Wilderstein is a 19th-century Queen-Anne-style country house on the

Hudson River The Hudson River is a river that flows from north to south primarily through eastern New York. It originates in the Adirondack Mountains of Upstate New York and flows southward through the Hudson Valley to the New York Harbor between N ...

in Rhinebeck, Dutchess County, New York, United States. It is a not-for-profit house museum.

Background

Thomas Holy Suckley was a wealthy property developer in Manhattan. He was the son of devout Methodist George Suckley and his second wife Catherine Rutsen. George settled in New York City and became agent for the British mercantile establishment that would later become Holy, Newbould, & Suckley. He was well acquainted with most of the prominent Methodists of the time and active in supporting their ministry. Thomas Suckley's mother Catherine was the daughter of John Rutsen, whose maternal grandfather was Gilbert Livingston, son of Robert Livingston, Lord of

Livingston Manor Livingston Manor was a tract of land in the Province of New York granted to Robert Livingston the Elder during the reign of George I of Great Britain. History Livingston Manor was a tract of land in the colonial Province of New York granted ...

. John Rutsen was a close friend of Catherine Livingston Garrettson, the wife of the notable Methodist preacher,

Freeborn Garrettson Freeborn Garrettson (August 15, 1752 – September 26, 1827) was an American clergyman, and one of the first American-born Methodist preachers. He entered the Methodist ministry in 1775 and travelled extensively to evangelize in several states. ...

(1752 – 1827). In 1799, the Garrettsons purchased 160 acres in Rhinebeck, New York, where they established an estate called

Wildercliff Wildercliff is a privately owned estate on Mill Road, in Rhinebeck in Dutchess County, New York. It was the home of noted Methodist circuit rider Freeborn Garrettson and his wife, Catherine Livingston, of the Clermont Livingstons. It may be in ...

, and welcomed many circuit riding Methodist preachers. Frequent visitor

Francis Asbury Francis Asbury (August 20 or 21, 1745 – March 31, 1816) was one of the first two bishops of the Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States. During his 45 years in the colonies and the newly independent United States, he devoted his life to ...

called it "Traveler's Rest". Around 1850, the estate passed to their only child, Mary Rutherford Garrettson.

History

The Wilderstein property was originally part of the Wildercliff estate. In June 1853, Thomas Suckley, purchased from Mary Garrettson thirty-rwo acres of river-front property, which until then had served as a sheep meadow for the adjacent

estate. (Mary Garrettson's mother Catherine was the granddaughter of Gilbert Livingston's older brother, Robert Livingston of Clermont). Suckley and his wife Catherine Murray Bowne chose the property as a building site for their mansion, because they considered the landscape a good match for their

picturesque Picturesque is an aesthetic ideal introduced into English cultural debate in 1782 by William Gilpin in ''Observations on the River Wye, and Several Parts of South Wales, etc. Relative Chiefly to Picturesque Beauty; made in the Summer of the Year ...

aesthetic ideal. The name "Wilderstein" ("wild stone" in German) was chosen by Suckley to allude to an American Indian

petroglyph A petroglyph is an image created by removing part of a rock surface by incising, picking, carving, or abrading, as a form of rock art. Outside North America, scholars often use terms such as "carving", "engraving", or other descriptions ...

found nearby and reflect the site's historical significance."History", Wilderstein Historic Site
/ref> In total, three generations of the Suckley family inhabited the mansion. The last family member was Daisy Suckley, a cousin of

Franklin D. Roosevelt Franklin Delano Roosevelt (; ; January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), often referred to by his initials FDR, was an American politician and attorney who served as the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945. As the ...

for whom she trained his famous terrier

Fala The Armed Forces of the Liberation of Angola ( pt, Forças Armadas de Libertação de Angola) or FALA was the armed wing of the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), a prominent political faction during the Angolan Civil ...

. Daisy Suckley died in the Wilderstein mansion in 1991, six months before her 100th birthday. The mansion is nine miles up-river, on the same side, from FDR's Hyde Park Home, Springwood.

Description

The mansion commissioned for the site was a two-storey

Italianate The Italianate style was a distinct 19th-century phase in the history of Classical architecture. Like Palladianism and Neoclassicism, the Italianate style drew its inspiration from the models and architectural vocabulary of 16th-century Italian R ...

villa designed by architect John Warren Ritch. In 1888, Thomas Suckley's son Robert Bowne Suckley and his wife, Elizabeth Philips Montgomery, undertook a remodelling and enlargement of the house. This work was carried out by the local architect Arnout Cannon from

Poughkeepsie Poughkeepsie ( ), officially the City of Poughkeepsie, separate from the Town of Poughkeepsie around it) is a city in the U.S. state of New York. It is the county seat of Dutchess County, with a 2020 census population of 31,577. Poughkeepsi ...

