Kykuit, the Rockefeller family home in Pocantico Hills, N.Y., has opened new areas of the estate to visitors as part of a Garden and Sculpture Tour.
The new tour focuses on the extensive gardens attached to the six-story stone house, which is about two miles east of the Hudson River and 30 miles north of midtown Manhattan. The home's interior and some of the gardens have been open to the public since 1994.William Welles Bosworth designed the gardens, which are among the country's grandest surviving Beaux-Arts landscapes. Sections of the estate now open for the first time include the Italian Garden and Grand Stairway, the Morning Garden and the Grotto. There are more than 70 sculptures, including Picasso's "Bathers," and works by Moore and Calder.
Now the property of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, Kykuit (a Dutch word for lookout pronounced KIE-cut) was the country home of four generations of Rockefellers, beginning in 1908 with John D. Rockefeller, the philanthropist and founder of the Standard Oil Co.
The estate is open Wednesday through Monday from April 18 until Nov. 2. The Garden and Sculpture Tour and the house tour each cost $18; $16 for children and those 60 or over. The tours are not recommended for children under 12. All tours begin from Philipsburg Manor, a historic site on Route 9 in Sleepy Hollow. Reservations are necessary, from (914)631-9491.