Home of Franklin D. Roosevelt National Historic Site

Springwood, the Roosevelt family estate at Hyde Park, New York, overlooks the Hudson River and forms the core of a 264.51-acre historic site. The house began as a two-story farmhouse built between 1790 and 1805, then grew through additions by successive owners. In 1915 Franklin Roosevelt and his mother had it stuccoed, added a matching north tower and stone wings, with architects Hoppin and Koen giving it a unified Federal-style look. Around it stand a Queen Anne coach house, greenhouse, ice houses, a Carpenter Gothic gardener's cottage, and a rose garden near the graves of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt. The adjoining Bellefield estate, remodeled by McKim, Mead and White between 1909 and 1911, now serves as park headquarters. The site matters because it is the only place where a President was born, grew up, and is buried. It was also where Roosevelt worked to recover from polio, and he asked that the view of the Hudson be protected.