The Seat of Living Legends
by Paul De Angelis

National Park Service Ranger Bob Herberger shows a young visitor the mosaic map on the floor of the Wallace Visitor Center in Hyde Park. The pictorial map, based on an Olin Dows original, provides a graphic representation of Hyde Park as Franklin Roosevelt knew it.

There was no other president like him. None who held office through two distinct national crises or more fundamentally changed the nature of government during peace time. None who turned so fundamentally against the interests of the privileged class to which he had been born and whose values he had so seamlessly absorbed. And, needless to say, no president served longer than Franklin Delano Roosevelt—the patrician head of Springwood and Top Cottage in Hyde Park.

For the liberally-inclined suburban household in which I grew up in the 1950s and early 60s, the legacy of FDR and his widow was the lodestar by which our family set its political compass. That inheritance suffered some near-terminal blows in the decades that followed, and by the time my own nuclear family moved to northern Dutchess County in 1991, the relative closeness of FDR’s family seat felt to me more like a coincidence than a point of attraction. Other great estates in the area, less hemmed in by the kind of strip development I was all too familiar with, beckoned instead. I remember now, with some shameful embarrassment, that I found it somehow quaintly “amusing” that the only real non-family attraction for my mother, father or stepmother on their visits to us in Tivoli, were tours of the home and library-museum in Hyde Park—which in all cases were repeat visits. A pilgrimage to Hyde Park, at least for that generation of faithful Democrats living on the East Coast, was more or less obligatory.

My parents have since passed away, as have many from the generation of Americans with personal experience of the Great Depression, World War II and Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt’s incredible personal leadership during those trying times. Yet, as the salience of their story becomes if anything more pointed during our own “great recession,” I find myself increasingly drawn both to the Roosevelt story and the sites associated with it. Can a look back to them perhaps provide us with suggestions for the questions that continue to plague us today? More than any other presidential family the three Roosevelts—Theodore and Eleanor of the Long Island branch and FDR from the Hudson River Valley branch—continue to exert an enduring influence on the nation. The national transformation they led fundamentally changed the size, purpose and scope of the national government and America’s role as a world power. They staked out a vital role for the federal government in conserving and protecting natural resources and the environment. The issues they tackled, the approaches they adopted, are still the central issues of debate today.

It’s hard to exaggerate the importance of Franklin Roosevelt’s 144 months as president of the United States. (In his recent book on Roosevelt prominent biographer Jean Edward Smith, for example, elevated Roosevelt alongside Washington and Lincoln as one of the “three presidents” who “dominate American history.”) It’s also hard to exaggerate the role played in FDR’s outlook by the specific geographic and cultural world in which he grew up—our own stretch of the mid-Hudson Valley dominated by elite, well-to-do Dutch and WASP families. Larry Lowenthal, in the excellent historical appendix he contributed to the new FDR-Vanderbilt Historic Sites Draft General Management Plan, maintains that neither Washington’s association with Mount Vernon nor Jefferson’s with Monticello “match Roosevelt’s lifelong, intimate connection with Hyde Park.”

FDR’s deep love of farming, local history, and his compulsion to conserve it, is well-known. Caught in the global and social whirlwind of depression and war, he understood as much as anyone that the social structure and habits of the world in which he grew up would not survive much longer—and was all the more interested to adapt to changing times those habits worth keeping and to preserve a historical record of those that would go under. In Washington, despite his enormous power, his ability to influence that adaptation was constrained by multiple outside forces. But on his own lands in Hyde Park he was master, and he set an example of conservation, adaptation, and preservation.

From his early adult days he devoted time and effort to expanding and upgrading the farm and forestry lands of his estate. He utilized his own interest in Dutch vernacular architecture to remodel Springwood and other buildings both on his own land and up and down the river valley. He became local town historian in 1926. He encouraged Eleanor and her friends to set up their furniture manufacturing shop at Val Kill and helped with the design of the Stone Cottage there. As president he originated the concept of National Archives-run presidential libraries as a way of preserving important government papers that for lack of such institutions had too often gone missing. He then proceeded to design and build his very own next to his family home Springwood, which he also deeded to the federal government once his own family no longer needed it. Several years earlier he played a crucial role in arranging the 1938 sale of the Vanderbilt Mansion and its grounds to the Federal Government for a grand total of $1 (and some advantageous tax deductions, of course). Without these initiatives as an example, we in the mid-Hudson might not be able to enjoy the string of other great estates that dot the river shore. Nor would the nation as a whole have the extensive network of historic sites run by the National Park Service, a new concept that he added to the original national parks initiated by his cousin Theodore—nor the extensive system of state parks, many of which were started by FDR’s Civilian Conservation Corps.

