The church and its three-acre (1.2 ha) churchyard feature prominently in Washington Irving's 1820 short story "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow".

It is still the property of the Reformed Church of the Tarrytowns, which holds summer services there, as well as on special occasions such as Christmas Eve.

They give way to clapboard above the roofline, within the fields of the Flemish-style gambrel roof, with its lower segments flaring outward like a bell.

Within it is the original bell, with an engraved verse from Romans 8:31, "Si Deus Pro Nobis, Quis Contras Nos?"

A few shrubs flank the stone steps that lead up to the main entrance, paneled wooden double doors recessed within a Gothic archway.

His second wife, Catharine Van Cortlandt Derval, urged him to build a more permanent stone church for his tenants, and later in the decade he obliged her, being its architect, financier, and aid in its construction (said to have built the pulpit with his own hands).

[3] The early history of the church and its members was recorded by Dirck Storm, in his book Het Notite Boeck der Christelyckes Kercke op de Manner of Philips Burgh.

It continued to serve as the church of Philipse Manor through the Revolution, when the family's lands were confiscated by the state for siding with the Crown.

Washington Irving, whose Sunnyside estate was a few miles to the south, made the church famous when he gave it prominent mention in his early 19th-century Halloween short story "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" as both a setting and a site connected with the Headless Horseman.

Irving later gave yellow bricks from the church to outline the construction date on the wall above the door at Bolton Priory in Pelham Manor, New York.

The main entrance was moved from the south facade to its current location on the west, the windows and door entry were changed to the Gothic arches then in style and given brick surrounds.