1,000 Places to See in the U.S.A. & Canada Before You Die (33 page)

Lyndhurst is an imposing gray stone Gothic Revival estate bought in 1880 by “robber baron” Jay Gould, the fabulously wealthy railroad magnate and stock manipulator. Designed by the master of Gothic Revival, Andrew Jackson Downing, and built in 1838, the impressively grand home has a dining room that looks like a medieval banquet hall, along with Gilded Age must-haves like Tiffany stained glass windows and faux-finish paneling.

Two of the region’s greatest estates are also on the Hudson Valley Art Trail (see p. 153): the Rockefellers’ 1913 country home, Kykuit (its name means “lookout” in Dutch and refers to its hilltop position), and Olana, the enchanting Moorish fantasy palace where Frederic Church made his home and took his inspiration.

A quintessential representation of Hudson Valley old money is the Livingston family, whose prominence began when Robert Livingston became the first Lord of Livingston Manor, a vast area that comprised the lower third of Columbia County. His son (also Robert) began construction of a brick Georgian-style home in 1730, and though Clermont has gone through many changes (including a complete rebuilding after being burned by the British in 1777), it remains a glimpse into nearly three centuries of wealth, impeccable taste, and political prominence.

Not far from Clermont, just outside Rhinebeck (see p. 201), is Montgomery Place, erected in 1804 by another member of the family, Janet Livingston Montgomery, in honor of her husband, Richard, the first officer killed in the Revolutionary War. The open porch of this elegant Classical Revival mansion (with dramatic views of the river and the Catskills beyond) was the first “outdoor room” in America. Scenic trails wend through the 434-acre estate, which still grows apples, peaches, plums, apricots, and black raspberries that can be purchased at the estate’s farm stand on River Road.

Old and new money merge in Staatsburgh just north of Hyde Park at a 25-room Greek Revival house on 334 acres, inherited in 1894 by Ruth Livingston Mills, who was married to investment capitalist Ogden Mills. They expanded it into a 65-room beaux arts extravaganza for entertaining friends in the fall, and its imported 17th- and 18th-century French interiors, gilded furniture, and Baccarat crystal bathroom accessories are just as they were when their son donated the property to New York State in 1938.

While all the grandeur is fun to look at, it’s easier to imagine the good life at Sunnyside, the fairytale confection of turrets and gingerbread that was the home of Washington Irving, author of “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” and “Rip Van Winkle.” Originally a two-room farmer’s cottage, the home was fancifully expanded with Tudor-style clustered chimneys, Dutch stepped gables, Gothic windows, a small piazza, and, later, a Spanish-style tower. Outside the front door, the wisteria Irving himself planted continues to bloom each spring, while the trails he laid out on the 27-acre estate are still a perfect place for a stroll by the river.

The nearby Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, where Irving set his tale of Ichabod Crane and the Headless Horseman, is especially popular around Halloween. The Dutch began burying their dead here as early as 1650, and today the cemetery holds more than 39,000 earthly remains, including those of Irving himself and many of the wealthy empire (and great estate) builders, including Andrew Carnegie and William Rockefeller.

V
ANDERBILT
M
ANSION:
Hyde Park. Tel 845-229-9115;
www.nps.gov/vama
.
L
YNDHURST
: Tarrytown. Tel 914-631-4481;
www.lyndhurst.org
.
When:
closed Mon, mid-Apr–Oct; open Sat–Sun, Nov–mid-Apr.
C
LERMONT:
Germantown. Tel 518-537-4240;
www.friendsofclermont.org
.
M
ONTGOMERY
P
LACE:
Annandale-on-Hudson. Tel 845-758-5461;
www.hudsonvalley.org/montgomeryplace
.
When:
open Sat–Sun, May–Oct; house closed for restoration until 2009.
S
TAATSBURGH:
Tel 845-889-8851;
www.staatsburgh.org
.
When:
closed Mon, Apr–Oct; Wed–Sun, late Nov–Dec; Sun only, Jan–Mar.
S
UNNYSIDE:
Tel 914-591-8763;
www.hudsonvalley.org/sunnyside
.
When:
closed Tues, Apr–Dec; closed Jan–Feb; open Sat–Sun, Mar.
S
LEEPY
H
OLLOW
C
EMETERY:
Tel 914-631-0081;
www.sleepyhollowcemetery.org
.
B
EST TIMES
: Apr–June for those estates with gardens; Oct for fall foliage; Dec, when some estates, like Sunnyside and Vanderbilt, are decorated for the holidays.

