Roosevelt, Vanderbilt and Culinary Institute

View from Raccoon Saloon

Before we continue  our mansion tour, I want to mention a cool restaurant in Marlboro we visited, The Raccoon Saloon. Like many local restaurants this one uses food elements sourced locally. It was quite good and had an amazing view.

Kissing a raccoon?

Bridge to Poughkeepsie

I particularly liked the photo of the old owner kissing a raccoon. Can't get enough of that good stuff!!

Next morning we left our base at West Shore Marina in Marlboro heading north. We left early for the Roosevelt compound in Hyde Park. Every few miles from Tarrytown north on the east side is another estate. We can see some from the river.

The Roosevelt’s are some of the original NY batch of settlers. They have quite a pedigree. 

Eleanor and Franklin were cousins. Eleanor was from the more down on the hells side with a really old DAR background from the Livingston’s of NY, signers of the Declaration of Independence. She had a tough life early on. Her mom died when she was young and her alcoholic dad died when she as about 10. Then she went to live with her stern and very Puritanical grandmother. When she was 14 she went to boarding school in England. She said this was the beginning of her life with friends and mentors.

She returned to NY at 18 for her coming out into society. At her coming out ball she was reintroduced to her cousin Franklin, two years older. They fell in love immediately.

Franklin was born the only child of Sara and James. He was a 10 pound baby and Sara was a little woman. She decided this would be her only child. She doted on Franklin even taking an apartment in Cambridge while Franklin attended Harvard. Franklin was an avid sailor. They guide told us he loved sailing at an early age. Even at 8 years old they had to keep an eye on him or he would sail alone to NYC.

Franklin and Eleanor wanted to marry right away. Sara wasn’t keen on her little boy marrying anyone at all much less down-in-the-heels Eleanor. Sara’s view changed when Eleanor’s Uncle Teddy (Roosevelt) became President. Then it was ok! Uncle Teddy walked Eleanor down the aisle in a simple NY ceremony between political stops after the election. He was a busy guy.

Kermit walking to our first stop of the
day - Val-Kill

Sara, never inclined to give up her precious baby boy, said as long as the kids were 21 and 19 and not ready to set up household yet why not come live with her in the big house for a while. So they did. Franklin and Eleanor lived in Sara Roosevelt’s home until Sara died some 40 years later!

Val-Kill creek

I tell you this to explain why Eleanor and Franklin had two homes. Eleanor needed to get away from Sara. Even though E and F had five children, successively more responsible political roles, and eventually President of the USA, Sara held the purse strings and made all the household decisions, big and small. Eleanor needed at least a little me-time.

Cool visitors center run by the national forest service

Val-Kill

Going into Val-Kill

So Franklin convinced Sara it was in everyone’s best interests to build Eleanor a little house of her own, like a playhouse. Franklin never stayed there although he visited Val-Kill often. Eleanor had lots of women friends, very very close women friends (wink-wink!). Some lived at Val-Kill permanently. One close friend lived next to Eleanor in the White House. Val-Kill was necessary.

Franklin designed these two little homes himself. He fancied himself something on an architect.

The living room set up for dinner

Eleanor was originally very shy. When Franklin contracted polio in his 40s, he trained Eleanor to be his legs, go where he couldn’t go, and report back to him what she saw. When Franklin was President she evidently didn’t need much sleep so she was always working.

The dining room

I do what I think is a lot of writing. I write this blog, I write a blog twice a week for my business and between clients and boat stops I write books. But Eleanor wrote a newspaper column every day for years. Can you imagine? I would like to read this book. I am reading a wonderful book about E&F in the lead up to WWII that really illustrated E and F’s relationship. It was a true partnership.

After Franklin’s death, Eleanor lived permanently at Val-Kill. It is quite small with 2 bedrooms upstairs and 1 bedroom suite for her close friend and secretary attached to the main house. She entertained really famous people here like the King and Queen of England and their kids, Elizabeth and Margaret, Nelson Mandela, and other folks.

