Sagamore Hill and Caumsett State Historic Park Preserve

Huntington and Oyster Bay

Long Island

Theodore Roosevelt, 26^th President of the United States, was always known as a man’s man. This, like Che Guevara, was cultivated as a response to a sickly, asthmatic childhood. A few years ago I had the pleasure of attending a private event at the Yale Club and came face to face with several animals Teddy had shot on safari in Africa. He was born into the prestigious Roosevelt philanthropist family who had amassed a fortune importing plate-glass. His birthplace, in the high-end neighborhood of Gramercy Park, Manhattan, is a National Historic Site, as is his private home, Sagamore Hill, which he built on Cove Neck, just east of Oyster Bay where his family spent their summers when he was a boy.

As an adult Theodore and his young bride designed a Queen Anne-style home with the idea of raising their children there. Construction began in 1884 but soon halted following the death of his wife two days after giving birth to their first child. Friends later convinced the grief-ridden Roosevelt to finish the home as a place to raise baby Alice (named after her mother), and in 1887 he moved into the home with his new wife, Edith. Sagamore Hill served as the family’s home over the next thirty years, including the President’s Summer White House from 1902 to 1908. In total six Roosevelt children were raised at Sagamore Hill, which the President decorated as something between a hunting lodge and a temple to manliness.

President Roosevelt died at Sagamore Hill in 1919. His eldest son Teddy Jr. hoped to take over the home and raise his family there, but Edith wanted to remain in the home and gave Junior a few acres of land where he built his own residence known as Old Orchard, which now serves as the site’s museum. Edith died at the home in 1948 and the 84-acre estate was purchased by the Theodore Roosevelt Association, and nonprofit founded in 1919 to preserve Teddy’s legacy.

For the past two summers Sagamore Hill has been closed due to a massive rehabilitation project. The Visitor Center, Theodore Roosevelt Museum (Old Orchard), and park grounds remain open, but low visitation numbers have caused the site to maintain winter hours year round. The only way to see the inside of Sagamore Hill is through a video displayed at Old Orchard.

Despite not being able to enter the home (hopefully the project will be completed by the summer of 2015), a visit to the Theodore Roosevelt estate is not a total waste. The building exterior is rather impressive, as is the windmill, museum, pet cemetery, and remains of the grass tennis courts. A small nature trail leads across a boardwalk to Cold Spring Harbor. Watch out for the wild turkeys in the area.

Just across Oyster Bay on Lloyd Neck north of Huntington is Caumsett State Historic Park Preserve, which holds the remains of a 1600-acre English-style estate designed by Marshall Field III (grandson of the department store pioneer) who along with some fellow wealthy friends dreamed of creating a self-sufficient home (including its own water and electrical supply) that was a cross between a country club and a hunting preserve. Marshall III began construction in 1921 and by the time he was done the estate had a herd of 80 prize cattle and a complete dairy farm (still operational) and facilities for tennis, horseback riding, shooting, fishing, swimming, and boating—everything but golf. In the 1930s the Marshall Field family hosted polo matches and extravagant parties on the estate, including a famous circus-themed one that boasted Fred Astaire and George Gershwin as guests

The privileged dream didn’t last—they spent more time in Chicago than New York and were also aware that throwing lavish balls in the midst of a depression was bad press for the founder of The Chicago Sun. The New York State Park system bought the land in 1961. People can still ride horses on the bridal paths, either on their own horse or one from the riding stables. They can also bike, fish, scuba dive, cross-country ski, hike, and bird watch. Unfortunately, the homes—the Summer Cottage, Winter Cottage, and Marshall Field House—are not open to visitors. One must be contented to admire them from the outside.