Hyde Park alone has the unique privilege of being home to not just one, but four historic sites—three associated with the Roosevelts, each offering intensely rewarding personal tours by National Park Rangers interpreting a specific historical/cultural era. Add to that a library/museum of international significance used by scholars around he world, with resources open to the general public, and a recently-opened educational and media center. Surrounding these landmarks and facilities is an extensive network of preserved natural forests, woodlands, formal and informal gardens, trails, and landscapes.

Luckily for us, neither the National Park Service (which runs the sites), nor the National Archives (which runs the Library/Museum) have simply been sitting around complacently safeguarding these properties. In 2002 the Park Service purchased Top Cottage, the hilltop Dutch-style residence with its grand porch and vistas over the Hudson. FDR had designed and built it in the late 1930s as an eventual retirement home. While in office, he used it as a getaway to entertain high-level guests such as Winston Churchill and the Queen of England. It’s now accessible by foot trail from Val-Kill or, for tour, via a shuttle from the main home.

The sleekly inviting Henry A. Wallace Visitor and Education Center, which opened in 2003, provides not only a central welcome point for all the National Park sites and Library/Museum but an auditorium, conference rooms, and the modern educational amenities long lacking there. Its origins can be traced back to a visit from President Clinton and Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan in 1993. In an impressive cooperative governmental effort, the Center is administered by the Library/National Archives though jointly operated with and largely staffed by the Park Service; their impressive educational outreach draws on both agencies.

Perhaps most significant for the region as a whole was the Park Service’s 2007 acquisition of 334 acres east of the FDR home. This purchase, accomplished largely thanks to efforts by Scenic Hudson, re-established the basic integrity of the Roosevelt estate as it existed during his presidency and allowed for the opening of Farm Lane, a foot and bike track between Routes 9 and 9G connecting Springwood to Val-Kill—one of the most popular trails in Hyde Park’s growing network of walking paths.

Not to be outdone, the National Archives and the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute have also launched a major renovation effort at the FDR Library and Museum starting in June of this year. This first overhaul of the structure since it was built in 1941 will bring the facility up to date, make it fully wheelchair-accessible for the first time, and add a full additional level of available space; new permanent museum exhibits are also being installed.

Since the 1990s, with ongoing changes in tourist interests, demographics and the local and national economies, visitation to FDR-Vanderbilt (and other Hudson River estates) has generally trended downward—though at Hyde Park it has stabilized in recent years. In response to this trend and the improvements catalogued above, the National Park Service has been in the process of formulating, for much of the past decade, the first comprehensive plan to treat all four of the jointly-administered but individually-run Park Service sites. Before the year is out the Service expects to finalize this General Management Plan and Environmental Impact Statement.

It could not come at a more critical time. The current severe recession constitutes a major challenge for all the Hudson River Valley’s parks and historic sites, with many state-operated parks facing cutbacks. Nonprofits like Historic Hudson Valley’s Montgomery Place in Annandale are in the process of reinventing themselves (see Cynthia Owen Philip’s article in this same issue). FDR-Vanderbilt and similar sites are the underpinning of the recrea-tional and cultural tourism that provides thousands of jobs and dollars to the local economy—more jobs in Dutchess County, for example, than those provided by the education sector. Among these attractions, FDR-Vanderbilt ranks along with the Dutchess County Fairgrounds and Dia Beacon as one of the mid-Hudson Valley’s most significant draws.

What does the adoption of a new NPS Management Plan portend for the future of the four park sites and for Hyde Park in general? Besides considering a “no-action” approach that would simply continue the existing methods of operation, two overall strategic alternatives were considered in the draft general management plan. One of these gave highest priority to bringing more historical fidelity to the current sites. The one ultimately adopted, however, while providing for much landscape restoration, advocates a more flexible approach. Under this strategy, the Park Service hopes to initiate educational and recreational programs designed for today’s more diverse population, and to bring back former activities like forestry and farming.

