Ross-Hand Mansion


Ross-Hand Mansion is a historic home located at South Nyack in Rockland County, New York. The land was acquired by Azariah Ross in 1856, an architect whose works include many of the bridges in Central Park and various features at West Point. The grounds were designed by the great landscape architect Andrew Jackson Downing. The two story brick mansion with Gothic Revival style features was completed in 1859. It features ornamental bargeboards and a steeply pitched gable roof.
In 1883, after Ross' death, the home was purchased by Mary H. Hand. Her husband, William Hand, specialized in decorative wordwork and completed extensive renovations on the property. Hand's grandson, William Henry Hand, was an assistant to Thomas Edison and traveled with him worldwide; he and Thomas Edison worked in a laboratory in the barn on improvements in the battery, inventing a new design with a 15-year life that found heavy use in military, police, and fire departments.
The third owner of the property acquired it in 1999 from the Hand family; the fourth and current owners purchased the home in 2014.
Also on the property is a barn with gymnasium and a small brick smokehouse.
It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1983.