National Park Service U.S. Department of the Interior

The Gilded Age and Country Places
for it was the era of kings and queens and knowing them made a few of us feel more
important. 125
Eleanor Roosevelt, and presumably others of old New York society, perceived the arrival of the
Vanderbilts as an influx of urban pretension to the Valley where old families took great pride, at
times too much pride, in their lineage and traditions. The Vanderbilts and the new
entrepreneurial elite did, in fact, carry new urban tastes and habits to the countryside to which
they turned for relief from the business and social pressures perpetuated by their sort in New
York.
The Hudson River estates of the new urban elite afforded their owners and guests a
lifestyle emphasizing relaxed country living, the sporting life, and the rejuvenative qualities that
farming and outdoor recreation bring. Harrington, writing in Munsey's Magazine, described
Dutchess County's River estates as situated within the virtual bounds of New York City, the
result of the daily and weekly commutes undertaken by men and women to escape the rigors of
the office and society. 126
The love for country life is growing, and New York is becoming more of a workshop, and the
surrounding country is gaining favor as a place of residence. . . . The boundaries of the city
are really set far beyond Poughkeepsie, so many of the modern Knickerbockers have country
seats on the heights on either side of the Hudson River. . . in almost an unbroken line from
Yonkers to Hyde Park, and beyond. The little railroad stations . . . are really so many porters'
lodges. . . . The trains are filled at this season of the year, and they will be until the late fall,
with Gothamites and their guests, who are hurrying away from the City of Awful Din to the
Land of Delectable Summer. Every Saturday afternoon there goes up from Manhattan
Island a throng of commuters. . . . 127
An 1895 article in the Troy Press, announcing Frederick's purchase of Hyde Park,
anticipated his use of the country estate;
To the Hudson mansion there go all sorts of winter and summer night parties. It is the place
for a day off. The winter mansion is the costly fireproof and burglar alarm safe into which
the tenants lock themselves during the coldest of winter days. In their Hudson house, there
is more freedom and a joviality, the expanding tonic of the wide scenery on every side. The
possibilities of winter sport are utilized as in the country mansions in the New Jersey hills
and as at Dr. Seward Webb's Shelburne Farm. "It's English, you know," isn't a charge that
can fairly be brought against Frederick or Levi [Morton] or John Jacob [Astor], for the
English country houses are damp and dismal affairs, most of them weather beaten and
rotting, their rooms uncheerful and uninviting, and their real attractions outside in the
hunting woods. To go up to a Hudson house is not to go on a slaughtering expedition, as the
English do, we know better than that. We may not be as bloodthirsty as the English, but we
care a good deal more than they do for the child-sports that are the best things after all for
grown men tiring . . . of city life. 128
As the Troy Press anticipated, Frederick and Louise treated Hyde Park as their country
residence, not as a rural retreat. They spent each spring and fall there. They commuted from
New York to Hyde Park on weekends when they were in the city, and they spent Christmases in
125
Eleanor Roosevelt, Untitled newspaper clipping (United Feature Syndicate, Inc.), January 9, 1947,
VAMA General File, "Eleanor Roosevelt," ROVA Curatorial Division.
126
Harrington, 721-735.
127
Harrington, 721-723.
128
"Changing Customs, New Yorkers Fond of Living Everywhere Else, A New Vanderbilt Mansion on
the Hudson . . . ," Troy Press, May 11, 1895. Scrapbook 1894 - 1907, XX, Shelburne Farms Archives.
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