Union Church of Pocantico Hills is a historic

church Church may refer to: Religion * Church (building), a building for Christian religious activities * Church (congregation), a local congregation of a Christian denomination * Church service, a formalized period of Christian communal worship * C ...

Pocantico Hills, New York Pocantico Hills is a hamlet in the Westchester County town of Mount Pleasant, New York, United States. The Rockefeller family estate, anchored by Kykuit, the family seat built by John D. Rockefeller Sr., is located in Pocantico Hills, as is the ad ...

. The church was built by

John D. Rockefeller Jr. John Davison Rockefeller Jr. (January 29, 1874 – May 11, 1960) was an American financier and philanthropist, and the only son of Standard Oil co-founder John D. Rockefeller. He was involved in the development of the vast office complex in M ...

in 1921, as part of his plans to develop the town of Pocantico Hills, which was below his estate

Kykuit Kykuit ( ), known also as the John D. Rockefeller Estate, is a 40-room historic house museum in Pocantico Hills, a hamlet in the town of Mount Pleasant, New York 25 miles north of New York City. The house was built for oil tycoon and Rockefelle ...

. Upon the death of Rockefeller's wife

Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Abigail Greene Aldrich Rockefeller (October 26, 1874 – April 5, 1948) was an American socialite and philanthropist. She was a prominent member of the Rockefeller family through her marriage to financier and philanthropist John D. Rockefel ...

in 1948, their son

Nelson Rockefeller Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller (July 8, 1908 – January 26, 1979), sometimes referred to by his nickname Rocky, was an American businessman and politician who served as the 41st vice president of the United States from 1974 to 1977. A member of t ...

commissioned

Henri Matisse Henri Émile Benoît Matisse (; 31 December 1869 – 3 November 1954) was a French visual artist, known for both his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a draughtsman, printmaker, and sculptor, but is known prima ...

to design the church's rose window in honor of her memory shortly before the artist's own death in 1954. When John D. Rockefeller Jr. died in 1960, his children commissioned artist

Marc Chagall Marc Chagall; russian: link=no, Марк Заха́рович Шага́л ; be, Марк Захаравіч Шагал . (born Moishe Shagal; 28 March 1985) was a Russian-French artist. An early modernism, modernist, he was associated with se ...

to design a Good Samaritan window in his honor. It is a one-story neo-

Gothic Gothic or Gothics may refer to: People and languages *Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes **Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths **Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...

style building with

fieldstone Fieldstone is a naturally occurring type of stone, which lies at or near the surface of the Earth. Fieldstone is a nuisance for farmers seeking to expand their land under cultivation, but at some point it began to be used as a construction mate ...

foundation and walls and a

slate Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade regional metamorphism. It is the finest grained foliated metamorphic rock. ...

covered, highly pitched gable roof. In 1930–1931, a parish hall was added to the east end of the church. ''See also:'' On May 6, 2006, the church was listed in the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

Organ

David Rockefeller David Rockefeller (June 12, 1915 – March 20, 2017) was an American investment banker who served as chairman and chief executive of Chase Manhattan Corporation. He was the oldest living member of the third generation of the Rockefeller family, ...

, members of the Rockefeller family, and members of the church commissioned organbuilder Sebastian M. Glück to design and build the

Laurance Spelman Rockefeller Laurance Spelman Rockefeller (May 26, 1910 – July 11, 2004) was an American businessman, financier, philanthropist, and conservation movement, conservationist. Rockefeller was the third son and fourth child of John D. Rockefeller Jr. and Abby A ...

Memorial Pipe Organ in 2006. It is based upon the organs of fin-de-siècle Paris, notably influenced by the work of Aristide Cavaillé-Coll, and it complements the family's taste in the art of that era. It is used for public recitals as well as for church services.

References

External links

* Churches on the National Register of Historic Places in New York (state) National Register of Historic Places in Westchester County, New York Gothic Revival church buildings in New York (state) Churches completed in 1921 Churches in Westchester County, New York Pocantico Hills, New York Henri Matisse {{NewYork-church-stub