The “Willard Asylum for the Chronic Insane” was developed after the Civil War on a magnificent property overlooking Seneca Lake in central New York.  The office of Werner Seligmann, Architect had a number of commissions at this location.  An earlier project - a new single-block administration building - although award-winning, was so disliked by hospital staff that it was decided deliberately to fragment the design of the rehab center to give it a scale more reminiscent of the historic buildings.  Although called a “rehab” center, the uses and scale are similar to the later community center projects, especially University Park Community Center.

This project was never built and I note with some irony that the hospital complex was placed on the National Register of Historic Places only three years later.  And for double-irony [if there is such a thing] the hospital then was closed and is now run by the Department of Corrections.