Earliest Roots

F.C. Huyck

E.N. Huyck

Francis C. Huyck

J.N. Huyck

The story of The Rensselaerville Institute really begins in 1870 when Francis Conkling Huyck, (Frank) quit his profession as a Rensselaerville Village storekeeper. He found that business distasteful because it was so confining. Instead, he wanted to take advantage of what he considered to be a great opportunity. Modern paper manufacturing was just beginning in the United States. Papermaking then required woolen blankets, or felts, to cover rollers that pressed the pulp into paper. These felts, which were long belts that ran through a maze of steel rollers, picked up and carried wet wood pulp through the rollers. They acted as filters when the rollers pressed out the water from the pulp fibers. At the time, there were only three manufacturers of papermaking felt in the entire United States. Despite warnings of inevitable failure from his family and close friends, Frank convinced Henry Waterbury, who was a woolen cloth manufacturer, to form a partnership with him to make felt in Rensselaerville.

In 1870, Frank Huyck and Henry Waterbury opened the fourth felt mill in the United States, called H. Waterbury & Company. It was a great decision. Their felt business grew in direct proportion to the growth of paper manufacturing in the United States, and both men became wealthy. When their volume outgrew the resources of the area, Frank and Henry disagreed on where to move their business. As a result, they dissolved the partnership in 1879 and Frank moved the mill, a large number of workers and their families, as well as his own family, to Albany -- 27 miles northeast. At first, the relocation ran into a number of financial problems, and there was the possibility that the business would fail.

Frank then found Chauncey Argersinger, who invested in the business and became a partner. With fresh capital, and the hiring of experienced managers from the paper industry, the partnership of Huyck & Argersinger prospered. Despite moving to Albany, the Huycks remained active in Rensselaerville, summering there and establishing a philanthropic tradition of care for structures in the village. Before his death in 1906, Frank Huyck endowed the Rensselaerville community with Conkling Hall (once the Methodist church building) and the Library on Main Street.

The Institute’s Intellectual Base

In 1897, Frank Huyck’s oldest son, Edmund Niles, employed eminent architect Marcus Reynolds to design for Niles and his wife a landmark stone and shingle summer residence on Pond Hill, above the village, now known as Huyck House. In 1904, the youngest Huyck son, Francis Conkling Jr., enlarged the Huyck estate with a second summer home named Stonecrop, inspired by the simple Greek revival farmhouses of the area. Today, we use both Huyck House and Stonecrop for guest accommodations and meetings. During the early years of the 20th century, Edmund Huyck also bought and restored several of the finer houses in the village and invited friends to take them as their summer residences. As a result, rather than drifting into dilapidation with the loss of the major local industry, Rensselaerville became a well-tended, but largely seasonal community of influential people.

Edmund died in 1930. In 1931, his wife, Jessie Van Antwerp Huyck, founded the Edmund Niles Huyck Nature Preserve in his memory with the forward-looking mission of preserving the watershed of Lake Myosotis, Rensselaerville’s water supply, located at the edge of the Huyck estate. She later helped to establish one of the first biological field stations in the United States at the Preserve.

Elmore & Clinchy Katharine Huyck Elmore

These meetings, called the Country Forums on Human Relations, laid the foundation for The Rensselaerville Institute. Everett and Winifred Clinchy, Lee Elmore, and Katharine Huyck Elmore (daughter of Francis Jr. and Laura Huyck) met here as young people and formed a lifelong friendship built on common interests. Everett Clinchy went on to become the founding president of the National Conference of Christians and Jews. Lee Elmore pursued dual careers as a Broadway producer and a retail executive.

In 1961, the Clinchys bought the Edmund Huyck House and the Elmores inherited Stonecrop. They and their many influential friends then formed the private and non-profit institute, to which the Clinchys and Huycks donated their newly acquired Rensselaerville country homes, along with 100 acres of land surrounding the homes that border the Huyck Preserve and Lake Myosotis.

The Meeting Center

In 1970, with additional residential space and a full-service restaurant in place, and with offices and meeting space under construction, the Institute had a growing, but not constant, schedule of its own programs throughout the year. The newly appointed Program Director Hal Williams, a graduate of Stanford and previous Program Director of the Aspen Institute, opened The Rensselaerville Institute to the public as a conference center. The idea was to use the Institute’s expertise in international hospitality and organizing successful high level meetings, along with its new residential and meeting space, to generate income to support The Institute’s non-profit programs.

In 1971, United States Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren became the first Honorary Chairman of The Rensselaerville Institute. That same year, the Guggenheim Pavilion opened, adding much needed meeting and office space to the Institute.

Unlike many hotels, the Meeting Center is not all things to all people. It specializes in, and is world-renowned for, meetings that matter.

Because the Meeting Center is so unique, it’s easy for its staff to adapt to the special needs of a group. With its remote setting only 27 miles southwest of Albany, there are no big city distractions. Its unique setting and atmosphere bring people together to focus, bond, and achieve what they came to accomplish.