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"All that is within me cries out to go back to my home on the Hudson River."
Hyde Park, just north of Poughkeepsie, will do – the birthplace of our thirty-second president, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. His estate there, Springwood, is now the Home of Franklin D. Roosevelt National Historic Site, with his presidential library and a museum. Roosevelt used this residence throughout his life and he was buried there. The quote is his.
Roosevelt's father, James Roosevelt, bought the place in 1866 for forty thousand dollars. FDR was born there, in a second floor bedroom. In 1915, Franklin Roosevelt ,together his mother Sara, redid the house and grounds, adding all the trees – between the time the large scale planting started and Roosevelt's death in 1945 more than four hundred thousand trees were planted on the grounds. Eventually, large portions of the estate were turned into an experimental forestry station under an agreement with the Forestry Department of Syracuse University.
In 1943, Franklin Roosevelt donated the estate to the American people under the condition that his family maintained a lifetime right to usage of the property. On November 21, 1945, after the family had relinquished their rights, the estate was transferred to the U.S. Department of the Interior. You can visit.
From the photographer – "The long driveway is where FDR would work out by using only his crutches and dragging his legs behind him from the front of the house (where I am standing) down to the road and back."
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