The Harvard of Cooking Schools

Hyde Park, New York

Aturn-of-the-19th-century Jesuit seminary transformed into the world’s finest training grounds for chefs, the Culinary Institute of America is where aspiring cooks dream of becoming the next celebrity chef
extraordinaire. Todd English (owner of the Olive Group in Boston) and Cat Cora (Food Network’s “Iron Chef” and host of
Kitchen Accomplished
) are a mere sampling of successful grads of “The Culinary,” as it is called by insiders (or “the other CIA”).

While a degree from the Culinary doesn’t assure superstardom, it prepares its students for the exacting rigors of the professional kitchen. Wearing the standard-issue uniform of black-and-white houndstooth trousers, neat white chef’s jackets, and toques, thousands of students scurry 41 professional kitchens and bakeshops on the lavishly outfitted campus, learning everything from how to make a simple brown sauce to ice carving to the world of wine. Even admission to the two-year associate’s degree requires that applicants first work at least six months in a professional kitchen to prove they can stand the heat. Every year the Culinary turns out 1,400 grads—1,100 with associate’s and 300 with bachelor’s degrees.

It all started back in 1946 in New Haven, Connecticut, when Frances Roth, a lawyer who loved food, noticed the country lacked a strong pool of skilled cooks. She and benefactor Katharine Angell opened the New Haven Restaurant Institute, the country’s first culinary college. It changed its name to the Culinary Institute of America in 1951 and in 1972 moved to its current home on the Hudson River.

Call ahead for a guided tour of the premises given by students, or just drop in for a visit to the campus bookstore, a foodie’s paradise. If you want to get into the kitchen and roll up your sleeves, there are plenty of oneand two-day classes, including some for kids. Serious gastronomes from all over the country hone their cooking talents at five-day “boot camps,” where they learn, among other things, that cooking large quantities of food with the clock ticking is hard, sweaty work.

The easiest path to enjoyment is to dine at one of the Culinary’s five restaurants, each with a unique character and menu. Staffed entirely by students, they are a relative bargain. Apple Pie Bakery Café specializes in baked goods, while St. Andrew’s Café serves up casual,
healthful cuisine like wood-fired pizzas and Louisiana shrimp gumbo. Ristorante Caterina de’ Medici features traditional and contemporary Italian dishes—something as simple as roasted rack of veal with porcini mustard and fava bean puree can approach heaven.

American Bounty Restaurant helped pioneer the very idea of regional American cooking—and celebrates it still with dishes like barbecue Berkshire pork belly with spring peas and hominy. The pinnacle of formal dining, Escoffier, specializes in demanding French cuisine with dishes like sautéed chicken breast filled with lobster mousseline.

Ristorante Caterina de’ Medici is located in the beautiful Colavita Center for Italian Food and Wine.

W
HERE:
90 miles north of New York City; 1946 Campus Dr. Tel 845-451-1588 (tours), or 845-471-6608 (restaurant reservations);
www.ciachef.edu
.
Cost:
1-day classes from $160, 5-day Boot Camp from $1,750.
When:
guided tours on Mon, Wed, and Thurs.
A
PPLE
P
IE
B
AKERY
C
AFÉ
:
Cost:
$10.
S
T
. A
NDREW’S
C
AFÉ
:
Cost:
$25.
R
ISTORANTE
C
ATERINA DE’
M
EDICI
:
Cost:
$35.
A
MERICAN
B
OUNTY
R
ESTAURANT
:
Cost:
$40.
E
SCOFFIER
R
ESTAURANT:
Cost:
$50.

