Edgewater is a historic house near Barrytown in Dutchess County, New York, United States. Built about 1824, the house is a contributing property to the Hudson River Historic District. Edgewater's principal architectural feature is a monumental colonnade of six Doric columns, looking out across a lawn to the Hudson River. Writing in 1942, the historians Eberlein and Hubbard described Edgewater as an exemplar of "...the combined dignity and subtle grace that marked the houses of the Federal Era..."1820-1852 (Livingston Family Era)The history of Edgewater dates back to December 23, 1819, when Bishop Hobart of New York City married "Lowndes Brown, esq. of Charleston S.C. to Miss Margaretta Livingston, daughter of John R. Livingston, esq." The groom, Rawlins Lowndes Brown (1792–1852), was a graduate of Yale, class of 1806, and had been (as recently as September 1819 when he resigned his commission) Captain Lowndes Brown in charge of Company G stationed on Governors Island.In 1824, possibly as a belated wedding gift, John R. Livingston gave the 250 acre Edgewater property to his daughter and son-in-law, and the house may have been built about that time.1853–1902 (Donaldson Family Era)The New York financier and aesthete Robert Donaldson bought Edgewater in 1853. Donaldson engaged the architect Alexander Jackson Davis to add an octagonal library wing, and to clad the brick house with brownstone tinted stucco. Davis also designed two gatehouses. In 1902, the executor of the Donaldson estate sold the house to Elizabeth Chapman .