File footage of Eleanor meeting with JFK before the election

In 1960, Eleanor backed Adlai Stevenson for President but JF Kennedy won the nomination. JFK came to Val-Kill for lunch one day for a private conversation with Eleanor. Without Eleanor he could not win the election. Eleanor was that powerful and popular among American voters. Eleanor extracted a promise that JFK would be more open to pursuing civil rights. He was but LBJ finally got the laws passed.

Roosevelt home

FDR’s place (actually Sara Roosevelt’s place) is just 2 miles up the road, probably less on internal roads. FDR had the first Presidential Library built on this property. He designed it himself. These folks had some kind of energy. Wow.

The entry way where those cartoons
of the King are still located

Statue of FDR seated
from his 20s

There is a neat statue made of FDR when he was in this 20s that depicts him seated and does not show his legs. It is kind of a creepy reminder that almost 20 years later FDR got polio and lost complete use of his lower body.

Someone else's photo of the
luggage elevator - our photo did
not turn out

FDR trained himself to compensate with is upper body. He would hoist himself up the luggage elevator (everyone has a luggage elevator in their homes, don’t they?) hand over hand to get to the 2^nd floor landing then haul himself up the last 4 steps by a railing to the second floor to his bedroom. I can’t even imagine. People say he had huge muscled upper body with tiny withered legs.

The living room - it looks so comfortable

FDR entertained famous people in this home too. The press was here often so there are no visible ramps.

Eleanor's stufy

The guide tells a story about one time E and F entertained the King and Queen of England. Sara told Franklin to take down his collection of political comics about the King from the front hall (they are still on the wall) but FDR didn’t want to so he “forgot”. The King walked in and looked around. He spotted the comics and read every one. The hall was silent. Then he turned to franklin and said, “I see you have some I don’t have in my collection.” And everyone laughed! Thank goodness.

FDR's office

FDR turned the house over to the federal government upon his death. Eleanor moved out immediately to Val-Kill. The kids were all grown. So the house looks exactly like it did when Roosevelt’s lived there. It is spacious with a warm lived-in look.

Eleanor and Franklin graves

We toured the FDR library a little too. Kermit takes a purely Republican view that government should not have stepped in to help during the Depression or during the recent crisis. I take the opposite view. He had just finished saying that rich people, churches, and charities would step in to solve the problem when we stepped into a display that explained why that option was impossible. It was nice to have someone else point this out to him!

Sculpture with pieces of Berlin Wall

Eleanor and Franklin are buried at the library. They were great friends of Winston Churchill so there is a statue or two of Winston here plus a neat sculpture made out of pieces of the Berlin Wall representing FDRs involvement in the end of WWII.

Young Franklin

Old Franklin

European craftsman made this stuff

Vanderbilt mansion

We left for the Vanderbilt mansion 1 mile away. There were lots of Vanderbilt kids and grandkids. Each inherited a little bit (relatively speaking). Anderson Cooper is a Vanderbilt for example. This mansion was built by Frederick W. Vanderbilt for his wife Louise after visiting his brother’s place in North Carolina, Biltmore. This place is not a fraction the size of Biltmore but it is a classic example of Beaux-Arts architecture popular during the 1890s. 

Men's room for after dinner

No flash allowed inside so many of Kermit's photos turned out really shaky. Trust me. It was decadent. 

  

Music room

A ceiling

It is in stark contrast to the Roosevelt and Rockefeller homes built at about the same time. Those two mansions were modest in comparison, just like the guide at Rockefeller’s home said. This is a monstrosity of marble and expensive furnishings. And it was only used as a vacation home for a month in the summer!

