What: Kyukit, home to
America’s Rockefeller family.
Who: Delano
& Aldrich designed and built the home as a country retreat for John D.
Rockefeller Sr.; landscape architect William Wiles Bosworth created the
gardens; and Ogden Codman designed the interiors.
Where: Pocantico Hills,
New York
When: Completed 1913
Why: A study in symmetry
with its tall, elaborately carved façade, Kykuit, like many American Beaux-Arts
buildings, draws architectural inspiration from several European sources,
including the Italian Renaissance and the French Norman house. It is situated to overlook magnificent
gardens with fountains and stone terraces, as well as to enjoy the panorama of
the Hudson River beyond. The
gardens and the interiors were influenced by Edith Wharton’s book, Italian
Villas and their Gardens, of 1904.
The house today provides a showcase for the Rockefeller collections of
ceramics, furniture, paintings and sculpture.
For more information,
please visit www.hudsonvalley.org
Info courtesy “The House
Book” (Phaidon). Images via
Google.
