Hyde Park

The fun thing about living in the Hudson Valley is that there is some sort of historic site or little piece of history in nearly every town. One of these places that’s worth a visit is Hyde Park where both the Vanderbilt Mansion National Historic Site and Franklin Roosevelt’s Presidential Library and home are.

The grounds of the mansion are now a park that is open free to the public, and anyone who has an Annual National Parks pass can use it for tours at both places.

Vanderbilt Mansion

The Hudson River

We’ve spent a couple of nice afternoons in Hyde Park and I would recommend both sites for anyone who’s passing through.

Country Livin’

It’s hard to believe that where we are living is only two hours from the largest city in the States; it feels so rural. Andy and I enjoy spending time taking drives through the countryside surrounding the Mountain House. We drive along winding roads past red barns, fields of corn and baled hay, stone silos, orchards, vineyards, and rolling hills covered in hardwood trees. In the evening we have to drive extra slow to avoid hitting all the suicidal deer.

Stoneridge Library

Often times we brave the traffic jams in New Paltz to see movies at the theater or to eat ethnic food. Sometimes we stop in Rosendale or High Falls to walk around the quaint local shops, but our favorite thing to do on a lazy afternoon is to go into the Stoneridge Library. The huge stone building is the perfect place to read magazines and check out books for later. They even have a rack of two dollar books for sale. Whenever we’re feeling a little more cosmopolitan we head into Poughkeepsie to the Galleria for a little shopping, movie watching, and Taco Bell.

Sunnyside and Union Church

Washington Irving's Sunnyside

On one of our first days off Andy and I decided to drive down the Hudson Valley and explore our new temporary home state. Our destination was Washinton Irving’s Sunnyside, the house of the American author Washington Irving who wrote The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Rip Van Winkle. We had a guide dressed in period costume show us through the house which Irving had designed himself to include the best elements of architecture that he had observed throughout Europe during his time as an ambassador for the U.S. He had copper pipes and a water heating system installed, which was very advanced for his time, and a shack out back with a deep well-like hole in it to store ice during the summer. The porch was also really nice with a beautiful view over the widest part of the Hudson River.

Our next stop was the Union Church of Pocantico Hills to see a

Sleepy Hollow

stained glass window by Henri Matisse and nine windows by Marc Chagall. The windows were commissioned by the Rockefellers who used to attend services here and it is still a working church today. The intricacy of the Chagall windows are amazing and the artwork glowed with the natural light coming in from outside.

On the way home we stopped in the town of Sleepy Hollow to see the graveyard that that inspired Washington Irving to write The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Although we didn’t see the headless horseman we did see some very old grave sites and the final resting place of Irving himself.

Inside Sunnyside