Johnson Hall was created as the grand seat of Sir William’s vast holdings, built to impress the many guests who came for political, financial, and diplomatic discussions. His commitments during the French and Indian War from 1754 to 1763 delayed a large construction project, but in 1758 he erected two stone blockhouses to defend the site of his future residence; these later served as offices, storehouses, and rooms for servants and slaves. Construction of his new Georgian-style mansion began in 1763, when he hired Samuel Fuller, a Boston-trained carpenter, to build his fourth Mohawk Valley home, and by winter the house was ready to be occupied and furnished. Made of rusticated wood to resemble stone blocks, it had two large rooms on each side of broad hallways on the first and second floors, while the basement contained the kitchen and service rooms. As work continued, carpenters also built barns, a summer house, a coach house, and later an overseer’s house, followed by mills, craftsmen’s shops, and dwellings for servants and tenants. Carriage barns, an Indian store, a stone office, a bakery, a smokehouse, well houses, and other necessary buildings made the property a fully working estate, while bark houses were built for chiefs of the Six Nations during special gatherings and councils. Visitors admired Sir William’s hospitality, were astonished by the manor house known simply as the Hall, and were fascinated by his extensive Cabinet of Curiosities, one of the finest collections of native material in the colonies. In 1779, Johnson Hall was confiscated by the State of New York as loyalist property and sold at auction, then remained a private residence until 1906, when New York acquired it as a state historic site and restored it to its appearance during Sir William’s occupancy. In the eighteenth century, visitors also praised the beauty and amenities of its landscape, including gardens and neatly ordered fields. Sir William’s correspondence refers to herbs, roots, vegetables, fruit, and trees acquired for the gardens, which were planted with apple, plum, and pear trees. His two and a half-acre garden produced some of the region’s best-tasting fruits and vegetables, and although its exact design is unknown, picket fences and hedges enclosed some gardens and fields while his uncle encouraged him to lay out fields in regular blocks protected by hedgerows.