It's hard to imagine that once the entire Capital District was under the ownership of the Van Rensselaer family and their feudal land system for some 300 years. Yet, there are a few standing structures scattered about the region to remind us.

Certainly the manor houses in which the families lived in on both sides of the Hudson were imposing structures. In 1765, Stephen Van Rensselaer I, erected his Manor house near present day Manor Street in Albany's north end. The manor house underwent several renovations between the years 1840-1843. Towards the end of the century, the estate was getting crowded with the growing railway system in Albany. Soon after the death of Stephen Van Rensselaer IV in 1868, the house was handed down to the next generation of the Van Rensselaer family who chose not to reside there, since it was then in the middle of an industrial center.

Owner William Bayard Van Rensselaer decided to remove one wing of the house to make room for the New York Central Railroad, but his cousin, Marcus T. Reynolds, an Albany architect convinced him that it would be better to remove the house completely rather than alter it. Much of it was removed and it became Reynolds's fraternity, Sigma Phi, at Williams College in Massachusetts. Historical interior details of the manor house were given to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, which include the now famous wallpaper that was ordered especially made for the manor house and saved by William's brother Dr. Howard Van Rensselaer. Much of the brick walls were used to fill in the cellar hole. Today, the site is a parking lot.

Construction at Williams College was completed and the Van Rensselaer Sigma Phi house opened in 1895. In 1963, fraternities were abolished and the manor house was used for various purposes until 1973 when the college demolished it to extend their library. A Doctor named Demise from the capital region salvaged the original sandstone blocks that were used in the 1840's renovations, under direction of the famous architect Richard Henry Upjohn, and moved them to a farm in Feura Bush in 1973. The blocks are now in two places: a landfill, while the quoins and lintels were dumped at the RPI technology park in 1997.

In 1893, William organized the Albany Terminal Warehouse Company to obtain additional income for the family, and a large warehouse was erected on their property across the alley from the manor house. The warehouse is still being used today.

Another Van Rensselaer building is the beautiful Venetian Renaissance style palace designed by Marcus Reynolds at 385-389 State Street across from Washington Park. Built by William in 1896 with family money, it was built as a retirement home for any of the Van Rensselaer family who wanted to live there. If you look carefully at the terra cotta plaques on the front you can see above the second floor arched windows the main emblem of the Van Rensselaer Coat of Arms (called a Cross Moline) originally discovered by historian John Wolcott.

The third Albany building, again attributed to Marcus Reynolds, is on the southeast corner of Delaware and Madison Avenue. This building was built around the turn of the 20th century and financed by Dr. Howard Van Rensselaer. If you look at the hand wrought balustrade over the door you can see the very ornate monogram VR in the middle. Reynolds always liked to use these low-key reminders of the Van Rensselaer connections in his projects.

Though the West Manor house has been destroyed, minus the few architectural elements scattered around, the East Manor house did not suffer the same fate. It was built in 1842 by William Patterson Van Rensselaer, the son of Stephen III, and inheritor of most of Rensselaer County. The building is as elegant today as it was when originally built. This massive Greek Revival structure is located off Washington Avenue in Rensselaer on beautiful wooded grounds and overlooks the Hudson. According to Wolcott, William P. named it Beverwyck as a reminder that it was his family that really founded Albany. It has been owned by the Conventual Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate Conception Province and used as St Anthony's on the Hudson Friary for years.

Few know that William also commissioned Thomas Cole, who is generally considered the father of the American Hudson River School, to paint two paintings for him in 1837. Cole produced the now famous "The Departure" and "The Return."

William sold his Rensselaer County land to his brother Stephen Van Rensselaer IV. Stephen is given credit for starting the famous anti-rent wars by getting all the tenant farmers mad for leaning on them harshly to collect back rent money due to his bad gambling debts in the 1830's. The land empire crumbled shortly after.

The rest is history in a "manor" of speaking.