National Park Service U.S. Department of the Interior

Historical Overview
office handling the business of the estate. Louise, then age seventy-nine, did not join her guests
on the grounds, but they would meet her on the terrace for conversation. 280
The country house weekend that Eleanor Worcester describes at Hyde Park in 1923 was
remarkably similar in form to the weekends that had undoubtedly been hosted there since the
turn of the century. Miss Sloane attended a similar house party at the neighboring Mills estate,
noting in her diary:
I have decided after all to go to Mrs. Mills this week. . . . She has a dance Friday night and a
golf tournament on Saturday. I am sure a few days of that life will be great fun, and I am
looking forward to it. 281
The Millses often hosted golf tournaments and many Hudson Valley families golfed in
Staatsburg. Harrington in Munsey's Magazine also notes the summertime pursuits of Hudson
River families:
The principal amusements of the Knickerbocker at his Hudson home are golf, yachting, and
driving. . . . Often he comes up from the city on his own yacht, and reaches a club station or
his own pier in the twilight. 282
In the winter, the wealthy families who resided seasonally along the Hudson River
returned to their country places for winter sports such as sleighing, ice boating, and ice skating.
Frederick and Louise enjoyed sleighing along the roadways of their own and neighboring
estates, and ice boating was a favorite sport of the neighboring Roosevelt, Newbold, and Rogers
families. Frederick's good friend Edward Wales is known to have ice boated, and Frederick was
himself a member of the Hudson River Yacht Club. 283 Though no specific accounts have been
located of Frederick's hard water sailing, an entry in the estate ledgers notes the sale of an ice
yacht.
When not hosting guests, Alex Knauss remembered that Frederick and Louise both took
great pleasure in their park and farm. They walked through the gardens twice daily when they
were in residence, often visiting the greenhouses between eleven and twelve in the morning and
again in mid-afternoon. Frederick also regularly walked the grounds with Herbert Shears to
confer on work plans. And, when guests were on the estate, Frederick would bring his guests
through the greenhouses. Of particular interest was the display house, the center section of one
greenhouse set up with a tiered presentation of plants. 284 Cap Newman noted that Louise
visited the farm most every day when she was at Hyde Park in the years between 1919 and 1926.
Her chauffeur would drive her over from the mansion. Frederick was seen less often on the
farm but did occasionally visit the cow barn. 285
While the Frederick Vanderbilts enjoyed and used their country place in conventional
ways, there is one element of entertaining in which Hyde Park did not participate. In gilded-age
society, much of the social season revolved around providing opportunities for one's children to
make appropriate matches. In fact, courtship preoccupied mother and daughter from the
280
Worcester, 9-22, 38.
281
Sloane, 175.
282
Harrington, 735.
283
Snell, "Historical Handbook Manuscript," 36.
284
Knauss, 1971, 1-2.
285
Peggy Newman, Side 2, 4.
61