Batavia Institute, a private high school, was chartered in February 1853. The central part of the building, completed in 1854, was designed by Elijah Shumway Town in the Greek Revival style and constructed of locally quarried limestone.

The school offered courses in the liberal arts, literature, foreign languages, music, and the arts. Batavia Public Library traces its origins to October 1866 at Batavia Institute.

Dr. Richard J. Patterson purchased the Institute in 1867, which he operated as Bellevue Place, a private sanitarium for women. Its most notable resident was U.S. President Abraham Lincoln’s widow, Mary Todd Lincoln, a patient from May to September 1875.

Bellevue Place operated continuously until July 1965, when it became Fox Hill Home, a private therapeutic facility for adolescent girls. In the mid-1980s, it was converted into Bellevue Place Apartments. In August 1976, Batavia Institute was listed in the National Register of Historic Places.