The park is too large to explore on foot unless you plan on spending the entire day there. It’s much friendlier for biking. Also, most of the paths are paved and the landscape is so well-maintained that you never actually feel like you’re surrounded by nature; nature doesn’t get mowed every two weeks. I could see how people who want to bike without the worry of traffic might enjoy Caumsett, but true history buffs or nature seekers will be disappointed.

http://www.nps.gov/sahi/index.htm

http://www.sagamore-hill.com/

http://www.nysparks.com/parks/23/details.aspx

http://www.caumsettfoundation.org/

Vanderbilt Museum Historic House and Planetarium

Centerport

Long Island

One of the most elaborate estates to be found on Long Island’s Gold Coast is Eagle’s Nest, the summer home of railroad baron trust-fund baby William K. Vanderbilt II and family. William “worked” at his family’s New York Central Railroad offices at Grand Central Station in Manhattan, but his real passions were yachting and racing. He had the sort of upraising that allowed him to drop out of Harvard after two years and spend most of his time traveling and enjoying his leisure time. Despite being born into a ridiculously wealthy family, he felt the need to marry Virginia Graham Fair, the wealthy heiress of the Comstock Load mining fortune. Together the two developed the 43-acre estate in Nassau County from 1910 to 1936. Willie K. even started the Vanderbilt Cup, the first major car-racing trophy in the United States, which continued on Long Island until 1968.

The first building phase of Eagle’s Nest was the 24-room Spanish Baroque revival style mansion designed by the same architectural firm that designed New York’s Grand Central Terminal for the Vanderbilt family. On weekends in the summer visitors can take a “Living History” tour where actors portraying friends and family of the Vanderbilts guide groups through the home. This is what piqued my interest in visiting Eagle’s Nest: I love guides in period costume! The term “actor,” however, is a generous one for the individuals who took us through the home on Memorial Day Weekend, the first weekend that the Living History tours are offered. Perhaps they were rusty from not having “performed” since the Labor Day Weekend before, but there was a lot of stumbling through lines and horrible accents.

We were met by a rather shabbily dressed Coco Chanel in a pair of brown loafers I’m sure the real Coco would have never worn. The stories told on the tours are based on the experiences of people who lived nearby and who worked on the estate as teenagers. They also use materials from the museum’s archives, which includes personal letters, journals, and photographs. Coco Chanel left us when she ran into Delia O’Rourke, the Vanderbilt’s Irish cook whose Irish accent made Coco’s French seem Oscar worthy. Things perked up when we met up with Ellin Berlin, the wife of composer Irving Berlin, but the best guide by far was Stirling Vanderbilt, Willie’s brother, who, unfortunately, had to leave us to check on his yacht.

 

I personally was rather disappointed in the Living History tour, but despite the uneven performances Ben thought it was better than a regular tour given in the ordinary manner, so perhaps I had my as usual too-high expectations. I suggest visitors looking for this tour go later in the summer when the actors have had the opportunity to better hone their craft.

The Living History tours began about ten years ago, but people have been visiting Eagle’s Nest since 1922 when Willie opened the Hall of Fishes in his own personal Marine Museum. During Junior’s travels he collected sea life, birds, animals, and cultural artifacts for the museum he planned to build on the Long Island estate. Along with the Marine Museum, rooms in the mansion contain his cultural-artifacts and natural-history collections and the basement contains his 1928 Lincoln touring car, a rare 1909 Reo Gentleman’s Roadster, and a history of the Vanderbilt Cup Races. Willie worked with scientists and artists from the American Museum of Natural History to design the Habitat and Stoll Wings which contains dioramas of animal life, including a 32-foot whale shark, the world’s largest taxidermied fish.

Other highlights of the estate are the rose garden and Corinthian colonnade, and the remains of a 9-hole golf course and salt-water pool, all of which overlook the Northport Bay of Long Island Sound. Willie K. panned on donating his estate to the public as an educational facility and created a trust for it in his will. The county opened the estate as a museum in 1950, and built the planetarium to further the Vanderbilt educational goals in 1970. The carriage house has been turned into an education center for school groups. Visitors during the summer, however, don’t need to worry about large groups of children. It’s best to arrive early if you’re interested in the Living History tour as they tend to sell out. Regular tours are on offer for those not as keen on dramatic interpretation.

