Hyde Park: High Times

by Anne Pyburn and photographs by David Cunningham, May 28, 2011

“There is a mysterious cycle in human events. To some generations much is given. Of other generations much is expected. This generation of Americans has a rendezvous with destiny.”
—Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 1936

“Do one thing everyday that scares you.”
—Eleanor Roosevelt

Poughkeepsie’s northerly neighbor, Hyde Park is historic and beautiful and irrevocably on the map as home of the “Other White House” during the lengthy and not uneventful service of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the equally remarkable career of his wife Eleanor (whose given first name was Anna). A day spent touring the national historic landmarks that have been created in their memory—Springwood, the home and birthplace of FDR; the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum; and Val-Kill cottage, Eleanor’s chosen retreat, office, home, and “laboratory” for social change—is an experience that even local school kids, who’ve been forced into it the first time, are willing to repeat.

Worthy of a day of exploration in its own right is the nearby Frederick W. Vanderbilt Mansion, a “remarkably complete example of a gilded-age country place, illustrating the political, economic, social, cultural, and demographic changes that occurred as America industrialized in the years after the Civil War,” according to the National Park Service folks. Franklin Roosevelt was a fascinated 14-year-old when the heirs of notorious robber baron Cornelius remade this premiere piece of Hudson Valley real estate to suit themselves; as president, he convinced Congress to buy the house next door, and we are all the better for it. Frederick’s gardens alone are worth the trip.

In truth, Hyde Park and environs have been on the map since long before the Roosevelts or Vanderbilts ever got interested; some natives, in fact, will tell you that those folks brought the place down just a tad, not that they weren’t nice, mind you, but all the fuss and media circus, well... Hyde Park has been on the map since the first maps were drawn, back when Dutchess County was being divvied up among the king’s boys like an exotic dessert. Hyde Park was the name given to what is today the Vanderbilt Estate by its original owner, Dr. John Bard, after one Edward Hyde, Lord Cornbury and Governor of New York. When a neighbor christened his tavern the Hyde Park Inn, legend has it, the sycophantic doctor was said to be seriously annoyed.

Truth is, Hyde Park has never and will never rely on something as cheap as snob appeal for its charm, though it is indeed a town that knows when to maintain a good tradition, whether that be preservation of nature and history—two national parks side-by-side is just the tip of the iceberg; there are two state parks and the Norrie Point environmental center to explore—or preservation of a genuine drive-in theater, the Overlook.