Writing in 1933, Paul Wilstach describes the Armstrong house in Hudson River Landings :
"Today the plateau above the lighthouse is crowned with a ruin, a striking ruin of one of the stateliest classic homes these shores have seen, a veritable Grecian temple. The house was built early in the last century by William Armstrong, a Scotsman, who had married Sarah Ward of Charleston, and he perpetuated the old Dutch name in calling his house Danskammer. Later it was for a time the home of Warren Delano, but he and others of the Delano family built homes of their own on both sides of the river in these reaches above the Highlands. Danskammer house eventually fell on evil days of emptiness, neglect, abuse and finally plunder. But in all its essentials it still stands, a suggestion, here above the Hudson, of Paestrum on the Tyrrhenian Sea."