History with a View

Hyde Park, New York

Offering a surprisingly vivid and personal glimpse of how American aristocrats once lived, Springwood was the lifelong home of Franklin D. Roosevelt, considered to be the 20th century’s greatest American
president for his ability to steer the nation through the Great Depression and WWII, and the only president elected to four terms of office. The Roosevelt home represents Hudson Valley old money, an unpretentious stucco and fieldstone house furnished with polished mahogany woodwork, tufted sofas, Oriental rugs, and ancestral oil paintings, along with intimate touches like the cabinet of stuffed birds that FDR collected as a boy.

Perched on a bluff that affords beautiful views of the Hudson River, the home and estate were purchased in 1867 by Franklin’s father, James, who enjoyed the life of an English squire, busying himself with his horses and cattle, hunting, fishing, and riding, and iceboating on the Hudson. He passed his love of the outdoors on to his only child with Sara Delano Roosevelt. She was extremely possessive of her son and ruled the roost well after James’s death in 1900 (Franklin would later confide in friends that he was afraid of her his entire life). She kept the lady-of-the-house’s bedroom to herself, even after Franklin’s marriage to his distant cousin Eleanor in 1905. During guided tours you see all just as they left it, down to the old-fashioned bedroom telephone that was a hotline to the White House, and FDR’s wheelchair. (He was unable to stand alone or walk unaided, as a result of contracting polio at age 39.)

Today Springwood has 290 acres, with walking trails and America’s first presidential library, which Roosevelt designed himself in Dutch Colonial style and actually used while he was president. By donating his papers to it, Roosevelt established the precedent for public ownership of presidential papers, which soon became federal law. Highlights include an excellent documentary film, report cards from Groton and Harvard (bearing few A’s), and the desk FDR used during his four successive terms of office. The Rose Garden is the location of the Roosevelts’ simple graves and the tiny tombstone of their beloved Scottish terrier, Fala.

Originally a furniture workshop that Eleanor started in 1926 to teach manufacturing skills to underemployed farmworkers, nearby Val-Kill became the exceedingly modest home Eleanor came to prefer, down to the Colonial reproduction furniture, knotty pine paneling and dimestore tumblers. She moved here full-time upon her husband’s death (FDR died in 1945 in Warm Springs, Georgia, at the Little White House).

As FDR neared the end in 1944, Springwood was the place he longed to be. “All that is within me cries out to go back to my home on the Hudson River,” he said.

W
HERE:
90 miles north of New York City; 4097 Albany Post Rd. Tel 800-967-2283 or 845-229-9115;
www.nps.gov/hofr
.
E
LEANOR
R
OOSEVELT
H
ISTORIC
S
ITE:
Val-Kill. Tel 845-229-9422;
www.nps.gov/elro
.
When:
daily, May–Oct; Thur–Mon, Nov–Apr.

Queen of American Lakes and Gateway to the Adirondacks

New York

Part spectacular beauty, part wealthy summer retreat, and part ’50s-style tourist trap, Lake George is a stunning 32-mile-long spring-fed lake situated at the southeastern edge of the mighty Adirondack State Park
(see p. 140). The crowded village of Lake George is a paradise for eight-year-olds who can’t get enough of attractions like the House of Frankenstein wax museum and miniature golf, and for adults who enjoy the carnivallike atmosphere and full-blown tourist-town diversions. That world falls quickly away once you get out on the mountain-ringed lake, with 254 islands that stud its crystal clear waters. “Lake George is without comparison, the most beautiful water I ever saw,” wrote Thomas Jefferson. A boat tour is a time-honored way to view the mountain wilderness and western shore’s historic mansions. Lake George Steamboat Company’s 4½-hour trip on the
Mohican
is the way to go; converted to diesel in 1946, this steamboat has been plying local waters since 1907.