There aren’t many dining options in the area, and there’s no café in the Vanderbilt estate, so allow me to recommend The Shack, located about a quarter mile past 86 (Little Neck Road, which leads to Eagle’s Nest) on 25A, just at the start of Stony Hollow Road. As the name implies, it is little more than a roadside shack with modest picnic tables to sit on and no table service, but the unpretentious clams, fries, chowder, and beer are all reasonably priced and welcome in an area lacking dining establishments.

http://www.vanderbiltmuseum.org/

Bannerman Castle, Pollepel Island

Hudson River Valley 

Between Beacon and Cold Spring

A little more than an hour north of Manhattan there is a small island that holds the remains of a Scottish castle. From spring to fall, when the waters of the Hudson River are above hypothermia inducing temperatures, visitors can kayak to the island with guided group tours that depart from the towns of Beacon and Cold Spring on the east bank and Cornwall-on-Hudson on the west bank. Less athletic visitors can take a ferry from Beacon on the east bank or Newburg on the west bank. These tours are generally on the weekends, and every third Sunday there is music on the island provided by local musicians.

My partner and I embarked via kayak from Cold Spring one fine August Saturday with a group led by Hudson River Expeditions. The tour is a bit pricy—$130—but includes lunch, a kayak guide, and an island tour. We were a bit worried about our kayak skills—I had kayaked before, but never such a far distance, and he had never kayaked—so we opted for a tandem kayak. This meant we both could work a little bit less, though going in a straight line proved to be something of a challenge.

The tours take somewhere between four and five hours, with the trip to and from the island taking somewhere around an hour, depending on weather and the river current. It was a perfect day when we went, sunny but not too hot. Hunger is the best spice and I do believe the avocado hummus sandwich I ate after arriving to Pollepel Island was one of the best I’ve ever had. Thom Johnson, a man from the Bannerman Castle Trust met us and provided us with a thorough history of the island—including a few promotional remarks about his book on the island’s history (but, hey, all proceeds go to the Trust). Unfortunately, none of the structures, home or castle, are safe enough to enter, but the Trust is working to make visits inside the home a future possibility.

The Scottish castle was begun in 1901 by Francis Bannerman, a man from Dundee, Scotland, who moved to Brooklyn with his family in 1854 when he was three years old. Frank’s father started the family business of buying surplus army and navy goods and reselling them. Frank took over the family business and following the Spanish War had acquired so much equipment, ammunition, and gunpowder that the city of New York forced him to move his business from Broadway in Manhattan for fear an accident could blow up the southern tip of the island. This is when Bannerman purchased Pollepel Island and built a home for his family and a storage building in the style of a Scottish castle (designed by Francis himself) as a nod to his family’s cultural heritage.

Despite being a munitions dealer, the Bannermans considered themselves peaceful persons. Francis wrote that he hoped one day his warehouse would be known as “The Museum of Lost Arts.” The Bannerman family lived on the island in the summer and his wife, Helen, grew the trees, plants, and gardens that continue to thrive on the island. Prior to her gardening the island was all but devoid of greenery.

Francis Bannerman died in 1918 and in 1920, 200 tons of shells and powder exploded, destroying part of the complex. The Bannerman business faltered due to new legislation which prohibited the sale of military weapons to civilians. They sold the island to a branch of the Rockefeller Foundation, which in turn sold it to the New York State Office of Parks in 1967, which briefly offered tours of the island. Two years after the State acquired Pollepel Island, a massive fire destroyed much of the building structures, and the island was placed off-limits to the public. After several decades of neglect, decay, and random acts of vandalism from kids these days, the Bannerman Castle Trust was founded in 2003 to preserve the island. Part of its fundraising efforts includes tours that educate the public as well as provide revenue. In 2009 a storm caused a third of the remaining castle structure to collapse, and in 2012 a campaign was implemented to stabilize the remaining castle walls. While the modern scaffolding does a great deal to eliminate the castle’s romanticism, it also serves to prevent further deterioration of the structure.

After the tour is over and visitors paddle back to Cold Spring, a visit to Go-Go Pops on Main Street in order. This shop makes delicious fruity popsicles with only natural ingredients. I recommend the sour cherry or hibiscus; Ben likes the chili lime or spicy mango.

http://www.bannermancastle.org/

Walt Whitman Birthplace and The Whaling Museum

South Huntington

Cold Spring Harbor

Long Island

The Walt Whitman Birthplace State Historic Site and Interpretive Center and the Cold Spring Harbor Whaling Museum and Education Center are located a mere five miles away from one another and are excellent stops for travelers who want to step back in time—no admiration of poetry or blubber required.

