Reisman: Battle to save Washington's headquarters

Driving down the winding two-lane Virginia Road in North Castle, it's easy to miss the Elijah Miller House.

Tucked away in a copse of trees, the 275-year-old building is all but hidden in the shadows and camouflaged by a green mold that has advanced across its white clapboard. If you take your eyes off the road to steal a glimpse of the house, you run a serious risk of ramming into a Byram cement truck barreling down the narrow road from the opposite direction.

During the desperate Battle of White Plains on Oct. 28, 1776, Gen. George Washington briefly stayed at the Miller House, the guest of the widow Anne Miller. Taken alone, the Washington connection qualifies it as a historic piece of property, and some time ago it was duly designated a landmark.

The county of Westchester has owned the old homestead since 1917, but a standing policy of fiscal austerity has in recent years caused it to fall into disrepair. The building is closed to the public, subject to the whims of vagrants, vandals and the forces of nature.

Five years ago, the county Board of Legislators passed a $1.2 million bond resolution to fix the place up and possibly move it to a more hospitable site. County Executive Rob Astorino vetoed the resolution, saying the house should be transferred to private hands.

Well, that hasn't happened. The county still owns it and is responsible for its condition, which is past the point of deplorable.

And so it sits.

On July 23, 2014, the North Castle Town Board sent the county its own resolution, requesting "the immediate repair and restoration, by its owner Westchester County, of the Elijah Miller House—Washington's Headquarters at its current location where it has stood since before the American Revolution..." Nothing happened, according to Edward Woodyard, the president of the Friends of Miller House/Washington's Headquarters.

"North Castle has been basically ignored on its effort to get the Miller House up and running again," Woodyard said in an email, noting that an upcoming historic tour of the town will include the historic site, but no one will be allowed to enter the house "due to its condition."

Because the roof leaks, it is covered with a blue tarpaulin that rips or becomes untethered whenever the wind kicks up. In April, Cynthia Kauffman and Debra Palazzo, who head Daughter of Liberty's Legacy, Inc., a local nonprofit group dedicated to historic preservation, alerted Astorino to "a matter that needs immediate attention." Driving past the Miller House, they noticed that tarp had partially separated from the roof, exposing the shingles.

Fearing a weather forecast of rain, they asked that the situation "be remedied immediately." Deputy County Executive Kevin Plunkett quickly replied that action would be taken.

However, 10 days later Palazzo discovered that nothing had been done. This time she sent an angry email to Plunkett, including photos of the house.

She wrote: "As (county executive) Astorino knows this home is beloved and treasured by many citizens of the county and if it is brought to its knees under his watch, as it appears it will, it will be a shameful mark on his record not to be forgotten."

Last week, I drove by Miller House and it appeared that the tarp had been fixed in place.

The Battle of White Plains was hardly an insignificant event. Retreating from New York City, Washington's army, which was battered, exhausted and starving, took a defensive position on the high ground across from the Bronx River. They were opposed by 13,000 British and Hessian troops, "who must have looked brilliantly invincible in the autumn sunlight as they stepped forward in smart columns," wrote Ron Chernow in his Pulitzer Prize winning biography of Washington.

Figures vary, but one estimate was that the British suffered 276 casualties and the Americans half that. Some accounts put the numbers much higher. In any case, by the standards of the Revolutionary War, it was a bloody battle.

Washington's army was forced to retreat, again. But the British failed to give chase, allowing the Americans to fight another day. As the historian David Hackett Fischer noted, the Hessians and British returned to Manhattan, "with a feeling something had gone wrong."

Today, all these years later, the Miller House still stands, but barely. The din of distant cannon fire ceased long ago, replaced by the constant industrial racket of the cement plant across the road.

And there is a feeling that a different battle may be lost.

Email: preisman@lohud.com. Twitter: @philreisman