This year marks the 100th anniversary of the Rockefeller family’s residency at Kykuit, their elegant estate nestled in the Pocantico Hills high above the Hudson in Sleepy Hollow, New York. Its commanding panoramic view across the river to the Palisades is the reason Dutch Colonists dubbed the location Kykuit (pronounced pie-cut) which means “lookout.” This year also represents the centennial anniversary of the birth of Nelson A. Rockefeller, the New York governor and United States vice president who lived there from 1962 to 1979. It was under Nelson Rockefeller’s auspices that an exceptional collection of twentieth-century modern art – paintings, sculpture and renowned Picasso tapestries – were acquired and installed throughout the house, galleries and gardens to brilliant effect. These icons of twentieth-century art were added to an already impressive fine and decorative arts collection; the rich array of decorative elements, ornaments, architectural and landscape designs that John D. Rockefeller Jr. had installed a generation earlier provided the perfect foil for the modernist additions.

Now under the direction of Historic Hudson Valley, Kykuit is a “must see” for any arts and antiques aficionado – especially if a grand tour of Europe isn’t on your itinerary this season. A visit to Kykuit is a kind of mini-course in European art history from the Renaissance through the twentieth century. There’s a menu of tours offered to accommodate every taste and time constraint, as well as abbreviated outdoor versions for families with tots in tow.

The Gardens

All tours of Kykuit begin at the Visitors Center at Philipsburg Manor – another Historic Hudson Valley property – and last anywhere from 1 1/4 hours for the kids, to a 3 hour grand tour, which includes first and second floor visits to the house through the upstairs sitting rooms, plus extended time in the gardens and art galleries. The galleries are where the Picasso tapestries can be found, as well as works by Robert Motherwell, Alexander Calder, George Segal, Andy Warhol, and other notables. The Coach Barn is another point of interest for vehicular enthusiasts. The Visitors Center also contains an attractive café and museum gift shop filled with a delightful array of items, as well as an extensive selection of books reflecting the taste and sensibility found throughout the various Rockefeller collections and properties. My visit coincided with a perfect spring morning in May when the peonies were at the peak of bloom, but the effect for any day will be much the same. Entering the main gate into Kykuit proper, into the forecourt, it looks and feels as though you’ve suddenly been transported to the grounds of an elegant Palladian villa somewhere in Tuscany, perhaps the ancient country seat of a noble family. That’s not far from the mark, because if there is an American aristocracy, the Rockefellers are probably princes of the realm. Kykuit has been home to six generations of Rockefellers, beginning with John D. Sr., founder of Standard Oil, and a philanthropist who in his day was considered the richest man in America. One of the first things you’ll see upon entering the grounds is a 30-foot-high copy of a Giambolgna fountain titled “Oceanus,” originally commissioned in about 1565 as the central feature of the Boboli Gardens at the Pitti Palace in Florence. This monumental fountain showing three river gods surrounding a large central figure of Oceanus rises above a granite bowl reservoir measuring 20 feet in diameter and weighing 35 tons. The fountain strikes a particular note that signals the illusion of European grandeur that’s sustained throughout the property. It also anchors one end of the forecourt’s central axis and walkway flanked by formal, perfectly matched parterres edged with clipped boxwood, and a double row of honey locust trees leading to the impressive classical main facade of the house.

First Impressions

The whole reinforces the transformative first impression of the place and reflects a Europeanized sensibility. Initially, under JDR Sr., the plan and construction of Kykuit was somewhat dour. Later, however, JDR, Jr. took the reins and engaged the firm of Delano and Aldrich whose first version was more restrained than their usual commissions. Ultimately “Junior,” as he became known, hired William Welles Bosworth to design the extensive gardens, and Ogden Codman, Jr., one of the leading proponents of classical revival movement in the United States, to design the interiors. Codman’s 1897 book titled The Decoration of Houses that he co-authored with novelist Edith Wharton eschewed the stuffy and over-fussy frippery of Victoriana in favor of the relatively restrained elegance of the classical revival style. The first construction phase of Kykuit occurred between 1906 and 1908; by 1909 an article in House Beautiful declared Kykuit’s drawing room “entirely removed from the elaborate and overdone schemes often found in the homes of American millionaires.”

The gardens and exterior of the house are undeniably Italianate and classical. Bosworth received his degree in architecture from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and had worked for landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted of Manhattan’s Central Park fame. The gardens that he planned, c. 1906, are pretty much what exists today, and reflect the Ecole des Beaux-Artes sensibility fashionable at the time. They are arranged in orderly, geometric ways, in “rooms” that relate to the main house and radiate from different wings of the house along paths, or axes that terminate at a specific focal point, or views. Strong vertical planes achieved through the use of hedges, shrub borders, stone walls, or in one instance an allée of pleached linden trees, further defines the rectilinear aspect of the gardens.

