Begun c. 1652, the Pieter Claesen Wyckoff House is New York City’s oldest structure and one of the oldest wooden frame houses in the country. It was the first site to be designated a Landmark upon the creation of the Landmarks Preservation Commission in 1965 and was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1968. Pieter Claesen emigrated from the Netherlands in 1637 as an indentured servant and through connections to Peter Stuyvesant, Director-General of New Netherlands, settled in what was then known as New Amersfoort in 1652. Successive generations of Wyckoffs farmed the land until 1901. His descendents donated the house to the City in 1969 and after an exhaustive restoration it opened as a museum in 1982.
