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Montgomery Place- Annandale-on-Hudson, NY
The Hudson River Valley has an embarrassment of country homes. An obscene amount of substantial stone structures, with manicured gardens, and impressive architecture. You could spend weeks exploring the area’s grand estates, and not scratch the surface. What a problem to have. Many of course are no longer private homes; they would be impossible to maintain today. Fortunately, this means most of the remaining mansions are open to the public as part of college campuses, or as museums. One such magnificent manor is Montgomery Place, a handsome estate that overlooks the Hudson, now owned by Bard College. Following the death of her husband, Revolutionary War hero General Richard Montgomery, Rhinebeck…
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Vassar Campus- Poughkeepsie, NY
I do love college campuses. Old college campuses that is; I am not rushing out to photograph a Phoenix or a Stratford. But old college campuses are an architectural wonderland; collections of substantial stone buildings, built to impress. Vassar, founded in 1861, checks all the boxes. Their campus includes a stunning Gothic library, an 1865 Observatory, a magnificent chapel, and the facade of an 1866 Second Empire/Lombard Romanesque Calisthenium, which now fronts a Cesar Pelli designed drama center. The 1904 Norman Style chapel, with its gorgeous hammerbeam ceiling boasts 15 stained glass windows, including five by Louis Comfort Tiffany, four by Robert L. Dodge and six by John La Farge.…
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Franklin D. Roosevelt National Historic Site- Hyde Park, NY
Hyde Park is synonymous with Franklin Delano Roosevelt. It was where he was born, lived, campaigned, addressed the nation, and was buried. Never far from his mother’s watchful eye, it is where he brought his bride, Eleanor, and where he built his presidential library. Springwood, the president’s former home, is truly a remarkable estate; it is a one stop shop for architecture fans, politicos, and history junkies. Located on a bluff along the Hudson, the land originally was part of a 1697 land grant from the Crown to a group of New York businessmen. Divided into nine riverfront plots, what would become Springwood was granted to William Creed. Passing through…
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Rhinecliff Hotel- Rhinecliff, NY
If you love trains, you will love The Rhinecliff Hotel. If not, you should probably stay in Rhinebeck; but you would totally be missing out. Impossibly quaint and perched on the shores of the Hudson, all rooms have river views and balconies, allowing you to watch both trains and ships, which is fitting, as it was built to serve both ferry and rail passengers. Located just a few miles from Rhinebeck, the subdued Queen Anne style hotel was constructed in 1854 by architect George Veitch to serve the Rhinecliff-Kingston Ferry Terminal, as well as the Hudson River Railroad. It is a simple Victorian, with a gabled roof, and second story…
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Vanderbilt Mansion- Hyde Park, NY
There were a lot of Vanderbilts, and they were all wildly wealthy. They all had several amazing homes, each grander than the last, and certainly built to be grander than other Vanderbilt mansions, of which there were over forty. In Hyde Park, Frederick Vanderbilt built a Neoclassical Beaux Art beauty, which perfectly showcases the excesses of the Gilded Age, and what is possible when money is no object. Just to give a brief overview, the patriarch of the family was Cornelius “Commodore” Vanderbilt, a self made millionaire who built a shipping and railroad empire in the early 19th century. He had 13 children, but left almost his entire fortune, $100…