The House

The sculptor F.M.L. Tonetti was commissioned to carve a rich variety of ornaments and decorative elements throughout the property, but the most spectacular examples of his work can be seen on the main facade where he carved two groups of putti holding urns on the second floor balcony, and an elaborate classical style pediment gracing the top of Kykuit’s main facade. It’s all set underneath an American eagle – the eagle also being the symbol of Zeus – cradling a shield bearing JDR’s monogram. Ancient wisteria vines artfully espaliered along the house provide a seasonal feast for the eyes; flanking the stairs leading to the porch and front door is a massive pair of bronze torchiere, crowned with orange favrile glass flame-form-globes, designed by [L.C.] Tiffany.

Although Codman followed the principals of neo-classicism for Kykuit’s interior design, he turned the expression of that style toward an English vernacular established in the seventeenth century by the architect Sir Christopher Wren. The clearest illustration of these principals, as well as the most ambitious undertaking for the interior design of the house, is undoubtedly the oculus that Codman designed for the music room modeled after the one Wren designed in the 1660s for Ashburnham house in London. This oval opening in the ceiling, the “oculus,” with its balustrade and small dome above, reveals the second floor gallery and brings light, height and drama into the space. In general much of the furniture and decorations at Kykuit are reminiscent of chattels often found in fine English Adams and Georgian country houses and follow the classical idea. This is especially notable in the drawing room immediately to the right of the front foyer, which in England and France in the eighteenth century was designed to suggest the increasingly important role women held in society. The room is decorated with elegant and delicate Sheraton-style furniture. A marble fireplace surround with contrasting black and white low-relief swags and urns, sconces with Wedgwood “cameo” back-plates and a primarily cream-and-blue color scheme used throughout completes the theme. The attenuated forms in the drawing room contrast with the bolder, more masculine furnishings in the wood-paneled office across the hall where JDR, Sr. worked on his many philanthropic projects, and where he is said to have invented the concept of the matching-gift fund. A fine collection of Chinese export porcelains in the famille vert palette are a shade of green uncannily similar to the color of money. Other rooms in the house, such as the library with its Chippendale-style furniture covered in fine damask silk, or the portrait of Miss Judith Beresford by John Hoppner, c. 1785, round out the British aristocratic country house look. But a portrait of George Washington by Gilbert Stewart gives a nod to a contemporaneous American experience.

Despite an air of stodginess that often seems to linger in houses decorated in an Anglo-American patrician style, these rooms are anything but dull. The house and its interiors, as well as the terraces, gardens and grounds that surround this sybaritic dwelling are anything but staid or predictable. This is most likely due to the dynamic and extensive collection of modern art at Kykuit – a provocative and contrasting tension created by the Nelson Rockefeller Collection.

Art and Sculpture

It’s more than just the modern art, however, that seems to elevate the place out of a particular or regional period or style into a truly cosmopolitan and timeless aesthetic. Whether it is Tang Dynasty works of art in the front foyer, Brancussi’s “Bird in Flight” in the loggia of the front portico, or the seventh-century Chinese Bodhisattva in the tea-room overlooking the west porch toward the Hudson River and Palisades beyond, the effect is dazzling. There are endless opportunities for exciting glimpses and views of terraces and gardens and ornamental features that provide constant visual stimulation. It’s almost indescribable, but there’s a highly nuanced art of placement at work throughout that projects a level of cultivation and sophistication that’s undoubtedly a byproduct of generations of wealth and privilege. Nowhere is this more apparent than the extensive collection of twentieth century European and American works of art that punctuate and create a lyric and dramatic narrative throughout the gardens and grounds of the estate. It is a staggering achievement of landscape design of the highest order. This, it must be noted again, was the exceptional contribution Nelson Rockefeller made to the vitality and depth of the art collections at Kykuit. It is undeniable and reads like a Who’s Who of Modern Art. The sculpture collection is particularly notable from both an aesthetic and historical point of view and may be the most important part of the art collections at Kykuit. The collection includes works by Pablo Picasso, Constantin Brancusi, Jean Arp, Alexander Calder, Alberto Giacometti, Henry Moore, Isamu Noguchi, Louise Nevelson and David Smith, among others. A final amble along the western terraces overlooking the Hudson River, past some of these giants and icons of modern art seems a logical and correctly chronological conclusion to a tour of Kykuit and a deeply edifying, nearly spiritual experience. Go there and see for yourself. You won’t be disappointed.

Kykuit is an historic site of the National Trust that is operated and maintained by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund as a center for its philanthropic programs. It is one of six properties maintained by Historic Hudson Valley (HHV). For more information on the menu of tour choices available at Kykuit and other HHV properties, visit www.hudsonvalley.org.

All images are courtesy of Historic Hudson Valley and can be found in the companion book by Henry Joyce: Kykuit, the House and Gardens of the Rockefeller Family (available for $14.95 from the museum shop). Unless otherwise stated, photographs are by Mike Halen.

About the author: Philip Alvaré specializes in writing about fine arts and design. For more information, visit Mr. Alvaré’s website: www.philipalvare.com.