The Van Rensselaer Lower Manor is located on the east side of Claverack, New York, United States.

It is sided in white clapboard, save a small portion on the rear of the first story where the original stonework is visible.

In the middle of the east facade on the first story an entrance is sheltered by a hipped-roofed porch supported by chamfered posts.

[2] From the paneled double door on the centrally located main entrance under the front porch, there is a small vestibule that opens into two parlors on either side.

An old doorway (now closed) between the hyphen and the original house in the rear has an old board-and-batten door with a carved Greek key lintel.

It is a frame structure, now secured with vertical wood strips, with metal roof built into the western slope.

The greenhouse and flower shop, operated by the owners of the house, is close to Route 23 at the southeast corner of the lot.

[2] A late 19th-century account dated the construction of the first house on the site to 1685, when the English granted full manorial rights to the van Rensselaer family.

Later research suggests that date is thirty years too early and that the original house, whose stones are still visible at the rear, was built in 1715 by Samuel ten Broeck and his wife Catherine van Rensselaer.

Sometime after the Revolution, as the semi-feudal land ownership arrangements left over from the colonial era were giving way to relationships more compatible with democracy, the manor became the residence of members of another locally prominent family, the Mesicks.

It is very similar to Flemish-style houses built further south in New York and New Jersey, lacking only the flaring of the roof over the porch.