“It seemed impossible that we could be within ten miles of the populous city - here was solitude, serenity, relaxation, and picturesqueness” Harpers 1878 When the Austen family purchased this property on Staten Island in 1844, the island mainly functioned as a summer destination for Manhattanites. The Island was a refuge for the family from the unsanitary and overcrowded conditions of Manhattan. The Austen’s home affectionately named Clear Comfort offers a remarkable vantage point where three hundred years of inhabitants witnessed the transformation of New York City. Renovations in the late nineteenth century, transformed the home from a modest Dutch farmhouse to a Victorian Gothic Cottage. In a reflection of Victorian middle-class values regarding the importance of home and family, the Austen’s lavished love and attention on Clear Comfort. Alice’s deep-rooted attachment to her home and its grounds shaped her experiences, becoming her first studio space, darkroom, and muse.

In the 1960s, realizing the likelihood that high-rise apartment buildings might replace the Victorian cottage, a group of concerned citizens mounted a serious effort to save the house and grounds. Restoration was completed in April 1985. In 1970 the Alice Austen House was included in the National Register of Historic Places, and was designated a New York City Landmark in 1971, and a National Historic Landmark in 1993. In June of 2017 the Alice Austen House amended its national designation to become a national site of LGBTQ history.

Alice Austen was introduced to photography at age 10 in 1876. In this home’s studio, which was also one of her photographic muses, she produced over 7,000 photographs of a rapidly changing New York City. Her photographs represent street and private life through the lens of a lesbian woman whose life spanned from 1866 to 1952.

Austen’s photographs provide rare documentation of intimate relationships between Victorian women. Her non-traditional lifestyle and that of her friends’, although intended for private viewing, is the subject of some of her most critically acclaimed photographs. Austen would spend 53 years in a devoted loving relationship with Gertrude Tate. They spent 30 years living together in this home which is now the site of the Alice Austen House Museum and a nationally designated site of LGBTQ history

One of America’s first female photographers to work outside of the studio, Austen often transported up to 50 pounds of photographic equipment on her bicycle to capture her world. Her photographs represent street and private life through the lens of a lesbian woman whose life spanned from 1866 to 1952. Austen was a rebel who broke away from the constraints of her Victorian environment and forged an independent life that broke boundaries of acceptable female behavior and social rules.

The parlor was a unique space in the Victorian house, representing calm, dignity and culture. It was a room to exhibit family wealth and a reflection of comfortable life. No other room in the house would have been so carefully presented to reflect the good taste of the owners. Family memories would be displayed here including bibles containing records of family births, deaths and marriages. These precious mementos were carefully watched over by portraits of relatives surrounded by gilt frames. The use of the Austen’s formal parlor would have been reserved for the family and visitors to the home on special occasions. Drawing from the Victorian aesthetic, the Austen’s decorated the parlor with souvenirs from international travels, antiques, family heirlooms, and modern entertainment devices.

Today the Alice Austen House fosters creative expression, explores personal identity, and educates and inspires the public through the interpretation of the photographs, life and historic home of lesbian photographer, Alice Austen (1866-1952).