. The style of the mansion was changed to a Queen Anne style country house. A third floor, a multi-gabled attic, a circular five-storey tower, a

porte-cochère A porte-cochère (; , late 17th century, literally 'coach gateway'; plural: porte-cochères, portes-cochères) is a doorway to a building or courtyard, "often very grand," through which vehicles can enter from the street or a covered porch-like ...

, and a

veranda A veranda or verandah is a roofed, open-air gallery or porch, attached to the outside of a building. A veranda is often partly enclosed by a railing and frequently extends across the front and sides of the structure. Although the form ''veran ...

h were added in the process. The new interior of the building was designed by

Joseph Burr Tiffany Joseph Burr Tiffany (February 13, 1856 - April 3, 1917) was an American interior designer of the late 19th century, today best known for his 1889 decoration of the first floor of Wilderstein, the Rhinebeck, New York home of the Suckley family. His ...

, a cousin of

Louis Comfort Tiffany Louis Comfort Tiffany (February 18, 1848 – January 17, 1933) was an American artist and designer who worked in the decorative arts and is best known for his work in stained glass. He is the American artist most associated with the Art NouveauL ...

. The rooms of ground floor were done in Historic Revival Style and in the aesthetic movement style using materials such as use mahogany, leather, stained glass, and linen. In parallel to the redesign of the mansion proper, the grounds of the estate were transformed by landscape architect

Calvert Vaux Calvert Vaux (; December 20, 1824 – November 19, 1895) was an English-American architect and landscape designer, best known as the co-designer, along with his protégé and junior partner Frederick Law Olmsted, of what would become New York Ci ...

according to the American Romantic Landscape style. Vaux's design comprised the creation of a network of drives and trails, the positioning of specimen trees and ornamental shrubs as well as the placement of an eclectic set of out buildings such as a carriage house, a gate lodge, and a potting shed.

Gazebo A gazebo is a pavilion structure, sometimes octagonal or turret-shaped, often built in a park, garden or spacious public area. Some are used on occasions as bandstands. Etymology The etymology given by Oxford Dictionaries (website), Oxford D ...

s and garden seats were positioned at carefully chosen vantage points.

Preservation

Daisy Suckley was instrumental in forming Wilderstein Preservation, a private non-profit organization. She opened the house to the public at Christmas 1984. The society is a recognized charity by the IRS; donations are tax deductible. Although little restoration work was carried out during her lifetime, responsible stewardship is becoming the norm now that concerned parties are supplying funds. For example, the tower was renovated in 1994, the main roof replaced in 1997, the siding on the second and third floor was restored in 2001, repairs on the porte-cochere and the north porch in 2002, and restoration work on the verandah in 2006.

Location

The address of the mansion is 330 Morton Road, Rhinebeck, NY 12572, New York. It is a

contributing property In the law regulating historic districts in the United States, a contributing property or contributing resource is any building, object, or structure which adds to the historical integrity or architectural qualities that make the historic distri ...

to the

Hudson River Historic District The Hudson River Historic District, also known as Hudson River Heritage Historic District, is the largest Federally designated district on the mainland of the contiguous United States.The Nantucket Historic District includes all of the island o ...

and a

National Historic Landmark A National Historic Landmark (NHL) is a building, district, object, site, or structure that is officially recognized by the United States government for its outstanding historical significance. Only some 2,500 (~3%) of over 90,000 places listed ...

References

External links

{{Commons category, Wilderstein (Rhinebeck, New York)
''At the Home of FDR's Secret Friend''
September 7, 2007 by Barbara Ireland,

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

- Travel section feature covering Wilderstein as well as

Top Cottage Top Cottage, also known as Hill-Top Cottage, in Hyde Park, New York, was a private retreat designed by and for Franklin D. Roosevelt.''The New York Times'', June 14, 2001. Ralph Blumenthal''A Pied-à-Terre Designed By a President; F. D. R. Never S ...

.
Official web site
of Wilderstein Preservation, the IRS-recognized charity maintaining the site.
Wilderstein on Historic Structures
Livingston family Livingston family residences Museums in Dutchess County, New York Houses in Rhinebeck, New York Historic house museums in New York (state) Historic district contributing properties in New York (state) Gilded Age mansions Queen Anne architecture in New York (state)