UPPER NYACK – The mansion that once housed the nation’s oldest multifaith peace organization is no more. Shadowcliff, which housed the Fellowship of Reconciliation from 1957 to around 2017, has been torn down by the current private owner.
On Friday, July 17, piles of construction debris where the once-regal manse stood at 521 N. Broadway could be seen beyond the orange safety fence-wrapped gates. A permit for demolition issued by the village of Upper Nyack was on display.
The property’s current owner started seeking permits to demolish the structure in 2024, starting with the Architectural Review Board.
Plans, according to village documents, call for a new single-family home on the 2.2-acre riverfront lot.
Upper Nyack Village Building Inspector Michael Nolan declined further comment.
“That is so sad. It was such a beautiful building and had so many wonderful memories,” said Doug Hostetter, former executive director of FOR from 1988 until 1993 who then served as international interfaith secretary until 2001. It was a window to the international world, Hostetter said.
Nobel Prize winners, peace activists, religious leaders worldwide had visited. “We welcomed the peace voices, the activists, the compassionate,” Hostetter said.
FOR’s role in Rockland and way beyond
FOR was formed in 1915 by a group of pacifist activists in opposition to war and in promotion of nonviolence.
The Congress of Racial Equality, or CORE, was an outgrowth of FOR established in the 1940s.
The peace organization settled in Upper Nyack in the 1950s.
The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was closely affiliated with FOR and its leaders. FOR in 1957 even produced a comic book, “Martin Luther King and the Montgomery Story,” that was distributed in churches and schools and has been credited with helping to inspire similar nonviolent forms of demonstration against segregation.
FOR was key in the anti-war movement during U.S. involvement in Vietnam. The organization fought for nuclear disarmament during the Cold War. FOR had worked for decades on interfaith peace building, Hostetter said, with Israeli-Palestinian peacemakers.
But as staff was scaled back and the cost of operations there ramped up, the organization sold the property in 2019.
The legacy of FOR can be seen throughout the Nyacks. A village street carries the honorary name Bayard Rustin Way, named for the civil rights leader and principal organizer of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1963. Rustin was a member of FOR-USA’s national staff from 1942 to 1953. Rustin, an out gay man in an era where that was shocking, was forced out of the organization; FOR issued a formal apology to Rustin in 2015, nearly 30 years after his death.
FOR is still based in Rockland County, now in Stony Point.
Shadowcliff sold, donated, sold again
The building started as a single-family home, built in 1921 as one of the Hudson riverfront great homes with great halls and sweeping views of the river.
The three-floor, 16,000-square-foot brick manor included a library, sun room and commercial-sized kitchen.
FOR had put the property on the market in 2017 for $2.4 million. It sold in 2019 for $1.9 million.
At that time, the new owner had plans to renovate the century-old estate into a single family residence.
Snedens Landing artists Sean Scully and Lilane Tomasko bought Shadowcliff with plans to renovate the house.
In 2021, the Scullys gifted the property to Blue Rock School, a private K-8 school in West Nyack.
The school sold it for $2.7 million in March 2022 to 521 N. Broadway LLC. The owners could not be reached.
Though the property had been listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the designation focused on the peace organization that had called it home, rather than the structure’s architecture.
Nancy Cutler covers People & Policy. Reach her at ncutler@lohud.com; follow her on X, Bluesky and Instagram at @nancyrockland.
This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Upper Nyack mansion that once housed famed peace group is demolished
Reporting by Nancy Cutler, Rockland/Westchester Journal News / Rockland/Westchester Journal News
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Nancy Cutler, Rockland/Westchester Journal News | USA TODAY Network
