Guilderland
Historical
Society
- Guilderland properties listed in the
National Register of Historic Places - Fine Arts & Flower
Building
Fine Arts & Flower Building viewed from the
south (August 2025).
The 2003 NRHP nomination document contains 5 photos of the Fine Arts
& Flower Building; two are included below
click on an image to obtain full size view
1. Fine Arts & Flower Building viewed from southeast
(photo taken by Gail Fuller in 2003)
5. Fine Arts & Flower Building historical photo ca. 1920
Text information extracts from NRHP nomination submitted in 2003
(note that much more extensive descriptive and historical
information is contained in the original NRHP document)
Fine Arts & Flower Building entered on the NRHP 28 January 2004
as "Fine Arts & Flower Building, Altamont Fairgrounds"
The Altamont Fairgrounds are located in the Village of
Altamont......The Fine Arts and Flower Building, or Exhibition Hall,
is located in the extreme northwest comer of the complex, off of the
racetrack, near the gatehouses flanking the Grand Street entrance.
Features: The Fine Arts and Flower Building is a large
one-story cruciform building with a stout, pyramidal roofed tower at
the crossing. The building was constructed with a light wood frame
sheathed in novelty siding with vertical board-and-batten siding
above. The pitched roofs of the four arms of the cross and the
pyramidal roof of the tower are clad in raised seam metal; the
gables are terminated by boxed wood cornices and have deeply
projecting eaves. Fenestration consists of Palladian windows with
multi-pane sash and molded casings in the gable fields of each of
the four projections; continuous window bands in the tower,
consisting of nine square-headed windows each double-hung with
original nine-over-nine light sash, are situated on each of the four
sides of the tower and light the interior from above. Sliding
vertical batten wood doors are situated beneath each of the
Palladian windows and allow for access to the building’s interior.
Outside of the Palladian motifs and the cavetto-type wood cornice of
the tower the building displays no other overt stylistic references,
excepting the vertical board-and-batten siding that lends a vertical
emphasis. Though modest in scale and detail the building is
nonetheless pleasing in its proportion and massing. The interior of
the building is given over entirely to a single open area, largely
unfinished.....
The Fine Arts and Flower Building remains much as it was when
completed in the summer of 1896. The only significant change to the
building was the replacement of the original slate roof with
raised-seam metal at an unknown date.
Date of initial construction: 1896; builder: Hiram
Schoonmaker
Historical and Architectural importance: The Fine Arts and
Flower Building.....is significant in the local context as a highly
intact example of fairground architecture in Albany County, New
York......The building has remained in continuous use at the
fairgrounds since its completion and is the most intact resource of
the dozens of buildings that remain there to chronicle the history
and evolution of the fair.......The Fine Arts and Flower Building
survives with a considerable level of historic integrity and is an
excellent representative example of fairground architecture,
conceived as both a functional space and a visual anchor of the
fairground complex.
Fine Arts
& Flower Building NRHP nomination document (33MB pdf)
map location for Fine Arts & Flower Building
tax property site map showing building location
Google Earth kml
file
Guilderland NRHP properties
Guilderland Historian
Guilderland Historical Society