Depending on your love of Whitman, poetry, early 19^th-century living, or a combination of the three, your visit to the Whitman Birthplace could be a free thirty-minute stop or a $6 two-hour extravaganza. If you’re contented to read the rather amusing didactic display on Whitman’s life and work (some real gems, like an original edition of Leaves of Glass, are included) and view Whitman’s birth home from a distance, you’ll be fine just popping in and out of the Interpretive Center (fingers crossed that a screaming school group isn't there). And if you’re not interested in droll anecdotes about prairie living, I suggest that’s where your visit should end.

But if you’re thinking since you came all this way you may as well get the entire experience, you’ll have to wait for one of the very nice, if technologically challenged, volunteer museum guides to give you a tour. These are generally done on the hour, though depending on the speed of the guide and inquisitiveness of the group, they can go over. Actually, plan on it going over.

Do not embark upon the tour expecting to hear anything specifically related to Walt Whitman’s life or childhood beyond “This is the room where his parents slept,” or “This is how his father designed the home.” The actual tour of the home is steeped more in what it was like to live in small town America 200 years ago.

Before venturing to the home, however, visitors are treated to a terrible video of still photos of early America and a man walking along the beach (I assume it’s meant to be a reenactment of Whitman lost in poetic contemplation) accompanied by a voice-over of portions of “Pioneers! O Pioneers!” and “Song of Myself.” There is zero historic or biographic information provided in said video which is played very loudly and has the production quality of a high school film project from the 1980s. I suspect this isn’t too far from its actual creation story.

After fifteen minutes of awkward viewing where the entire group tries very hard to maintain its interest, something actually interesting happens. The guide plays a CD of the only known recording of Walt Whitman reading. Two years before Whitman’s death in New Jersey in 1892, Thomas Edison recorded him reading “America.” The entire clip is only 36 seconds long from a rough wax-cylinder recording, the authenticity of which it turns out has been hotly debated, but it’s still nice to imagine we might actually be hearing the voice of Whitman himself.

That’s where the Whitman part of the paid tour ends. From this point on, the focus is the practicalities of domestic life: how women ironed the clothes, how water was pulled from a well, how the mattresses were stuffed with hay, etc. The home is charming enough, but as the Whitman family moved from it when Walt was only three or four years old, there aren’t really any striking anecdotes to be told in regards to his existence inside the place. Nor is anything inside original to the home, but all historical approximations. If this sort of thing bores you to death, skip the tour.

The last part of the tour is a visit to the Gathering House, a small art gallery built from the remaining timbers from the original carriage house and barn that were too damaged to repair and torn down. It now exhibits work from local artists and schools. We skipped this part of the tour to head over to the Whale Museum. While we’re glad repeated attempts to sell the home were unsuccessful and a local organization was able to raise enough funds to buy and save it from demolition in 1951, we knew our patience for extending the tour further had worn out. We were ready for some whaling adventures!

The Whaling Museum of Cold Spring Harbor is modest in size but grand in scope. The entire museum comprises of five small rooms, one of which displays contemporary sea-based art and a second which is little more than a playroom to keep the young’uns entertained, albeit in a sort-of-educational manner. Which means the entire historical contents are housed in three rooms—a largish one which contains a rather impressive 19^th-century whaleboat fully-equipped with original gear, and two smaller ones that are filled with artifacts and tools used by whalers, a sperm whale jaw, and a pretty spectacular collection of scrimshaw—the carvings and engravings whalers did on whale bones and teeth to help keep their minds off of how brutally difficult and lonely their jobs were.

Model ship and diorama lovers will be entertained as well. Those not so interested in such things can watch the 23-minute silent documentary film On Board the Morgan, which was filmed on America's last wooden whaling ship. It’s pretty amazing, if a bit disgusting in parts. There’s also a nice little corner on the history of Moby Dick and a glass container with sperm whale blubber next to an original boiling vat. I thought it was a bit smelly, though it may have been my imagination. Sensitive souls will probably want to avoid it, along with the rather scratchy costumes available to pose in for crow’s nest photographs. Though, if you’re that sensitive, you should probably avoid this museum altogether. I, however, thought it was well worth the $6 admission.

http://www.waltwhitman.org/

http://www.cshwhalingmuseum.org/