Demolition almost complete on abandoned school in Millbrook

Halcyon Hall, which was built in 1890 and is the largest building among the abandoned college’s network of structures, is the last one standing. Demolition is halfway done on what many have described as a Gothic mansion mixed with haunted castle.

“There’s a lot of material to be removed,” said Michael Sloan, project architect for the park that will replace the former college. “It was a huge building.”

Demolition began on the longtime landmark in September 2021 to make way for a park on the 32-acre property. Bennett College, a school for girls, has been abandoned since 1978.

Before the building was Bennett College, it was a luxury hotel and lodge for the elite built at the turn of the 20th century by New York publisher H.J. Davidson Jr. When the hotel didn’t see a boom in visitors, it closed.

In 1907, May F. Bennett moved her school for girls onto the grounds. As it grew, it added a chapel, stables, a dormitory, and an outdoor theater to the campus and officially became Bennett College when it did away with high school classes. But by the 1970s, college enrollment declined amidst the growth of coed colleges; Bennett College went bankrupt and closed in 1978, moving its furniture, books, equipment and more to Millbrook’s library.

Since then, the Gothic structure has sat empty, attracting mostly only photographers looking to capture the dilapidated building.

“It’s sad to see it go,” said Sloan, whose mom’s great uncle built Halycon Hall. “My mom, grandma and aunt went to school there when it was Bennett College. It’s sad, but as an architect, I’m the one that said there is no way this building can be saved. It was so rotted, it’s just reality … it was unsalvageable.”