Armonk, New York, upper Westchester County
“When I was a lad of 14 Dad (Dr. Charles V. Paterno) talked of buying a place in the countryside of upper Westchester County. Our cottage at Bantam Lake in Connecticut which Dad had built no longer sufficed. While returning to New York one day in the Packard Touring Car, we passed by a road sign advertising a property for sale which was known as “North Castle Farm.” The asking price was $115,000 for 246 acres. Dad offered $100,000 for the property and gave the owners 30 days to accept or reject the offer. When the offer was rejected, Dad reduced the offering price. There was a long period of negotiation and Dad finally bought the farm for $85,000. As time went on contiguous acreage was added until it spread to 1,260 acres. It was named “Windmill Farm” because of its many large windmills for pumping water for the artificial lakes which Dad created to enhance the beauty of the development.” Carlo Paterno in My Family pages 30 & 31
“In the worst of the Great Depression Dad decided to employ all comers at 50 cents an hour to build a mile and a half long stone wall fence, 7 feet high, along the front of the farm on the main highway. There were days when over 300 men were laying the stones all of which came from the original stone walls around the farm. This wall still stands.” Carlo Paterno in My Family page 77 & 79
– this project was suggested by local politicians and endorsed by Charles to employ individuals in the community (Kelley Paterno page 212)
“Mother (Minnie Minton Middaugh Brown Paterno) was an avid rider all her life, up to the time of her death. Naturally she wanted to instill in her son the pleasure of this. Consequently at Windmill Farm, Dad built a large riding stable with a magnificent tack room. There were enough horses for all of us and for guests who visited. Dad built many bridle trails throughout the Farm. Mother derived a great deal of pleasure riding her horse through the woods, particularly on Sundays, dismounting on various benches to do her Christian Science reading.” Carlo Paterno in My Family page 79
The farm produced fruit trees and garden vegetables. It was stocked with horses, cattle, and chickens. (Kelley Paterno page 212)
Back in 1919 when [Dr. Charles V. Paterno] purchased the farm, which was called North Castle Farm at the time, he had just turned forty, but he was already considered one of the leading figures in the building development of Manhattan. In fact, he could boast that, in the world’s biggest metropolis, he had put a roof over the heads of 28,000 people in 75 buildings he had built on the West Side. He said he was looking for a landmark in the green American countryside, far from the city, so he could prepare his future as a gentleman farmer. And he fount it here, in Armonk, the green district of North Castle in Westchester County, northeast of the Big Apple. (Renato Cantore) – more colorful description of the nature, development, and features of Windmill Farm in Renato’s prologue
1944: Charles wanted to transform 200 acres into “Memory Park” cemetery for funerals, baptisms, weddings, park, greenery, woods, ponds, gardens, chapels, churches, halls for receptions and banquets; planned to invest 4M; neighboring landowners (led by Rosa Semple from Alabama) fought the concept and won (Renato Cantore)
The farm was renamed Windmill Farm after Dad built seven artificial lakes with windmills at the same time he built the stonewall around the farm, the new stable, farm buildings, bridal paths (done by Lyndon Brown) and boat house with lounge, dressing rooms and baths on one lake where a beach was put in. At the other end of the lake was a beach for the servants and across the way extensive fish hatcheries. There was also a deer pen in the woods where Dad kept deer. (Notes on Carlo Paterno’s book My Family made by Ruth Marie Welsh Brown)
“Following Dad’s death [Dr. Charles V. Paterno] it seemd to me, as son and manager of the estate, that I should try and sell our fine Armonk property. After a few years of no-success it was deemed prudent to consult the prominent real estate brokerage firm of Pease & Elliman in New York City. The grand old property was inspected for three weeks and then the firm summed me. Submitted was a prospectus for consideration. The result was that it was me – Carlo M. Paterno – who should and could do what would be best in developing the tract as a commercial income producing property. I built sixty homes. Six miles of roads were provided. A water company was installed. In that advanced state the property was sold in 1955 to another developer for completion.” Carlo Paterno in My Family pages 115 & 116
External Links:
• Windmill Manor
• North Castle History Volume 41
• North Castle History Volume 29
• Where Real Windmills Add a Countrified Touch to Suburbia, New York Times 11 August 1996
• History of Windmill Farm
“In the summer Nana (Minnie Minton Middaugh Brown Paterno) and Doctor (Dr. Charles V. Paterno) would go to their farm in North Castle, New York. They would bring all the servants with them and the chauffeurs would take turns.
