as a matter of interest, to this day. The ancient ferry near which it was built was then and long after the only method of crossing the Croton River from the south to the north, west of Pine's Bridge near the centre of the present Artificial Croton Lake, a distance of several miles. That bridge was not built till late in the 18th century. To the death of Stephanus van Cortlandt so shortly after the erection of his lands into a Manor, is probably to be ascribed the fact, that there are no records to show whether he ever organized his Manorial Courts. The probability is, from the then sparseness of the inhabitants, that he did not. Nor before his death, was there sufficient time to have introduced very many new settlers. We know however that all the privileges and franchises of the Manor, general and political, were enjoyed by his heirs, or their assigns during the whole Colonial era.