Entry way

This is a real Ming vase used for a planter

Vanderbilt mansion in Hyde Park

Frederick Vanderbilt fell in love with the divorced wife of his cousin who was 12 years older. Papa was furious when the two eloped and he cut the son out of his will. Well actually each of the other sons got $60 million and Frederick only got $10 million. That will show him. Well, the other sons worked hard to spend their money. Frederick worked hard at the family business, the New York Central Railroad. He was also a shrewd investor. He multiplied his money and his brothers died with much less.

Ladies lounge

Mrs. Vanderbilt decreed that married couples slept in separate bedrooms and unmarried men slept in a separate building, now the visitor center. 

Mrs. Vanderbilt's bedroom -
looks just like Versailles

Back stairs at Vanderbilt's

There is a story the Eleanor Roosevelt came to visit for a weekend and was assigned to the rose bedroom. Mrs. V asked if she brought a pink nightgown. Eleanor wasn’t sure. Mrs. V said no problem; there are 5 pink nightgowns in the closet. Each room was a different color and had matching china and night clothes and sheets that were different from any other room. Weird! Evidently Eleanor thought so too and she didn't come back. 

After Frederick and Louisa died, FDR who lived next door convinced her to donate the home to the National Park Service so she did. The Secret Service housed agents in the servants quarters while FDR was president. 

At this point Kermit and I are a little mansioned out. It was 3:30pm and we had seen 3 homes and a Presidential Library. Room for 1 more? Sure.

Culinary Institute

The yellow building is one of the
four restaurants on premises
staffed by students

So we went to the Culinary Institute in Hyde Park. I really wanted to go on this tour. We had a cute little guide named Megan or some such cute little name. She is studying restaurant management and is a chef. All the kitchens have windows to the hall so visitors can watch. If the students we saw are any example, there will soon be more women chefs than men.

 Other observations:

• It smelled really good
• It takes a lot of discipline, long hours, and hard work to get through this program.
• Most students receive an associate’s degree knowing they can get a BA later if they want to come back.
• There is a certain way of cutting and setting up a kitchen – the CI way. It puts control into a busy commercial kitchen.

Thinking back on a visit to Michael Simon’s restaurant in Cleveland, it was very disciplined and orderly. It was so controlled that few words were necessary.

Live at the Falcon is built into
the side of the mountain

It has a great view of a little waterfall

The guys who run it

Katherine with Bucky Pizzarelli

We were exhausted but we had one thing left to do in this area. Live at the Falcon is another one of those NY hippy dippy places. There are no tickets; you pay what you want to see top name blues and jazz talent. 

We saw Bucky Pizzarelli play jazz guitar! Don't let his handsome smile fool you. The guy made a pass at me!! While Kermit took the picture!!

The place has original art on the wall from some famous artist was visited the previous week. Pretty cool!

Filled with art and music

Dinner was bad but the music and environment was great. So definitely worth a stop for drinks and music.

Next: return the car and head on up the road to Albany

Explore the Hudson from Marlboro NY - Rockefeller, Nyack, and West Point

From our Hudson home base at West Shore Marina in Marlboro NY, a nice young man picked us up from Hertz and took us over to our car in Newburgh, the next town south of here. We discovered that the Hertz office in Newburgh is right across the street from the hotel that was our home base when we came to pick up the dinghy in 2011! What are the odds!! If we didn’t get to go to the restaurant at least we saw the hotel. 

And we ate at 5 Guys to remember how we stated at the 5 Guys owner’s yacht club, Corinthian Yacht Club on the Chesapeake. I guess we are just feeling nostalgic as we enter the final month of the trip.

It was too late for much of anything when we got back. I gave Kermit the choice of walking across the Poughkeepsie Walking Bridge (a Hudson must-see) or going to the “best ice cream in NY State”. He chose ice cream. Go figure. That leaves another “must see” for the next time.

Tom, (the fake name for the really great guy at West Shore whose name I am embarrassed to say I cannot remember) said the place was in Monroe NY, only a short drive away. But he was wrong. It was hell-and-gone far away, over mountains. Almost to California.