The barns were mostly down by the road running along Route 22. The bull was tied with a chain through his nose near the barns and as I walked down to the barns from the Big House through the arbor, the bull was always there. I was petrified of him and had been told never to wear a red dress because then he would go crazy and try to break loose. It was in the area where they butchered the chickens, etc.
There was a 9-hole golf course across the street from the Big House and tennis courts down by the barns and an ice house plus several other houses on the property.
When I was about 8 years old and “they” did over the farm: built beautiful barns and stables and cottages way in the back of the Big House. An enormous garden the size of a football field, a polo field, a very large artificial lake with boat house and dressing rooms and bathrooms attached. And upstair was the living room. There were severn artificial lakes and windmills to pump the water if needed. The farm was renamed “Windmill Manor.” [Later to be called Windmill Farm.]
There were miles of bridle paths and large deer pens in the woods. There were ten horses, four work horses, cows, sheep, goats, chickens, pigs, my pony named “Mickey” and several peacocks.
There was a dairy where they made the cream and butter. This farm supplied everything: meat, fish (the lakes were full of fish), vegetables and fruits from the garden, eggs, butter, milk, etc. from the dairy.
With the new farm they did away with the golf course and the tennis courts.
I had a lovely play yard with play horse, swing, wading pool, roller coaster, etc.
I was also given a pony “Mickey” and pony cart besides having “Laddie” my old circus horse to ride.
My grandmother rode her horse “Gloria” every day side saddle. The groom would bring the horses up to the Big House every morning. A permanent mount was always there to help one get on the horses.” Ruth Middaugh Brown’s Memories
“Uncle Charles also owned The Windmill Farms, with over a thousand acres of land, in Armonk, New York. On this property he built several windmills. During the Depression he constructed a high stone wall on the Route 22 frontage, with gates and cottages for the gatekeeper and the farm superintendent. He modernized the large old home, constructed amain road from Route 22 to the Greenwich line, provided several miles of bridle trails, a large man-made lake stocked with fish, a boathouse and a swimming pool. He also built a stable for many horses, a barn for cattle, a chicken house, and several attached cottages for the permanent workers. Between the main house and the lake, several acres of fenced-in vegetable garden were planted. These included many varieties of specially shaped fruit trees lining the symmetrically spaced walks dividing the planting areas and around the perimeter fence. During the period he also purchased two failing golf courses across from his property on Route 22, The Westchester Embassy and the Byrom Lake Club.” Michael J. Paterno book page 11
Excerpt from above article: “The unusual design reflect the personality of the man who commissioned the windmills and the skill of the man who built them, according to Joseph Petre of Armonk. For $5 a day, his father designed and built the windmills during the Great Depression for Dr. Charles Paterno.
Paterno, a real estate baron not known for cutting corners, had built for himself a castle near what is now the George Washington Bridge in Manhattan, said Vincent Scarpa of Bedford Village. Scarpa’s father worked on the castle and was the construction supervisor for the North Castle estate.
Of the windmills on the North Castle estate, Scarpa said, “He wanted them to be a beautiful work of art.”
Paterno also wanted the windmills to pump water to his 1,000-acre estate and hired Edmund Petre, a ship and home builder, for the task. Petre, of Nova Scotia, had stopped in White Plains for a while on his way to build movie sets for 20th Century Fox in Hollywood, his son said.
Petre, who later became a cabinetmaker, drew up the designs to Paterno’s elaborate specification, his son said. His talent for detail made him the perfect man for the task, his son said.
