The High Line Hotel Clement Clarke Moore, who wrote his 1823 Christmas poem, "A Visit from St. Nicholas," on the property. Moore also operated an apple orchard on the estate, which is where The High Line Hotel is now located. In the 1820s, Moore donated the land that contained the apple orchard to the Episcopal Church. It would become the home of the General Theological Seminary, which is still in operation at the location. The land, however, remained mostly undeveloped until 1878 when Eugene Augustus Hoffman was appointed dean. Hoffman hired architect Charles C. Haight to design a Neo Gothic-style campus based on the
Clement Clarke Moore in illustrated versions. It was not until 1837, in "The New-York Book of Poetry" (edited by Charles Fenno Hoffmann), that the poem was first attributed in print to Moore. Moore claimed authorship by including it in his "Poems," an 1844 anthology of his works. His children, for whom he had originally written the piece, encouraged this publication. At first Moore had not wished to be connected with the popular verse, given his public reputation as a professor of ancient languages. By then, the original publisher and at least seven others had already acknowledged him as author. Moore was said to