On the recreational side, the Park Service hopes to improve trail maps and signage, particularly to Roosevelt Cove west of Springwood, and perhaps establish a tidal marsh program and even a dock there; and to provide racks for kayakers at Bard Cove on the Vanderbilt Site, one of few locations anywhere along the Hudson offering direct access to the water. Further, they will promote trail use throughout the area in cooperation with the Hyde Park Recreation Department and Poughkeepsie’s Walkway over the Hudson by maintaining and publicizing linkages and making available more self-guided tours, like the six downloadable podcast tours already available from the FDR Park website (nps.gov/hofr).

To maintain the landscape, the Park Service has already brought in a herd of goats to control woody vegetation on steep slopes. With SUNY-ESF (College of Environmental Science and Forestry) they plan to re-open scenic view at Top Cottage, Vanderbilt, and the FDR Home (FDR himself engaged this college when he was building up his tree plantation). Meanwhile Scenic Hudson has insured preservation of the view that FDR would have had out of his bedroom window by purchasing late last year 180 acres across the river in the Town of Lloyd—land originally slated for a subdivision development.

The General Management Plan envisions a host of other future projects as well. One is to re-create, possibly as a community garden-orchard-and-apiary, the extensive Roosevelt Home Garden where vegetables once grew. Another is the mounting of exhibits in the newly-liberated space at Val-Kill’s Stone Cottage about the evolution of the Cottage and Vall-Kill Industries, and possibly holding small kitchen-table seminar programs there. A third is to engage diverse partners in novel demonstrations and “experiential” activities like Vanderbilt’s “Servants to Stewards” program, where visitors go up the back staircase rather than into the front of the house, both figuratively and literally, and are invited to take on the identity of one of the historic staff people. Concurrently, the Park Service hopes to build up non-automobile access with the “Roosevelt Ride” shuttle and public transportation.

The critical concept in all this is partnership. While the Park Service and Library/Museum have long worked with historic primary partners such as the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute and local garden associations, implementation of the new vision presented by the Park Service is critically dependent on outside involvement from citizens, schools, businesses, and non-profits. This includes the town of Hyde Park, which has been historically ambiguous in its attitude to having so much (non-taxable) National Park land in its midst.

Perhaps no regional organization has played a more critical role in preserving the setting of the Roosevelt environment and preservationist agenda than Scenic Hudson. Their involvement goes back almost 20 years to two instances when the Hyde Park Drive-In, directly across from the Roosevelt Home, was slated as the site of a Wal-Mart or Big Box store. Scenic Hudson stepped in, bought the property and began a dialogue with the Town, property owners and Chamber of Commerce about ways to maintain the historic character and vitality of the community. For most of the past five years or so, until the recent economic downturn, Hyde Park town officials and public opinion was trending towards tourism and preservation rather than retail development. The election last November of Town Supervisor Tom Martino, a Republican who has favorably cited Fishkill as a model for the future development of Hyde Park, represents a sharp break with that trend.

The Park Service and most countywide groups still agree that the Drive-In—with or without its continuing use as a throwback to a 1950s movie experience—would be the ideal site for a major new Hudson Valley Welcome Center. Such a regional center would provide not only information and brochures, but central transit and parking facilities as well as a permanent home, with a shed, to house the Hyde Park Farmers’ Market. The Market, however, tired of the muddy grounds at the Drive-in, is moving north this summer to a paved area at the Town Parking Lot near the historic village crossroads.

In the current economy it’s difficult to find funding for the Welcome Center. Nonetheless, Scenic Hudson hopes to undertake an initial phase of improvements to the area, including an expanded parking area and new entrance for the FDR Farm Lane Trail, as well as landscape improvements that could have significant visual impact on the area around the entrance to the FDR Home. Whether or not such plans go ahead without being disrupted by new Big Box intrusions may well determine whether the village of Hyde Park successfully navigates a transformation from mid-20th century commercial strip to 2lst-Century small town.

FDR on the porch of his beloved Top Cottage with his beloved dog Fala (under the table).