The elegant townhouse at 469 State Street was built in 1884 during the heyday of what has always been one of Albany’s most fashionable streets.  However, many of the alterations made during the years that the house served as dorms for Albany Business College starting in 1954 compromised the intentions of its original architect—the building is alternately attributed to either Edward Ogden or Albert Fuller, the architect of Public School 10. Years of subsequent hard use had left the house in need of repair when the current owners bought the house in 1997. 

Prior to the enacting of legislation that created Albany’s first historic review board in 1964, the original wood windows and doors of 469 State Street were removed and new anodized aluminum replacements installed in each opening.  Luckily, the original transom from over the front door was stored in the basement at that time with its gold leafed house numbers and early glass intact.  The cherry wood frame was used as a template from which the original profiles of both the interior and exterior sets of doors were replicated.  Historic photos were used to recreate the design of both the doors and windows. 

As RJW Contracting was carrying out work to replicate missing features of the historic townhouse façade, the brickwork of the façade was cleaned and some of the mortar in the brick joints repointed. The end result is that the façade of 469 is once again something that either Ogden or Fuller could be proud to call his own.