Heermance House and Law Office

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1987. 12 historic topographic surveys show this location, the earliest from 1898.

From the record

“Heermance House and Law Office is a historic home located at Rhinecliff, Dutchess County, New York. Located on the property is a cottage, built about 1858 in the Picturesque Italianate style; the Gothic-inspired law office building, built about 1886; and a garage, built about 1900.”
Wikipedia article Heermance House and Law Office, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 266 National Register listings published here for Dutchess County · listed in 1987 · category: Building.

Sources: the Wikipedia article · the case file at the National Archives · the National Register database, National Park Service

The listing

What is counted as historic. The nomination lists 3 buildingss as contributing to the listing.
Address. Jct. of Rhinecliff and Long Dock Rds., Rhinecliff, 12572
When was it listed? July 1987
Category. building
Also known as. Rhinebeck Town MRA
Town. Rhinebeck town
Architectural style. Renaissance Revival architecture
National Register reference number. 87001091 - the number the National Park Service assigned this property when it was listed, and the key its nomination file is catalogued under at the National Archives.

Then and now

1898 to 1993

The ground this property stands on, surveyed 95 years apart. Drag the handle to wipe between them. Both sheets are United States Geological Survey originals; neither has been altered.

Topographic sheet covering Heermance House and Law Office, surveyed 1993

Topographic sheet covering Heermance House and Law Office, surveyed 1898

Fires near this property

465 since 1997

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 465 fires within 5 miles of Heermance House and Law Office between 1997 and 2020, burning about 435 acres in total. 27 started naturally. 47 were recorded as arson. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Reported cause	Fires
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	228
Smoking	94
Arson/incendiarism	47
Debris and open burning	35
Natural	27
Equipment and vehicle use	19
Power generation/transmission/distribution	7
Recreation and ceremony	4
Misuse of fire by a minor	4

The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.

Date	Cause	Size	Reported by	Name on the report
9 September 2006	Arson/incendiarism	under an acre	Fire Department of New York	not named
7 September 2017	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Fire Department of New York	N/A
7 September 2015	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Fire Department of New York	N/A
6 September 2015	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Fire Department of New York	NA
4 September 2009	Smoking	under an acre	Fire Department of New York	not named
3 September 2001	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Fire Department of New York	not named
29 September 2019	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Fire Department of New York	N/A
26 September 2010	Smoking	under an acre	Fire Department of New York	not named

Every fire recorded in Dutchess County

Mines and quarries near this property

10 of 16 shown

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 16 workings within 5 miles of Heermance House and Law Office: 9 past producers, 7 producers. 7 still produce. What was taken out: Stone, Crushed/Broken, Clay, Sand and Gravel, Construction, Limestone, General. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Site	Commodity	Status	Recorded
Eddyville	Bloating Material	Producer	Sedimentary
Dwyer Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
Dwyer Pit and Mill	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer	Sedimentary
Kingston Quarry	Limestone, General	Past Producer	Sedimentary
Kingston Quarry	Limestone, General	Past Producer	Sedimentary
Colite Pit	Clay	Past Producer	Sedimentary
Colite Pit	Clay	Past Producer
Eddyville Clay Pit	Clay	Past Producer
Jova Manufacturing Corp Clay Mine	Clay	Producer
Tova Manufacturing Corp. Clay Mine	Clay	Past Producer	Sedimentary

Every working recorded in Dutchess County

Storms near this property

2 since 2022

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Rhinecliff, the town this property stands in, in 2 storm reports between 2022 and 2023: 1 tornado, 1 thunderstorm wind. No death or injury is recorded in these reports. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date opens the federal record of that event.

When	Event	Place named	Harm	What the report says
July 2023	Thunderstorm Wind	Rhinecliff	-	Tree and wires were reported down on Morton Road.
July 2022	Tornado (EFU)	Rhinecliff	-	A waterspout was sighted on the Hudson River.

Every storm recorded in Dutchess County

Maps showing this location

12 surveys

United States Geological Survey topographic sheets whose coverage includes this point. Matched by taking the coordinate the National Park Service records for this property, then testing that coordinate against the published boundary of every sheet.

1898 USGS Rhinebeck quadrangle1:62500 - 9 printings
1934 USGS Rhinebeck quadrangle1:62500
1934 USGS Rhinebeck quadrangle1:48000
1939 USGS Rhinebeck quadrangle1:62500 - 3 printings
1947 USGS Hartford quadrangle1:250000 - 2 printings
1948 USGS Hartford quadrangle1:250000 - 2 printings
1961 USGS Hartford quadrangle1:250000
1962 USGS Hartford quadrangle1:250000 - 3 printings
1963 USGS Kingston East quadrangle1:24000 - 5 printings
1965 USGS Hartford quadrangle1:250000 - 2 printings
1985 USGS Waterbury quadrangle1:100000
1993 USGS Waterbury quadrangle1:100000

Listed places nearby

6 within 8 miles

Other National Register properties close enough to walk or drive between, ordered by distance from this one. Both positions come from the same geocoding pass that matched these properties to their map sheets.

Property	Distance	Listed
Riverside Methodist Church and Parsonage	0.7 miles	1987
Riverside Methodist Church and Parsonage	0.7 miles	1987
O'Brien General Store and Post Office	0.7 miles	1987
Rhinecliff Hotel	0.7 miles	1987
Morton Memorial Library	0.8 miles	1987
Free Church Parsonage	0.9 miles	1987

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 87001091 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Dutchess County	All 266 listed properties in this county.

Provenance

Listing record. National Park Service National Register of Historic Places, listed-properties dataset, current to 2026-05-22.
Map join. Address geocoded through the United States Census geocoder, then tested against the published boundary of every sheet in the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection.
How this page is made. Listing fields come from federal records; map-sheet coverage is a labelled coordinate-to-boundary calculation, not a source-field claim.
Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.
Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.
Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.