When my husband and I lived in White Plains, NY, we took a day trip to see this beautiful place. I grew up admiring FDR and Eleanor, and of course, we paid our respects at their gravesite. The interior of their mansion seemed to me a larger version of my maternal grandparents' house - the same, cozy atmosphere with the period furniture.
I read that Sara rebuilt the home to give more room for her son's family. She controlled the purse strings. "In 1915, Franklin D. Roosevelt, together with his mother Sara, undertook a final major enlargement and remodeling of the home. This was done in order to accommodate his growing family, but also to create an environment for entertaining his political associates. Sara commissioned the design work of the firm, Hoppin and Koen from New York City. The size of the house was more than doubled by adding two large fieldstone wings (designed by Roosevelt), a tower, and a third story with a flat roof. The clapboard exterior of the house was replaced with stucco and most of the porch was replaced with a fieldstone terrace with a balustrade and a small columned portico around the entrance. These changes gave the exterior of the house the look of a mansion in Colonial Revival Style."
I was surprized to see for as weality as the Roosevelts were, their home seemed almost modest oompaired to many wealthy families of that era. Good report.
It is also modest compared to wealthy families of today. I would like to have been told the square footage of this house. And, where were these many of other houses of FDR? I don't know of any other "mansions," only one very modest house at Warm Springs, GA where he went to take the baths with other paralyzed people. Then there is one other house on the grounds at Hyde Park that was for him, and another for Eleanor. Plus a rambling place at Campobello in Canada, also a park. It was not a mansion, belonged to his family and he vacationed there as a child: in fact this is where he was when he contracted polio. None of the other houses I mentioned, which were added later, are mansions either. Frankly, in comparison with the mega mansions of today which are excessive, it is cozy.
Hi Great video. I love Springwood one tiny piece of info ... FDR only had one half brother who was over 20 years older - so chances are he played wit cousins or others in the playroom :-) when I visited, it was clear that Eleanor was an unwelcome guest at Springwood - at least until FDRs mother passed - but even then she did nothing to make it her home. Rather she had a separate cottage built on the estate where she felt at home.
Great story. I appreciate your trying to stick to the -6 minutes of the episode, and appreciate how you gave a little background about FDR, his family, and his exceptional accomplishments. But he was paralyzed by polio, and wish you expressed that clearly--after our experience of the pandemic, I couldn't help but think of how previous generations (and our medical/research fields) looked at and tried to handle devastating confrontations. I really like and look forward to your work, thanks.
I think this is my favorite home so far(: I think FDR represents our American aristocracy so elegantly; such a warmly decorated home from one of our beloved presidents , left as important beautiful legacy for all if to enjoy👍🏻
I live in a small simple home, and I would never want to live in a home that I could not reasonably clean by myself. But I LOVE looking at these large luxurious houses and I think about what it was like to live there. I love the historic mansions and I am so happy when they are preserved! Thank you for sharing these lovely places with us!
This gives the feel of a comfortable English country home, owned by upper middle class( tastful but certainly not pretentious). Seemds a very liveable HOME.
I had the privilege of growing up in Hyde Park, New York, less than half a mile from the FDR home, and about a mile from the Vanderbilt Home just up the river a little more on the other side of town. FDR's Mansion was indeed a country manor home which was part of the same extended wealthy family as cousin Theodore, and his cousin and future wife's family had an estate inland a bit farther called Valkill. FDR's estate was known as Springwood. As a child, I spent most of my summers as a feral Gen X kid on my bikes on the extensive trails that connected the FDR Mansion and the Vanderbilt Mansion, down along the train tracks (before MTA put up the fences) and all along the banks of the Hudson near the center of the village of Hyde Park. While yes, it is a Manor home and there is a good deal of wealth there, the Roosevelts were known far and wide as the Country Bumpkins, at least as compared to their next door neighbors, Cornelius Vanderbilt. Until the age of 16, guided tours inside both homes (run by the Federal Park Service) were free for children, so one of the ways that we could get access to air conditioning on a hot summer's day was to lock up our bikes in the bike rack and take whatever the next tour was, in whichever of the two areas we happened to find ourselves. Sadly, that skews my perception something mighty fierce. Because if you've ever seen the summer home in Hyde Park of the Vanderbilts, you laugh whenever you hear anyone refer to Springwood (or Valkill) as a 'mansion'. Even the local terminology is starkly different. We in Hyde Park refer to the Roosevelt HOME, and the Vanderbilt MANSION. FDR lived at Springwood full time. And the Vanderbilts used the Hyde Park Mansion as a 'summer cottage' when they weren't out in Newport, Rhode Island. FDR's place has the quaint fieldstone and ugly-assed Dutch architectural style of some anachronistic Jonker or Dutch Patroon from the 1600s, and the Vanderbilt Mansion was a baroque cacophany only imaginable by the "Nouveau Riche" of the Gilded Age of America. Springwood was designed for a large and affluent set of landowners to live like country barons. Vanderbilt Mansion was designed like a palace overlooking the Hudson from high bluffs. So, sure. It's