The Roosevelts in Hyde Park

Today I went on a road trip with my friend Cynthia to Hyde Park (just like the title of the 2012 film, Hyde Park on Hudson), just north of Poughkeepsie, to see the estate of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Eleanor Roosevelt. Even though I knew just how wooded upstate New York was, it was still very surprising to experience firsthand just how quickly New York can go from urban to rural in the span of ten miles. Both of the Roosevelt’s estates were on particularly wooded land. They both seemed to have enjoyed the respite that upstate offered from the congestion of New York City, and I can see why! Today was such a wonderful day to walk around, with the weather around 60ºF. In the summer, they would go swimming and have picnics at Eleanor’s estate (of which they showed footage), and race horses at Franklin’s.

First on our tour was the estate of Eleanor Roosevelt. Eleanor’s estate consists of several smaller buildings, but the primary one was called the Val-Kill Stone Building. Here she lived her life with her friends, particularly after her husband’s death in 1945, though her youngest son did move in to stay in the Stone Building in her later years.

During the Depression, Eleanor and her friends ran programs from here to teach local farmers crafts in things like furniture and silverware making. However, given the cost of the program, and the cost of making furniture by hand, the Val-Kill Industries as it was called was shuttered by 1938. On display were a number of chairs, spoons, and other pieces of furniture and silverware made by those of the Val-Kill Industries. Many were made of pewter and stored in drawers that visitors could look through.

Also on display were a number of home videos and reproduced photos from Eleanor’s estate, including pictures of the Roosevelts spending time with Churchill and other important figures and celebrities (including Shirley Temple!). Apparently Franklin Roosevelt was famous for his “Picnic Diplomacy!”

After a brief stay at the Eleanor Roosevelt estate, we then made our way to FDR’s estate about ten minutes west. This Historic Site was a lot more developed, with more staff, bigger parking areas, and even a gift shop! Though the Eleanor Roosevelt tour was free (since it was the day of their anniversary), my friend and I decided to splurge a bit for the tour, since it included entry into the museum.

The beginning of the tour led us around the estate, called Springwood, and brought us first to the racetrack that the Roosevelts built to train their horses. The racetrack was really just a wide-open space to run the horses around to train them, but according to our tour guide, Dick, Sara Roosevelt (FDR’s mother) hated the racehorse track so much, that she built her own rose garden, meant to be her own space to enjoy the outdoors.

Though it was winter, I got a sense of the pride she had in her rose garden, and could imagine the wonderful flowers (both roses and other types) that she carefully picked. The area was secluded, surrounded by a wall of plants, so that it became a very intimate space to enjoy the nice weather. I could image Sara and Franklin and the other Roosevelts walking around, enjoying the space and the beautiful flowers.

We also saw the burial site of Franklin Roosevelt, and later, his wife Eleanor. Franklin apparently so enjoyed his mother’s rose garden that he asked to be buried here, along with his wife. The flag commemorates his service as Commander in Chief, and the marble block is plain and bears only his name and the name of Eleanor, as well as the years of their births and deaths. Though it was meant to be somber, I could easily see people enjoying this space in the summer when the bushes are green and the air is lovely.

The grounds, much like Eleanor’s place at Val-Kill, were very charming and would have made for an amazing walk had we had the time. But I felt that the Roosevelt’s estate was more manicured while Eleanor’s had the charm of being more natural. In addition, Eleanor’s estate had a wonderful little stream that ran across the estate, explaining the name Val-Kill.¹

After walking past the rose garden, we then went to Roosevelt’s childhood and adult home. The home was expanded when Franklin Roosevelt threatened to move out on account of his large family (five children!) but was expanded to keep him from moving away. It has three stories and thirty-six rooms, and even has two indoor bathrooms! The style is meant to evoke the White House, with columns and a protruding balcony over the front door, so that Sara Roosevelt could keep an eye on the driveway. The home oversaw the Hudson, and when it was built, it was possible to see the river and who was sailing up and down. Now, because of trees, you cannot, though there is a very dramatic drop off into the Hudson Valley at the back of the house, and there are a number of birds of prey (particularly eagles) in the area, using the river for fishing.

The inside of the house had wonderful aesthetic, the type of house you’d associate with a rich, aristocratic family who is practically American royalty. There were all sorts of collections, of photos, china, etc., though the most prominent were Roosevelt’s bird collection and the collection of political cartoons from the Revolutionary War and War of 1812. The estate had a definite “Old World” charm with cutting edge amenities like indoor bathrooms, a telephone and even a doorbell and lift for Roosevelt, though the lift was never electrified out of his fears of electricity following his aunt’s unfortunate and premature death due to a curling iron malfunction.

The upstairs of the estate showed the various rooms of the people who lived there, notably, Sara, Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, as well as a number of guest rooms and “servants quarters” for the butlers and maids. I was surprised to learn that the Roosevelts, like many Americans before World War I, viewed their butlers and maids as professional support staff rather than just “the help” that became common following World War II.

Following the guided tour of the home, we decided to check out the museum. I was very surprised to see that the museum was not a collection of knickknacks and other pretty things from Roosevelt’s presidency, but rather focused especially at telling a narrative about the Depression and World War II, and President Roosevelt’s involvement within it. The museum was interactive and had a number of videos, ephemera and very helpful placards that describe not only what was on display but the narrative of Roosevelt’s presidency. In this sense, it reminded me a lot of the Museum of Jewish Heritage in Battery Park, where visitors are guided through a narrative of Jewish Life and exposed to ephemera to help the viewer take in what they’re seeing.

We were a bit pressed for time, as we only had about seventy-five minutes (the suggested self-guided tour is ninety), though I felt that I got a good sense of the museum. I was also pleased to see a number of interactive exhibits, like a Depression-style kitchen, where you could listen to an excerpt from one of Roosevelt’s Fireside Chats while sitting around a kitchen table, much like a family would have done in the 1930s. Also included were a number of touch-screen enabled tables that had fun quizzes and allowed people to explore primary documents from the era and understand the very nuanced history of the Depression and World War II.

I was also pleased to see the personal history of Franklin Roosevelt and the Roosevelt family represented in the museum, particularly his struggle with polio. The museum explored how the Roosevelt family grew from a Dutch settler family in the 17th century New Amsterdam into one of America’s premier political families. But more space was dedicated to his struggle with polio and the aftermath: I was very surprised to learn that he had not been afflicted with polio since his early age, instead contracting it in his thirties. Since then, he founded the March of Dimes to hopefully find a cure for polio and paralysis, as well as going to great lengths to make his life easier and more accessible, particularly when it came to making sure others did not know about his disability.

Also on display were his personal items, such as a replica of the Oval Office desk as he left it, and his leg braces and even his car. The museum serves also as an archive and presidential library, and in a chilly room at the end of the museum, you can walk through and see paintings, more Val-Kill Industries goods and other papers that they have on display there. I was very surprised to learn that FDR was the first president to take steps to make sure that his papers were collected in a single location, as previous presidents had either sold, destroyed or lost their papers following their tenure.

Towards the end of our trip, the museum closed and we made our way back to New York. Once again I was surprised to see how quickly we went from rural to urban, almost immediately upon coming into the Bronx through Van Cortlandt Park. Upon coming back to New York City, I was already making plans to return to the Roosevelts estates the summer to enjoy the nice weather, the rose gardens and see the green trees with leaves. I highly recommend the visit for anyone who is an American history buff looking to get out of the city for a few hours.

Tags

• personal
• day-trip
• history