What did people ever do without GPS? I know I was alive then but for the life of me I cannot recall. We found the address of Bellhaven Creamery on the smart phone and plugged it into the GPS. Mmmm… That address was not an option. Does not compute. So we had a map and thought perhaps we could find it using old fashioned technology – a map. But no. That didn’t work either.

When we found ourselves near the entrance to West Point (near the river and not near the mountain) we knew we had trouble. So we plugged the address into the GPS and picked the closest result that might get us near the place, figuring if we got close there might be a sign directing us to the best ice cream in the world. Off we went to retrace and correct the improper steps we already took.

It wasn’t almost to California but we did encounter the Appalachian Trail! We recognized it because 1) we saw crazy looking hikers with big packs and walking sticks who looked like they needed a shower. We recognized that look. I feel that way today. And 2) We saw signs. Dead giveaway. It sure is a pretty area. These roads, mountains and beat up old towns look just like what we saw along the rivers last fall. Just missing the trees turning but it is August after all.

Cows live here

We headed south and west. The journey to the best ice cream took about 2 hours. The return trip took about 1’15”. Quite a detour but it was pretty.

Katherine on the phone talking to Marissa,
bragging about the ice cream

It WAS the best ice cream ever!! Bellhaven Ice cream sits at the top of a ridge overlooking a huge valley. It feels like you could see Pittsburgh at least from here. The cows donating the cream live in the pasture below. It is impossible to get fresher ice cream. Even Tofts in Sandusky does not have cows living in the pasture next door.

chocolate coffee toffee crunch... yum

We both had scoops of coffee chocolate toffee crunch ice cream. Just think about that for a moment and let the flavors mix on your tongue. Yes it was that good.

I had a second scoop of strawberry with real strawberries in it. Kermit had deep chocolate. It was amazing. Simply melted in the mouth. Definitely worth the long journey. We went home and collapsed in an ice cream haze.

Kykuit entry

The view from the front over the valley

The next day we went south to Tarrytown to finally see Kykuit, the Rockefeller estate now open to the public. Most of our looper friends just steam up the Hudson in excitement to get started with the journey since they come from the east coast, sort of like the way we steamed up through Lake Huron to Mackinaw without really seeing the towns along the way. But this stuff is really worth seeing.

The money view over the river

John D. Rockefeller (called John D by the guide) was originally from Cleveland. He maintained an estate there for most of his life. He made his money in oil and gas, founding Standard Oil. But he really loved the family campus on a huge plot of land along the Hudson River’s eastern shore. 

The home is modest compared to other mansions in the neighborhood – and there is a huge mansion about every few miles apart around here. Most are blocked from river view by the trees but they are there.

We both had camera

then a bit of wimsy

A formal view one minute...

The gardens are amazing, perfectly manicured with sculpture tucked everywhere reflecting the family's different tastes over the generations, 

A view of the river

Everyone needs a stag on their lawn, right? Reminds me
of the flamingos we saw in south Florida!

the art perfectly matched the surroundings

This sculpture was placed by helicopter!

Just a stretch in the morning

The guide said this home was modest because the Rockefellers were Baptist. Hard to know and kind of hard to believe but there it is.

As his children came of age he built them a home on the campus. We could see other homes in the trees as the bus brought us up the hill to Kykuit. The oldest of each generation got the big house. John D, as the guide lovingly called him, built the home in a rather simple style, no big flowing staircases and relatively small rooms (but lots of them), all with amazing views because the home is at the top of the hill.

The guide talking about
the back porch

The windows and doors of the entire river walk open to a huge patio to incorporate the outside into the inside during the summer. Evidently the porch was glassed in and heated for Christmas celebrations.

John D. Rockefeller Jr. (called Junior by the guide) updated the style to make it more elegant. He added a fancy new entry way with big gardens around 1915. Then Nelson Rockefeller, former Gov. of NY and VP of USA under Gerald Ford, got the house and added a ton of modern art.

