Home of Franklin D. Roosevelt National Historic Site

About this property

The Home of Franklin D. Roosevelt National Historic Site preserves the Springwood estate in Hyde Park, New York, United States. Springwood was the birthplace, lifelong home, and burial place of the 32nd president of the United States, Franklin D. Roosevelt. Eleanor Roosevelt is buried alongside him. The National Historic Site was established in 1945. In 1697, the English Crown awarded a 220 sq mi (570 km2) land grant (the "Great Nine Partners Patent") to a group of nine businessmen from New York City who had purchased the land from the native Wappinger people. The parcel extended from the Hudson River on the west to the border with Connecticut on the east. To ensure equal access to the river for all partners, the land along its shore was divided into nine "Water Lots"; Springwood is located on the one granted to William Creed. While the early history of the house on the Springwood estate remains unclear, it is believed that the central portion of the present-day home is formed by a large Federal style farmhouse constructed around the year 1800. In 1845 the estate was purchased by Josiah Wheeler, a merchant from New York City. He remodeled the structure in the then-fashionable Italianate style, expanding it to 15 rooms with a three-story tower at the south end and front and rear piazzas spanning the length of the home. In 1866, the estate, which had been reduced to approximately one square mile (2.5 square kilometers), was bought by James Roosevelt, Sr., Franklin D. Roosevelt's father, for US$40,000, at a time when a textile worker's earnings were less than a dollar a day. The property featured a stable and horse track, which was important to James, an avid horse breeder. Through his death, 34 years later in 1900, James made many improvements to the home and property. He enlarged the servants' wing, adding two rooms, and had a spacious carriage house built in the vicinity. In 1882, Franklin was born in what was then the second floor tower bedroom at the south end of the home. At the time, it functioned as the master bedroom; the bedroom which he, and later his sons, used during boyhood is nearby on the same floor. In 1905, after he and Eleanor Roosevelt married, the young couple moved in with his mother, Sara. The estate remained the center of Roosevelt's life in all stages of his career. In 1915, Franklin, together with his mother, undertook a final major enlargement and remodeling of the home. This both accommodated his growing family and created an environment suitable for entertaining political associates which reflected his ambitions. Roosevelt contributed many ideas for the new design, tempered by his mother's means. She commissioned the design work from the firm of Hoppin & Koen, of New York City. The home was more than doubled in size by adding two large fieldstone wings (designed by Roosevelt), a tower, and a third story with a flat roof. The clapboard exterior was replaced with stucco and most of the porch was replaced with a balustraded fieldstone terrace and a small columned portico around the entrance. These alterations gave the exterior of the house the look of a Colonial Revival mansion. The interior, while retaining much of the original layout, was redesigned primarily with the aim of housing Roosevelt's growing collections of books, paintings, stamps, and coins. The remodeling work was finished within one year in 1916. Roosevelt also changed the appearance of the surrounding land by extensive tree plantings. Between 1911, when the large scale planting started, and Roosevelt's death in 1945, more than 400,000 trees were planted on the estate. Eventually, large portions of the estate were turned into an experimental forestry station under an agreement with the Forestry Department of Syracuse University.

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Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).

Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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