STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — The Guyon-Lake-Tysen House is now located between Court Place and St. Patrick’s Place on the north side of Richmond Road. It was moved to Historic Richmond Town in 1962 from its original location in Oakwood, on Tysen’s Lane between Mill Road and Hylan Boulevard, where it sat on 80 acres of land.
According to the Historic Richmond Town website, The Guyon-Lake-Tysen House is larger than most 18th-century homes and symbolizes a significant, prosperous way of life. It was built as a farmhouse and was used as such for most of its history.
The house is one of the few 18th-century gambrel-roof houses surviving on Staten Island today, according to the Historic Richmond Town website.
This house combines Dutch and Franco-Flemish elements in a style later dubbed “Dutch Colonial.” It consists of two stories, a cellar and attic, and a kitchen extension to the west. The central portion of the house has dormers and a wide front porch.
Joseph Guyon constructed the house around 1740 (his name can still be seen written in the clay daubing above the door of the middle parlor), only finishing part of the interior before he died in 1758. The house and property were willed to his eight-year-old nephew, Joseph Guyon.
Henry Barger owned the house and farm by the late 1700s or early 1800s. When his wife, Mary, died in 1809, she left the house to her son, Jacob.
In 1812, the house and property were sold to Daniel W. Lake, a farmer of English descent. He made upgrades to the property and house by 1820. He and his wife, Mary Gifford Lake, had eight children, according to the 1820 census. Daniel Lake died in 1839, and some of the land was sold, but the house and adjacent land stayed with the Lake family.
As per Historic Richmond Town, In 1855, the farm comprised 60 acres, valued at $10,000. David Tysen died in 1885, and Elizabeth Tysen was killed in 1898. Still, the house stayed in the ownership of the Tysen family until 1962, when it was given to the Historical…
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