When Nelson died (in the arms of his girlfriend! They don't talk about that on the tour!) he bequeathed the main house and gardens to the state and set up a foundation to provide for upkeep. His widow, Happy still lives in a house in the compound. The guide says sometimes she can be found working in the garden.

The clubhouse - it looks like a
country club but was designed for
Jr.'s kids - golf course is in the foreground

John D. had a club house built for his kids with a bowling alley and games. He wanted to keep them nearby. It looks like a country club at the end of the hill. John D also had a 9 hole reversible golf course built. He played golf every day until he died in his sleep at 99.

John D loved the view of the Hudson. When he moved in quarries over the river were smelly, noisy and ugly. So John D and his buddies with mansions on the east side bought lots of land on the west side, now called the Palisades. Nice neighbors.

The mansion looks like the family packed up their clothes and walked out after Nelson died. It is exquisite.

The tapestries -
a Google Image Photo

The group leaving the Level 4 gallery

In the lowest level Nelson built 4 galleries filled with modern 20^th Century art. It was his real love and the collection is amazing. I especially love the Picasso tapestries. Nelson loved Picasso’s work but it got to be too expensive even for him so he had Picasso supervise and approve creation of tapestries woven in France of some his best pieces.

We signed up for the 3’ super-duper tour so we could see Nelson’s art collection. No photos allowed in the house but we took a bunch outside.

The grounds are littered with massive modern sculptures, quite a juxtaposition compared to the formal mansion that serves as the background. Nelson placed the pieces himself with a certain humor. Many big pieces were placed in their spots by helicopter! There is so much art that some is stored in the stable all wrapped up.

More art stored in the stables

Modern art runs in the family. His mom, Abby Rockefeller of the Williamsburg fame, founded the Museum of Modern Art in NYC. Much of the Rockefeller collection is on display there too.

We missed visiting local Pocantico Church, the Rockefeller family church down the road. The family commissioned Matisse and Chagall windows that are supposed to be exquisite.

After leaving Kykuit we went across the river to Nyack for lunch. Judy Hechtkopf recommended the town. It is cute with shops and galleries. Nyack continues that goofy hippy look seen in upstate NY. We had a delicious lunch at Strawberry Place. The owners are planning a summer charter boat vacation in the Abacos so we talked to them for a while.

We bought cinnamon Challah bread from the Challah Fairy out of Brooklyn and had great French toast.

Back in the car to West Point Military Academy. We passed West Point in the boat on our way to West Shore Marina. It sits on a hill on a peninsula strategically placed to guard the Hudson. George Washington wanted to have a military academy and placed it in this strategic spot.

The Chapel

It was nice to get an explanation for what we saw when we passed. However the West Point tour pales in comparison to our experience at Annapolis. Annapolis has better tours and is a more impressive facility. Sorry Army.

Kermit going into the Chapel

The Chapel is pretty awesome too with stained glass windows donated by each class and one of the largest pipe organs in the country. The organist said the largest is in Radio City Music Hall and in a large department store in Philadelphia. BTW he knew all about Shantz Organ in Orrville!!

Our guide telling funny stories on former grads

 Funny story. General MacArthur arrived at West Point with his mother who lived in the local hotel in view of MacArthur’s bedroom window. She could monitor his hard work. MacAruthur graduated #1in his class and #1 in leadership, one of only 5 people to do this hard thing.

A beautiful setting 

This can be seen from the river

Instructors' homes

 Another funny story about another famous guy, General Patton who kidded around and graduated at the bottom of his class. He said he was never quite sure how to find the library. They erected a statue to him right in front of the library so he could be sure to find the library in the future!

When we passed West Point by water we saw soldiers crawling all over the hills around the school. We didn’t get much explanation but after visiting Annapolis we know those are first year cadets with their summer boot camp.

Next: Roosevelt and Vanderbilts