Kykuit, home to four generations of Rockefellers, is an exquisite six-story hilltop house in the Hudson Valley. See the breathtaking gardens, fountains, and sculptures that define this historic landmark. Kykuit, home to four generations of Rockefellers, is an exquisite six-story hilltop house in the Hudson Valley that is being preserved today as a historic site of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. Its bold, dramatic architecture and outdoor spaces are breathtaking embodiments of an era that boldly embraced the Beaux-Arts style. Defined by its terraced gardens and filled with spectacular sculpture and fountains, the home is truly a national treasure.
Kykuit, which means “lookout” in Dutch, was commissioned by philanthropist and founder of Standard Oil, John D. Rockefeller, and designed by the leading country-house architects of the day, William Adams Delano and Charles Holmes Aldrich. In 1913, Rockefeller and his son, John D. Rockefeller, Jr., known as “Junior,” hired famed landscape architect William Welles Bosworth to plan the home’s formal gardens. American gardens at that time were largely based on two principles in which Bosworth and other American architects had been schooled at the École des Beaux-Arts in France. One principle dictated that outdoor spaces be arranged in clear, orderly ways, positioned either along a main sight line (usually a walking path) or so as to terminate at a focal point, such as a sculpture or a beautiful view. The second principle dictated the use of strong vertical planes, such as evergreen hedges, shrub borders, or stone walls, to give definition to the outdoors. The gardens closest to the house were to be geometric and rectilinear. The outer reaches of the property were to be parkland. Bosworth consciously took as his model for Kykuit Italian gardens, which he termed “the origin of all subsequent garden tradition.”
Overlooking some of the most amazing scenery in New York, Kykuit offers visitors two experiences: the spectacular natural vistas that surround the home as well as the estate’s outstanding collection of art and sculpture, including the nearly 30-foot Oceanus fountain at the end of the home’s entrance forecourt.
One of twenty fountains found on the property, the Oceanus fountain is an exact replica of the Renaissance fountain designed by Giovanni Bologna for the Pitti Palace at the Boboli Gardens in Florence. The Kykuit version, like the original, shows the figure of Oceanus, father of the river gods in classical mythology, holding a baton with which he commands the three seated figures, lesser gods representing the Nile, the Euphrates, and the Ganges rivers. Oceanus, the estate’s largest fountain, is in a prime location, looking west toward the Hudson River, symbolically linking the Hudson with the great rivers of the Old World.
Other fountains on the property are as equally superb. Like many large estates created between the 1880s and the 1930s, Kykuit features a Rose Garden. Bosworth designed Kykuit’s Rose Garden as the principal feature of the north terraces; in its semi-circular form, with its colonnade arbors and Renaissance revival fountain, the garden is distinctive of Beaux-Arts planning. Within the overall design, the Rose Garden balances the linden allée and Inner Garden on the south side of the house. Just as the Oceanus fountain is a replica of the Boboli Gardens original, the Rose Garden fountain is a replica of another Boboli Gardens renaissance sculpture. It is topped by a carved stone putti based on a Donatello sculpture.
In the Morning Garden, there is a gilded bronze fountainhead in its central pool that was designed and modeled by Francois Tonetti, showing Orpheus playing a musical instrument amid the passion flowers. Framing the western end of the Inner Garden is an allée of linden trees, and in the middle of it is the Moorish Fountain, made by the Gorham Company of Providence, Rhode Island, a company perhaps better known for its silver tableware. The basin’s faceted shape is distinctive of Moorish decoration in Spain during the 14th and 15th centuries.
Bisecting the Inner Garden and running perpendicular to the allée and the Tea House on the opposite end, is a canal with jets. It’s a forceful garden design element where water, one of the garden’s main themes, is given architectural form and connects the northern and southern portion of the Inner Garden. The form is inspired by canals used in the great Islamic gardens of the Alhambra in Granada, Spain. Bosworth describes the canal as “lit from beneath.” He went on to say that at night, when seen from the house terrace, the canals produce an effect resembling that of a jeweled necklace. Practically all of the fountains and grottos on the grounds of Kykuit can be illuminated at night by concealed lights within them.
Public tours of Kykuit (pronounced Kie-cut) are conducted seasonally, May to early November, by Historic Hudson Valley. Consult www.hudsonvalley.org for information.
Rob Schweitzer, an award-winning writer and editor, is the director of public relations and news media for Historic Hudson Valley, where he is responsible for marketing and external communications. His published work includes a piece on Philip Johnson’s Glass House, a profile of Cuban architect Eduardo Faxas, and more new-model automobile reviews than he can count. He lives in Connecticut.