“These were classy. This was his style,” said North Castle Town Historian Richard Lander. “Dr. Paterno didn’t do anything half way.”
“The Beginning Windmill Farm began with Dr. Charles Paterno, a physician turned Manhattan developer, who decided to escape the city’s heat. In 1919 he bought 268 acres known as North Castle Farm, which had a 1910 colonial manor sitting on a knoll overlooking Route 22. Dr. Paterno soon became a gentleman farmer, presiding over horses, cows, chickens and ultimately an orchard of 1200 fruit trees. In a 1918 interview for American Magazine, he calculated that he had built about 75 apartment buildings in New York City, housing perhaps 28,000 people. Clearly he had needed a change of pace.
The Evergreen Within a few years, Dr. Paterno acquired additional land, 1270 acres on both sides of Route 22. His son, Carlo, related that in 1922 his father planted a million and a half evergreen seedlings (a figure hard to comprehend) in anticipation of a New York state ban against cutting live trees for Christmas. Paterno was going to sell his nursery stock balled. The law never passed, but the evergreens were cut and sold at Christmas until about 1958. Those that escaped the ax still stand in straight rows towering over many of the homes.
Walls and Windmills During the Depression, Paterno hired scores of laborers who reportedly worked for 50 cents an hour building the landmark fieldstone wall, almost a mile long. In the 1930s he added four interconnecting lakes by damming streams and erecting at least six windmills to draw water from newly drilled wells. Paterno hoped to sell water to North Castle residents. When that plan failed, he asked a local builder, Edmund Petre, to build a boathouse for his family on one of the lakes and cover the steel-shafted windmills with wood. Petre designed each windmill differently with distinctive trims and cornices.
A New Community In 1946, Carlo Paterno inherited his father’s country estate, which was by then called Windmill Manor, and decided to turn it into a residential community. He foresaw that the land, graced with the picturesque windmills, lakes and dramatic rock formations would be a drawing card for homebuyers. His offering brochure called it “a new and fascinating design for country living.”The manor house became the “administration building,” and prospective homebuyers were put up overnight in the Paterno guesthouses near the barns on Upland Lane. Some families stayed several months while their houses were being built.
Birth of the Club On March 18, 1948, Carlo Paterno drew the new homeowners together, incorporating them under the name The Windmill Club, and he designated the boathouse, The Clubhouse. His brochure explained that his company would “manage the Club until two-thirds of the building plots have been sold. At that time, the incorporators will turn over to the members the administration of the Club, together with the authority to approve all plans, enforce rules and regulations and control the abatement of nuisances.”By 1954, some 60 homes had been built and Windmill Farm was sold to developers Edward Tobin and Mac Welson, who continued the home and road building for five more years. The next developer of the Farm’s 750 acres was Olivia G. Seeler, who presumed she had completed construction in the 1960s. The count stayed at 372 homes until the turn of the 21st century, when five more were built.Windmill Farm retains its country character even today with unspoiled natural landscaping, winding roads, and woods enough for squirrels, rabbits, chipmunks, raccoons and deer.” Windmill Club website
Notes from a Facebook Group titled You Know You Are From Armonk, NY if….
“We were fortunate enough to live at 18 Maple Way….his home. My parents purchased it in 1963 or 1964 when I was about 1 or 2 years old. Great memories!!”
“It must have been a pretty large house. From the web… Facts: Built in 1930 Stories: 2 Lot size: 1.59 acres Exterior material: Wood Floor size: 7,276 sqft Heat type: Other Bedrooms: 7 Parking: Garage – Attached, 840 sqft Bathrooms: 5.5Features Fireplace Pool.”
“There were at least eight windmills. The six that were encapsulated by Edmund Petre and two others, both of which were taken down. One was near the basketball court at the Windmill Club and the other was at the entrance to Windmill, behind the southwest corner of the wall (Rte 22 and Windmill Rd.)”
“We grew up in the Doctor’s main house at 18 Maple Way. 26 rooms and 7 baths with a meat locker and bank vault walk in safe in the basement. Still looks great today.” (posted with photo below)