a 'mansion' by poor and middle classed modern standards. But compared to the neighbors and the standards at the day, Roosevelts might as well have been poor country trash, compared to the Vanderbilts. And the extensive grounds of both homes show exactly how the use of the homes were intended for different things. Roosevelt spent his youth iceboating along the Hudson, and hunting and farming his property, or at least directing the tenant farmers etc. Vanderbilts owned almost a full half of what became the Village of Hyde Park, with the entire north end of the Village along Route 9 being sold and used as housing developments for the village. If you want to attack anyone for being aristocratic or enjoying the finer things in life while being divorced from the plight of the average Americans, it's important to realize that you are barking at the gates of the wrong family home. And yes, for all four elections, FDR never once carried his home county, Dutchess County, because everyone there identified more with the Vanderbilts, as ridiculous as that might seem, and felt themselves to be embarrassed oligarchs themselves, when even if their families had been in the village when Cornelius and wife "Lulu" (she was fond of being driven through the fields and dallying with the farm hands, and that was her nickname, just as all her dalliances were addressed simply as "John") came to town. Regardless, both homes are open to the public. Vanderbilts are fun for 'the lifestyles of the rich and famous'. But now on the grounds of Springwood, you have the FD Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum, the manor house, and the Presidential Gravesite. Far more of interest and historical value than the idolization of the past glories of a family of robber barons and railroad tycoons from the Gilded Age. (Though the formal gardens of the Vanderbilts and the Lawn are still popular centers of town activity and socialization, thanks to the fact that the Vanderbilts divested themselves of the Mansion and grounds once they had to start paying Income Tax on all properties since it had extensive commercial farms attached.)
This estate is an absolute must-see. Near Springwood is also the FDR Presidential Library and a few miles away is Val-Kil, Eleanor's home and workshops. The U.S. Park Service Docents for these historic properties are nothing short of amazing. They know their stuff and make the tours truly come alive.
I'm glad you featured a photo of the rear of the house showing the original rather plain rear facade of the structure as opposed to the very beautiful front. The juxtaposition between the front and rear is humorous. I toured this place several years ago and was taken by what our docent said about the family. This place was always Sara's house, not Eleanor and Franklin's. Sara must not have been easy to live with and it appears Sara interfered with the disciplining of her grand children. The evidence given by the docent is the fact that the Roosevelt children were much wed and much divorced indicating that their lives were not well grounded.
The livingroom was very large and I would have had a very nice sterio set up if this were mine now. Also South Parlor looked super cozy for those winter days. The parlor would have been my study and the other rooms would be more public in nature.
My wife and I visited there in 1990, before the arrival of our children. I most remember the presidents bedroom, with a kitchen chair on wheels for him to get around in there.
I grew up near Hyde Park. I graduated from FD Roosevelt high school. I used to go to the Roosevelt & Vanderbilt estates! I now live in NM and miss that area so very much! Have you done the vanderbilt mansion? Thank you!
That depends on your definition of grand. I personally find Springwood an intimate, comfortable _home_ of imposing scale and magnificent American craftsmanship. What the Roosevelt family may have lacked in good sense they certainly made up for in good taste.
Just an FYI, FDR had one sibling. A half-brother, James, who was approximately 28 years older than he. His mother Sara only gave birth to one child FDR.
Many years ago, my two sisters and I took a short vacation through the Hudson Valley. We had toured a Vanderbilt mansion and then the Roosevelt home which seemed almost spartan after the Vanderbilts'.
The idea that the New Deal "pulled America out of the Great Depression," as the narrator claims, is highly debatable. It spawned some needed reforms, but depression conditions persisted until WW2.
So interesting to see life in the 40's, including a TV! After Eleanor found love letters , not her's...she slept in a separate bedroom.Sarah discouraged a divorce.
It would be nice if Hunter College would restore the New York townhouse back to the way it looked when FDR ,Eleanor and Sara Roosevelt lived there, I have visited Teddy Roosevelt's childhood home in Chelsea.
<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="281">4:41</a> Really? The room where FDR played with his siblings? Really? FDR was almost an only child. His older brother, James Roosevelt Roosevelt, was 27 years his senior. James, also called Rosy, already had his own family and lived away and therefore, hardly could be considered a playmate to his brother.
It was the war time production because of WWII that we got out of the Great Depression not FDR’s policies. In fact his policies had made the depression worse up until then.
I guess you don't think that programs like the Civilian Conservation Corps, which he started and which gave work to many thousands of unemployed young men during the depression....was worthwhile? All over this country you can still see the results of that program. But I won't bother to go on explaining the many beneficial programs he inaugurated because obviously your opinions have no use for fact.
Hey Dom, please understand that d!ck heads are going to be dickhesds. You're fresh approach and real life inspirational take on life and the Life is excellent. Cheers from Australia
